83. Improve the recruitment and retention of a diverse K-12 educator workforce.

Partnerships and P-12 Education Systems 09.6.24

Here’s what the federal government can do:

  • Congress should increase funding for Title II of ESEA and appropriate funding for programs that recruit and retain a diverse educator workforce.
  • The U.S. Department of Education should support and expand teacher-training programs at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs), and Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs).
  • The U.S. Department of Education should collect, conduct, and disseminate research on the effectiveness of strategies to recruit and retain a diverse K-12 educator workforce.
  • The U.S. Department of Education should annually collect, conduct, and disseminate data on the race and ethnicity of public school teachers and their students.

Here’s what state government can do:

  • State legislatures should provide funding for programs that drive the recruitment and retention of a diverse educator workforce.
  • State education agencies should collect and analyze data to assess the diversity of educators in their workforce.
  • State education agencies (SEAs) and higher education coordinating agencies should strengthen their partnerships to recruit diverse students for their educator preparation programs.

Here’s what institutional leaders can do:

  • Local education agencies should collect and analyze data to assess the diversity of educators in their workforce.
  • P-12 systems should provide professional development to all staff involved in the recruitment and hiring process to recognize implicit bias and build interviewing techniques, which reveal candidate strengths, experience, and knowledge.
  • P-12 systems should provide new educators of color with support groups and mentoring provided by trained and qualified colleagues, including other educators of color.
  • P-12 systems should provide support to educators of color in their efforts to improve working conditions.

A diverse learning community supports and provides benefits to all students. When schools are more racially and ethnically diverse and positive role modeling occurs, student outcomes improve, teachers and students are more culturally aware, and students hold less implicit biases into adulthood.[i] During the 2017-18 school year, more than 51 percent of K-12 students were students of color, but educators of color comprised just 20 percent of the workforce.[ii] Educators of color report facing challenging working conditions, lack of autonomy, discrimination, and fewer opportunities for advancement, which contribute to higher attrition rates than their white peers.[iii]

[i] Carver-Thomas, Desiree. “Diversifying the teaching profession: How to recruit and retain teachers of color,” Learning Policy Institute. April 19, 2018. https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/product/diversifying-teaching-profession-report.

[ii]“Race and Ethnicity of Public School Teachers and Their Students,” U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, 2017; 2018. https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2020/2020103/index.asp.

[iii]Ingersoll, Richard; May, & Henry May. “Recruitment, Retention and the Minority Teacher Shortage,” The Consortium for Policy Research in Education, University of Pennsylvania and The Center for Educational Research in the Interest of Underserved Students, University of California, Santa Cruz. https://www.cpre.org/sites/default/files/researchreport/1221_minorityteachershortagereportrr69septfinal.pdf.