For several decades now, girls have been outperforming boys academically.
They earn higher grades, are less likely to drop out, and are significantly more likely to attend college. Women now earn the majority of professional degrees, according to the Hechinger Report, including 60 percent of master’s and doctorates.
The growing gender gap in achievement isn’t just bad for young men, it’s bad for women too. Wages for less-educated men are declining, with enormous implications for our nation’s economic and political stability.
One factor that could account for these disparities in academic performance is the dearth of men in teaching, says Curtis Valentine, president of the just-launched Male Educator Network (MEN) and Policy Institute, an initiative of the American Institute for Boys and Men. According to the institute’s research, just 23 percent of teachers are men, and only 6 percent are men of color.
Research shows that having a male educator can lead to better outcomes for boys in school, Valentine says. For instance, studies find that the gender gap in middle school English performance would decrease by about a third if half of English teachers were men. Another study finds that the gender gap in school math performance halved in 9th grade classes that were taught by a man.
But few men are choosing to become teachers, and many of those who do don’t last. Valentine’s mission is to understand why and to offer solutions for building a pipeline for men in teaching.
In addition to his work at MEN, Valentine is director of the Future Learning Network at the Progressive Policy Institute and an adjunct professor at the University of Maryland. He’s also the founder of Real Men Teach, a community of educators working to recruit and retain male educators of color. A former teacher, Valentine recently served as an at-large member of the Board of Education for Prince George’s County Public Schools in Maryland.
This transcript has been edited for length and clarity. The full interview is available at Spotify, YouTube, and iTunes.
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Anne Kim: You and I were colleagues at the Progressive Policy Institute where you led the organization’s work on K-12 education, but you’re also a former teacher. I would love to hear about your experiences as a teacher. Whom did you teach? Where did you teach? And importantly, how many of your colleagues were men?
Curtis Valentine: A lot of the work I’m doing now speaks to my experience in the classroom and what worked and what didn’t. In many ways, what I’m trying to create is a response to that experience. My first foray into education was as a Peace Corps volunteer. I was able to go to South Africa and work in a very rural community, with no electricity or running water.
It was an opportunity to understand how a country like South Africa uses education as a weapon. But the magic that happens when a student and a teacher come together and learn something new attracted me to profession. I returned after two and a half years and became a teacher at the Oxon Hill Middle School, where I was a language arts teacher.
At the time, I was the only male educator in my group, and while there was a male who was the administrator, I didn’t work really closely with him. So I struggled. I struggled to show up for my students. I struggled to be myself and to connect with my coworkers. I was being challenged by students both intellectually but also in some cases physically. And so before the year was out, I left.
I eventually came back to education as a school board member in my local district, and one of the first things I did was think about how can we recruit more men teachers into our school district. That’s where I started the first educator group, which eventually transitioned into the “real men teaching” movement.
Anne Kim: How do you think your experience as a teacher would have been different had you had male colleagues around you? Would you have stayed in teaching?
Curtis Valentine: I wish I’d had a community of men—a man I could talk to and say, “Hey, I’m going through this experience, are you too? Is it my fault or is it something that’s quite normal?” I wish I’d had an older male mentor who could show me what the trajectory could look like, meaning, “All right, Curtis, I know you’re in a classroom now, but here’s a pipeline out of the classroom into administration, into leadership, into policy change.”
I believe I would have stuck around much longer if I’d had colleagues who were at my level, but also a mentor who could help me navigate the profession.
Anne Kim: One of the reports that your institute has put out has some pretty remarkable statistics on the lack of gender diversity among teachers—for instance, that just 23 percent of teachers in K-12 are men and only 6 percent of teachers are men of color, which is pretty shocking. I’m wondering if you could speak to how that lack of gender diversity affects the experience of the students, especially boys and especially boys of color when they don’t have somebody in the classroom in front of them who looks like them.
