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Teacher Diversity is Lacking

In the fall of 2010, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan launched a national initiative, Teach.gov, to recruit the “next generation” of teachers. Of this initiative, she said: "Our teachers don’t reflect the great diversity of our nation’s young people, and so making sure we have more teachers of color and particularly more men, more black and Latino men, coming into education is going to be a significant part of this Teach Campaign."  Secretary Duncan’s charge reflects a growing concern about the number of teachers of color in America’s classrooms. Nationally, minority students make up 40.7 percent of the public school population. Although many schools (both urban and rural) are increasingly made up of a majority of black and Latino students, black and Latino teachers represent only about 14.6 percent of the teaching workforce. The scarcity of minority teachers is not limited to any one type of school—in over 40 percent of public schools there is not a single teacher of color. And in urban and high-poverty schools where minority teachers are disproportionately employed, teaching staffs are still predominately composed of white teachers. Click here to read more.
 
 



INSIGHT Into Diversity