Educators of Color

Why do we need educators of color?

OVERVIEW

• Minority teachers can also serve as cultural ambassadors who help students feel more welcome at school or as role models for the potential of students of color.

• While White students also benefit by learning from teachers of color, the impact is especially significant for students of color, who have higher test scores, are more likely to graduate high school, and more likely to succeed in college when they have had teachers of color who serve as role models and support their attachment to school and learning. Students with racially diverse teachers also have fewer unexcused absences and are less likely to be chronically absent.”

THE BENEFITS OF DIVERSITY IN THE TEACHING WORKSPACE

(Stats from the study Diversifying the Teaching Profession: How to Recruit and Retain Teachers of Color, by LPI researcher Desiree Carver Thomas)

• “Teachers of color are resources for students in hard-to-staff schools. Many teachers of color report feeling called to teach in low-income communities of color where positions are often difficult to fill. Indeed, three in four teachers of color work in the quartile of schools serving the most students of color nationally.”

• “Greater diversity of teachers may mitigate feelings of isolation, frustration, and fatigue that can contribute to individual teachers of color leaving the profession when they feel they are alone.”

BARRIERS TO RETAINING AND RECRUITING TEACHERS OF COLOR

(Stats from the study Diversifying the Teaching Profession: How to Recruit and Retain Teachers of Color, by LPI researcher Desiree Carver Thomas)

• “Displacement from the high-need schools they teach in, where accountability strategies have often resulted in staff reconstitution or closing schools rather than investing in improvements.”

• “Teacher licensure exams that disproportionately exclude teacher candidates of color despite little evidence that these exams predict teacher effectiveness.”

• Lower retention rates among teachers of color within the field exacerbate the diversity gap. There is evidence that minority teachers leave the field at higher rates than white teachers. Some report feeling isolated and misunderstood in schools where they are the only or one of only a handful of teachers of color.

STATISTICS

• In fall 2017, of the 50.7 million students enrolled in public elementary and secondary schools, 24.1 million were White, 7.7 million were Black, 13.6 million were Hispanic, 2.8 million were Asian/Pacific Islander (2.6 million were Asian and 185,000 were Pacific Islander), half a million were American Indian/Alaska Native, and 2 million were of Two or more races.