Curtis Valentine: I think it’s intuitive to most people that having someone in front of you who looks like you helps you to connect with what they’re teaching. When Black students have a Black educator, [the likelihood of student disciplinary action] goes down, the likelihood they go into college goes up, and the likelihood of graduating from college goes up.
Just having two educators of color can change a Black student’s entire trajectory throughout life. When it comes to young boys, discipline issues go down, but also just the sense of what they can be, the sense of possibility is stronger. Male educators are all college graduates, so young boys are more likely to go to college if they have a male educator.
Anne Kim: Just to add some additional context, there has been a lot of concern about the academic achievement of boys in the classroom relative to girls. Girls now make up the majority of college students. They now make up the majority of graduate students. When you look at test scores, girls are pulling ahead in achievement relative to boys. You already alluded to this, but it does seem like there’s a pretty strong connection between academic achievement among boys and having more men in teaching.
Curtis Valentine: For generations, women were held back. Women in STEM were told that women are incapable of doing STEM or performing at a high level. We changed that with groups like the Society of Women Engineers, which did great good job of building community but also building research and policies and breaking down all the systematic issues that kept women from getting into these spaces. Now you see women kicking butt, as they should.
But now the question is where do men stand when it comes to leveling up to what young women have? I have an 18-year-old son and a 16-year-old daughter and I see it in real time.
She’s interested in STEM. She wants to be a medical doctor. But she grew up in a household like mine that promoted that and said you could be anything. I’m pushing my son to level up as well but to understand that there are obstacles that shape how he moves throughout the world. He has to understand that in order to be successful in school, he has to change how he shows up, particularly as a young Black man—how he speaks and how people can perceive him as aggressive and how he’s likely to be over-disciplined.
When you have men around him, they’re less likely to over-discipline and also to understand that there’s something that they could do that people not from his community can’t.
Anne Kim: Just to push back a little bit, wouldn’t there be female teachers who say, “I can do this too.” What is so unique about having a male teacher that a female teacher can’t do?
Curtis Valentine: So my wife was having a medical procedure, and she was very clear about wanting to find a woman doctor, particularly a woman of color. And you’ll see the research that when you have a medical professional who shares your background, the chance of you having a better medical outcome increases. That doesn’t mean a man couldn’t have done pretty well.
There are women who have been kicking butt in K-12 education, and they’re the majority. If you’re a man who finished high school and is going to college, the odds are there’s a woman who actually helped you out, because it’s the law of numbers.
I think about Miss Trope, Miss Balltuck, Miss Nelson, Miss Davis. I had a handful of male educators help me out, but the majority of the ones who believed in me were women. That being said, what we’re seeing with men both through the research, but also just anecdotally, is people responding back to us on a regular basis about what life has been like because of a male educator. They talk about the silent support that they get, which is a man just showing up.
I remember being an eighth grade teacher, and I would be standing there at cafeteria duty, just standing there, and I would have young men just stand next to me. They didn’t ask for anything. It wasn’t much of a conversation, but it was just sort of a presence. I don’t know if they were smelling my cologne or looking at my clothes, but for a lot of them, it was the first time they were that close to a man where they felt safe, and they didn’t have to defend themselves. I wasn’t a guy who was trying to talk to their mother or someone in authority or a police officer.
People would come up and tell [the kids], “You gotta sit down.” I always said, “No, he’s fine. He’s fine. I’m not bothered. He’s not bothered.” He’s just trying to show up and connect with someone.
We have a generation of young boys who are really operating independently of mentors and men. Our work is part of a larger conversation around men in our communities through the work of [the American Institute for Boys and Men]. But the number of young men who are looking for mentors is going up tremendously. At groups like Big Brothers, Big Sisters, the wait list for a Big Brother is three times longer than it is for a Big Sister. We have parents raising their hands and saying, “My son needs someone, whether it be in the classroom or outside of the classroom, to help shape how he is and shows up in the world.”
