Dive Brief:
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States’ efforts to address teacher shortages do little to recruit and retain teachers of color, according to a report released Tuesday by the National Council on Teacher Quality.
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While 46 states established or funded high school pipeline programs, for example, only 21 did so to attract more teachers of color. Of 34 states funding scholarships for teacher candidates, only 17 are directly aimed at diversifying the teaching profession.
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Retention efforts for teachers of color are also lagging, according to NCTQ. Thirty-six states have funded or created state retention programs, but only 14 have a specific focus on retaining teachers of color.
Dive Insight:
Overall, only seven states have set public goals to increase teacher diversity. The lack of initiatives aimed directly at recruiting and retaining teachers of color will likely maintain or even increase the gap between the growing number of students of color and the smaller share of teachers of color, according to the NCTQ report.
More than half of K-12 school principals reported a lack of adequate teaching staff between 2020 and 2022, according to survey results released in May from RAND Corp. Nearly half of public schools also reported at least one teaching vacancy as of October 2022, according to data released by the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics.
By March 2023, research suggested teachers were increasingly exiting the classroom as teacher attrition rates were set to surpass pre-pandemic monthly averages.
To address these widespread and potentially worsening teacher shortages, federal, state and local governments have repeatedly stressed teacher recruitment and retention initiatives. However, those efforts fall short of properly addressing the pre-existing gap of teachers of color, the NCTQ report shows.
According to most recent data from NCES, elementary and secondary public school teachers are still relatively less racially and ethnically diverse than the students they serve. And although the share of Black, Hispanic and Asian American teachers has increased in recent decades, student diversity still far outpaces that growth.
About 80% of public school teachers identified as non-Hispanic White in the 2017-18 school year, according to NCES data. Fewer than 1 in 10 teachers were Black, Hispanic or Asian American.
By contrast, just 45% of students identified as White in fall 2021. The share of Hispanic students increased to 28%, up from 23% the year before, per NCES.
How steep the gap is between students and teachers of color varies by state, according to the NCTQ report. The relative gap between students and teachers of color ranges from a low of 18.3% in the District of Columbia — where there are 71% teachers of color and 87% students of color — to a high of 89% in North Dakota, where about a quarter of students are non-White compared to only 3% of teachers.
"We know the importance of teachers of color for all students, and we need to put state policies in place to attract, support, and retain them,” said Heather Peske, president of NCTQ, in a statement. “The good news is that state policymakers don’t have to start from scratch. There are many examples of states leading the way."
The NCTQ report provides a handful of recommendations for states to increase teacher diversity:
- Set specific goals to diversify the workforce and track relevant data.
- Determine what investments perform best and worst to attract, support and retain teachers by putting in place evaluation and reporting requirements.
- Put funding behind teacher diversity efforts.
- Track early career teachers with a focus on school-level retention data disaggregated by race and ethnicity to indicate retention success.
- Invest in improving school climate and leadership, which impacts teacher turnover.
- Provide districts with training and funds to put in place equitable hiring and HR practices.
- Bring teachers of color to the table when creating policies.
- Stave off the impact of layoffs on teachers of color.
