Toya Frank was used to the look of disbelief when she let parents know she was the math department chair—as if they had expected the chair to be someone else. ⁣ ⁣ Frank, who is Black and is now a professor of math education at George Mason University, has found that similar racial microaggressions are a key reason why Black math teachers leave the profession, according to a recent study that she co-authored in “Educational Researcher.” ⁣ ⁣ After surveying 325 Black math teachers, Frank and her colleagues discovered that roughly 97 percent said they faced microaggressions on a regular basis. “It was one of those things that really weighed on teachers and their thoughts of leaving,” she said.⁣ ⁣ • What are Microaggressions? Microaggressions, or “small interpersonal slights between and among people,” may seem inconsequential when experienced once or twice, but over the course of many years, they negatively affect a teacher’s mental health, explained Frank. Black teachers, for example, oft...