Education Department Report Offers Data on Black Teachers in U.S. K-12 Schools

Filed in Research & Studies on April 20, 2020

A new report from the U.S. Department of Education looks at teachers in the nation’s public and private K-12 schools. Some of the data is broken down by racial and ethnic group.

The report documents that in the 2017-18 academic year, 80 percent of all teachers in K-12 schools in the United States are White. Only 6.3 percent are Black/African American. Blacks make up 11 percent of the teachers in city schools but only 5.5 percent of the teachers in suburban schools and 3.6 percent in rural schools. Blacks are 11 percent of the teachers in the nation’s charter schools.

In the nation’s K-12 private schools, Whites make up 85.1 percent of all teachers. Blacks are 3.2 percent of all teachers in K-12 private schools.

The full report, Characteristics of Public and Private Elementary and Secondary School Teachers in the United States, may be downloaded by clicking here.