At the same time, we have a male loneliness crisis. Men in my generation and maybe a generation before are isolating themselves. They’re not going outside. know, Scott Galloway says 20-something-year-old men spend less time outside than prison inmates. Men aren’t going outside even for an hour. They’re not dating. They’re not exercising. They’re not joining softball leagues or bowling clubs. We’ve been talking about this for a whole generation.
But the work of the Male Educator Network and Policy Institute is to create policies and advocate to state and local and federal agencies around the systems that have got us to this point.
And we’re not just for classroom teachers. I’m always very mindful of that. People say, “I’m not a classroom teacher, I can’t be part of the Male Educator Network.” I say, “Are you a coach? Are you a mentor? Are you someone on Saturdays who has a leadership program for young men? Are you in front of young men and young girls on a regular basis trying to teach them how to show up in the world?” Then we want you. We want to create an army of men who are taking our communities back and saying, “I know things aren’t the way they’re supposed to be, but I can step up and I have something to contribute because they need it and I need it too.”
Anne Kim: Let’s switch to policy. Your experience shed a little bit of light on why men aren’t staying in teaching, but why aren’t men going into teaching in the first place? And I preface this by saying it’s not that men are absent from education altogether, because you do see men who are principals and superintendents. You see a lot of men who are professors, but why are men missing from K-12?
Curtis Valentine: Young men are not exposed or not introduced to teaching very early. They’re not invited into teaching. In talks with a lot of men, they’ll say the first time someone even asked them to become a school teacher was after they finished college. If you look at women, particularly white women, they’re often approached about teaching very early—third grade or fourth grade—and they see that in their future. So young men aren’t even seeing education as a profession at the time when they’re preparing for high school and college.
Similarly, only one in three parents supports their child becoming a school teacher. That’s all. I imagine when it comes to young boys, it’s probably less. We have to deal with the structures that say “teaching is for women” or “teaching in general is not something you want to do.”
Finally, men aren’t going to teaching because you have to have a college degree. Men are going to college less and less. So at places like Howard University, a great HBCU here in Washington D.C., only 18 percent of the students there are Black men. If you’re dealing with a pool that shallow, you don’t have the men to get into the pipeline.
But say you have a man who wants to be a teacher and has gone through college. The first two or three years is when you see the biggest drop-off of people who come in but then leave because they don’t feel supported.
So for us from a policy perspective, how are we creating policies and systems that introduce young men to teaching sooner? There are high schools that have a workforce pathway to introduce men into teaching as early as ninth grade, where they’re going to graduate with an associate’s degree in early childhood and at least have something to start off with to move into high school.
We have a national service idea where if you go to college and become a teacher, we’ll pay for it. You have to give us five years in return. How are we transitioning folks who are mid-career? Did you do the Peace Corps like me? Did you do City Year or AmeriCorps? Are you a veteran? Were you a former [Division 1] athlete?
We’re all hands on deck when it comes to this because we understand that there are attributes that athletes, veterans, and people in the national service could bring to teaching that our students need.
Anne Kim: You recently released a framework for action that includes a lot of these ideas. If you had to pick a couple of priorities that you haven’t mentioned so far that are realistic in the policy environment that we’re in right now, in the political environment that we’re in right now, what would those top two or so recommendations be?
Curtis Valentine: Well, I’ll say to the political piece that I believe this is probably the most bipartisan issue out there. The majority of the people who support our work are actually women.
But we need moms who say, “My son is a teacher, and I’m so proud of him.” So we’re going to have bumper stickers on people’s cars that say that. We need to change the narrative 100 percent.
I also think teacher apprenticeship programs have a lot of promise because it’s allowing men who may have not gone through the formal education process, but also men who are saying, “I’d love to do this, but I still need to make money,” a way for them to get everything they need to get certified but also do so while they’re being compensated.
I also see an emphasis on “grow your own,” meaning, are there men already in the school building who aren’t necessarily in the classroom on their own? Are there paraprofessionals? Are there substitute teachers? Are there bus drivers? Are there men who are sports coaches who come after school? There’s some low-hanging fruit with men who’ve already signaled that they support education and connect with students but need the formal training.
