This month, Michael Read more about
Teacher Diversity Gaps Hit Close to Home for Nearly Everyone -LSB-...]
Research has shown that closing
the teacher diversity gap results in better outcomes for students of color, and teachers who share students» backgrounds can serve as powerful role models.
During the all - day summit, E4E members pointed to recruitment efforts as a prime area of opportunity to help close
the teacher diversity gap in light of several state legislative bills on teacher preparation programs raised by House and Senate leaders within the last month.
Many E4E members with a variety of experiences felt a shared desire to collaborate and take action on addressing the clear disadvantage
a teacher diversity gap creates for students, particularly for our students of color.»
These dramatic disparities created urgency for a team of 17 teachers and administrators among E4E - Minnesota's membership, leading them to spend several months researching and developing recommendations to close
the teacher diversity gap.
Teacher Diversity Gap Del Stover Urban schools are searching for ways to recruit more minority teachers.
This issue brief explores the extent of the Latinx
teacher diversity gap by state and provides policy recommendations for increasing the number of Latinx teachers.
Even though Latinx students face the largest
teacher diversity gap of any ethnic group, little data are available on the specific benefits Latinx teachers have on Latinx students.
As shown in Figure 1, a Latinx
teacher diversity gap exists in 40 of the 41 states with available data.
While the percentage of Latinx students is high and growing, less than 8 percent of the nation's teachers identify as such.5 The recent increase in the Latinx population means that
the teacher diversity gap — as measured by subtracting the percentage of teachers6 of a certain race or ethnicity from the percentage of students7 of that same race or ethnicity — is largest for Latinx students.
Not exact matches
This
diversity gap between students and
teachers creates a divide from the very beginning of a student's education that stifles progress and doesn't empower them to overcome the low socioeconomic backgrounds they often come from.
Moreover, this «
diversity -
gap» between students and
teachers tends to be wider in areas where percentages of minority students are higher.
Given these findings, it is certainly possible that the «
diversity gap» between students and
teachers is a contributing factor to the persistent achievement
gap between minority and white students.
Despite some successes, a «
diversity gap» remains between students and
teachers.
Eric Heins, president of the California
Teachers Association, said that multiple strategies are needed to close the diversity gap, beginning with reducing the student loan burden for prospective teachers, providing mentorship when they begin teaching, and tackling other challenges such as the high costs of
Teachers Association, said that multiple strategies are needed to close the
diversity gap, beginning with reducing the student loan burden for prospective
teachers, providing mentorship when they begin teaching, and tackling other challenges such as the high costs of
teachers, providing mentorship when they begin teaching, and tackling other challenges such as the high costs of housing.
But because of a big decrease in the proportion of white students and the big increase in students of color, especially of Latino students, the
teacher - student
diversity gaps have widened in some cases.
Latino students now comprise 54 percent of the student body, and the Latino
diversity gap between
teachers and students has grown by 5 percentage points during that period.
At the same time, she noted that there are numerous strategies to close the
teacher - student
diversity gap that have yielded positive results in several states that would boost the
diversity of the teaching force if introduced on a wider scale.
Part of the problem in attempting to close the
diversity gap is that recent graduates from racially and ethnically diverse backgrounds are discouraged from becoming
teachers due to the cost of
teacher preparation programs, which is compounded by low entry - level
teacher salaries.
As a result, the
diversity gap between
teachers and students has barely narrowed, and in some cases widened.
See our new Student -
Teacher Demographic
Diversity Gap.
Last month, Brookings kicked off a series focused on
diversity in the public
teacher workforce with an article looking at patterns and trends in the
diversity gap across locales, school sectors, and
teacher generations.
The growing
diversity gap between
teachers and students of color has been problematic for years, and school districts have struggled to find ways to attract a workforce that more closely resembles changing student demographics.
The summit was framed by
teacher - led panels that delved deeply into discussions on closing the
diversity gap through various policy ideas, from recruitment and induction to retention.
The most recent data from the U.S. Department of Education, based on 2011 - 2012, pegs California's
teacher «
diversity gap» at 43 points: While 72 percent of students were of color, only 29 percent of
teachers came from a minority group.
The team sought to share and understand their own experiences with racial inequity in education, reflect on the perspectives of students of color who experience a lack of
diversity within their
teacher community, and research a range of factors that contribute to the
gap, from
teacher recruitment through school climate.
The report, which focuses on African - American and Hispanic
teachers, projects that 300,000 African - Americans and 600,000 Hispanics would need to join the profession — as 1 million white
teachers exit — in order to close the
diversity gap.
In most states, there is a large and growing
gap between the percentage of students of color1 and the percentage of
teachers of color.2 Efforts to increase
teacher diversity have led to marginal increases in the percentage of
teachers of color — from 12 percent to 17 percent from 1987 through 2012 — but this positive statistic obscures other troubling facts, such as the decline in the percentage of African American
teachers in many large urban districts and the lower retention rates for
teachers of color across the country.3
Many educators, policymakers, and other stakeholders worry that increasing selectivity may lead to a less racially diverse
teacher workforce, as minority candidates generally score lower on many of the current selectivity metrics used by
teacher preparation programs.14 Others maintain that the
diversity gap will only continue to grow in the decades to come, even with a focus on the recruitment and retention of the current generation of prospective
teachers.15 Instead, those skeptical of the United States» ability to attain both goals offer solutions such as increased cultural competency among the existing
teacher workforce to inspire and encourage a more diverse generation of future educators.16
Given these benefits, why are there such large
diversity gaps between
teachers and students?
A study by the Brookings Institution found that at every stage in the process to become a
teacher — from those entering training programs to
teachers who voluntarily leave the profession — there are
gaps that contribute to a lack of
diversity.
In 2014, the percentage of students of color exceeded the percentage of white students in U.S. public schools for the first time.13 Meanwhile, 84 percent of all public school
teachers identify as white.14 While this disparity occurs in classrooms across the country, the
diversity gap is especially pronounced in many urban school districts.15 In Boston, for example, there is one Hispanic
teacher for every 52 Hispanic students, and one black
teacher for every 22 black students.
It includes recommendations intended to help policymakers increase
teacher workforce
diversity — an especially important strategy to advance greater cultural understanding and to combat achievement
gaps.
«Increasing
teacher diversity is a very important strategy for improving learning for students of color and for closing achievement
gaps,» said LPI President and Stanford professor emeritus, Linda Darling - Hammond.
Research also shows the benefits of being taught by
teachers of color for all students, yet we are faced with an increasingly large
gap between the
diversity of our
teacher workforce and the
diversity of our student population.