Teacher Education and Black Communities

A volume in Contemporary Perspectives on Access, Equity and AchievementSeries Editor Chance W. Lewis, University of North Carolina at Charlotte,The field of education has been and will continue to be essential to the survival andsustainability of the Black community. Unfortunately, over the past five decades, two major trends havebecome clearly evident in the Black community: (a) the decline of the academic achievement levels of Blackstudents and (b) the disappearance of Black teachers, particularly Black males. Today, of the 3.5 millionteachers in America's classrooms (AACTE, 2010) only 8% are Black teachers, and approximately 2% of theseteachers are Black males (NCES, 2010). Over the past few decades, the Black teaching force in the U.S. hasdropped significantly (Lewis, 2006; Lewis, Bonner, Byrd, & James, 2008; Milner & Howard, 2004), and thiseducational crisis shows no signs of ending in the near future. As the population of Black students in K-12 schools in the U. S. continue to rise-currently over 16% of students in America's schools are Black (NCES, 2010)-there is an urgent need to increase the presence of Black educators.The overall purpose of this edited volume is to stimulate thought and discussion among diverse audiences (e.g., policymakers, practitioners, andeducational researchers) who are concerned about the performance of Black students in our nation's schools, and to provide evidence-based strategiesto expand our nation's pool of Black teachers. To this end, it is our hope that this book will contribute to the teacher education literature and will informthe teacher education policy and practice debate.