And then there’s the work of programs like Call Me Mister—these cohort programs where you’re bringing in a group of maybe five to 10 or 15 men into a college system, [helping to pay for their education], and then tracking them when they leave. This is a way to incentivize young men to go into teaching without much cost, but also to do it as a group. When you have that small community and that esprit de corps, that fraternity holds each other accountable.
Anne Kim: How do you plan to tackle the prestige problem? I hate to say it, but teaching is a predominantly female profession, and occupational segregation is a very real thing. And pretty much every profession that is dominated by women also tends to be low prestige. So you have this chicken and egg situation where because there’s not enough men, it’s a low prestige profession. It’s a low prestige profession, therefore men don’t go into it. How do you elevate the prestige of teaching without also undermining the contributions of women?
Curtis Valentine: Great question. So Real Men Teach is a group I started years ago to address this narrative shift around pride and of being a teacher, but also to dispel myths about teaching. For instance, in a place like Maryland where I live, the starting salary is $60,000. That’s in year one.
And if you do afterschool programs and extracurricular activities, and you’re getting your step increases, you’re at $75,000 probably within the first five years. Now if you marry someone who’s also a teacher, that’s $150,000. Now we’re talking real money.
So I think prestige is about understanding the reality, but it’s also around narrative shifting, particularly what parents believe about children being educators. Again, we want moms and dads saying, “My son’s a teacher, and I’m proud of it.”
I have big plans on how to really show up in popular culture, but also in social media, around what it means to be a male educator, and being an educator in general.
You know there was prestige [in being a teacher]. If you go back to the 1950s and 60s, when teaching was mostly male, men showed up in a suit and tie with their vest on. When it came to the civil rights movement, it was teachers, preachers, doctors, and lawyers. They were the middle class.
Individuals shape prestige, and I’m a proud male educator. I get stopped every time I wear my [“Real Men Teach”] t-shirt, and I get congratulated. I get asked questions, and I get head nods. And I get, “Wow, you’re proud to be a teacher?” Like, hell yeah, I’m proud to be a teacher. And so we’re going to put that pride back into it and that prestige. That prestige will allow us to demand more supports and more resources for educators, both in their pocketbooks, but also in the classroom.
Anne Kim: You’re a one-man banner for narrative change on this. But you’re pushing against the tide a little bit right now because you’ve got this administration that’s got a much narrower view of masculinity, right? And this is not just the administration, but it’s kind of in the zeitgeist right now of people not going to four year colleges because we need more electricians and plumbers and more people in the military. Do you feel like you’re swimming a little bit upstream by broadening the lens of what masculinity means to include teaching when the popular culture seems to have a very narrow lens on what “real men” do—despite your t-shirt?
Curtis Valentine: I don’t feel that. I think we get approached by both sides of the aisle about the need for men in our community to teach. Now what they want those men to say once they’re in front of students could differ, but this is one thing where I think we’re getting a lot more support. Our young boys are addicted to their phones, addicted to social media, addicted to pornography, sports betting, and all the things that are shaping how they see the world and how they operate.
We have to be very clear about the realities affecting men in this country, but we don’t see it as zero-sum, where our gain is at the expense of women. The best quote I heard was from Governor Wes Moore, who says we can’t have thriving women with struggling men.
Most women will tell you, “I want my daughter to be as successful as she can be. But if she doesn’t have the right partner, and the partner she’s with is broken, and she’s trying to put him together while she’s also trying to work her way through medical school because he didn’t have a male influence, didn’t have structure, didn’t have ways to communicate, didn’t have community, and so he does things that aren’t really healthy for him, then that will be something I’ll regret.”
This is something I’ll be working on for the rest of my life as a dedication to my father and to the men in my life who were supportive of me. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for men in my life who spoke to me. And I don’t believe the next generation will either unless I do something about it.
