How college ed programs try, fail to recruit teachers of color

In a seminar titled, “How Do We Get More Black Male Teachers in America’s Classrooms?” At the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s 44th Annual Legislative Conference in Washington, D.C., an audience member asked, “Are colleges even recruiting black male teachers?” As someone who is charged with building a teacher prep program, I can say most universities aren’t built to recruit from black communities.

Black and brown people represent 30 percent of the population. But they represent 15 percent of teachers, and that figure is in decline. Woodrow Wilson reports that if current trends hold, the percentage of teachers of color will fall to an all-time low of 5 percent by 2020. But today for the first time in American history, the majority of public school students are of color.

Diversity matters when it comes to learning. Ethnic minorities benefit from seeing teachers who share similar backgrounds. This reality motivated the Center for American Progress to create their Diversity Index, which “ranks states on the percentage-point difference between teachers of color and students of color.” But everyone benefits from seeing authentic teaching and learning come from all walks of life. Even though we should all have diverse teachers in our lives, most of us don’t.

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