Abstract
Despite progress over the last decade, California’s teacher workforce remains far from reflecting the diversity of its students. California is the leading state with the largest percentage-point difference between the race/ethnicity of the student and educator population. The disproportionate mismatch concerns policy makers and advocates who argue the lack of teacher diversity has negative consequences on the academic performance of students of color, which this thesis defines as African American, Hispanic/Latino, Asian, Pacific Islander, Filipino, or Native American. Yet questions remain about the accuracy of such claims. This thesis aims to contribute to the limited academic research surrounding this topic by researching whether there is a positive correlation between the percentage of teachers of color and standardized test scores of same-race/ethnicity students in California high schools. The data consists of the California Academic Performance Index (API), an aggregated test score provided by the California Department of Education used to measure the performance of the state’s K-12 schools throughout 1999 and 2013. The sample data includes 2013 API scores of 755 traditional high schools across the state, with scores ranging from a low of 200 to a high of 1000. Using a standard regression model, I did not find statistically significant regression coefficients for the match between teacher and student race/ethnicity for most groups, while the coefficient for African Americans was negative. Adding interaction variables in a modified regression model, I found that under special circumstances, educator race/ethnicity exerts both positive and negative impacts on the test scores of students of the same race/ethnicity. This suggests the relationship between teacher-student race/ethnicity and academic performance is more complex than might initially be expected. Additionally, further analysis indicates that other factors, aside from teacher and staff race/ethnicity, may have a larger impact on the aggregated standard test scores of students at a California high school.