There has been a lot of talk about changes in teacher ethnicity since Katrina. Let’s take a look at the numbers.
In 2012-13, the most recent year for which we have district data, the makeup of New Orleans teachers (OPSB + RSD) was 51% African-American, 45% white and 4% other.
|
District
|
African-American
|
White
|
Other
|
| RSD-NO | 53% | 43% | 4% |
| OPSB | 44% | 51% | 5% |
| New Orleans | 51% | 45% | 4% |
How does New Orleans compare to other cities?
Note: Educate Now! used data it could find online. Not all years compared are the same.1
- In Louisiana in 20% of teachers were African-American. Nationally, 7% were African-American.
- In Atlanta, 74% of teachers were African-American. Washington, DC was similar to New Orleans, while Chicago and New York City had a smaller percentage of African-American teachers.
|
City/District
|
African-American
|
White
|
| Atlanta |
74%
|
22%
|
| Washington, D.C. |
52%
|
36%
|
| New Orleans |
51%
|
45%
|
| Chicago |
24%
|
50%
|
| New York City |
20%
|
49%
|
| Louisiana |
20%
|
74%
|
| National |
7%
|
82%
|
How do we compare to pre-Katrina?
In 2003-04 (the state did not publish data for 2004-05 school year), 74% of New Orleans teachers were African-American, 24% white and 2% other.
___________________
1 Teacher data for Chicago are from 2013-14. Data for the national average and for other cities used for comparison are from 2011-12.