Response: Strategies For Recruiting Teachers Of Color
By Larry Ferlazzo
Read the full text here.
(This is the first post in a three-part series)
This week’s question (and the first question of the school year) is:
How are school districts, universities, alternative teacher preparation programs, and individual leaders, teachers, and community groups responding to the call to increase the racial/ethnic diversity of our country’s teaching force?
This question, and the columns providing responses, comprise a special project being guest-hosted by Travis Bristol, PhD (Stanford Center For Opportunity Policy in Education) & Terrenda White, PhD (University of Colorado-Boulder).
Dr. White provided an introduction to this three-part series last week. Both she and Dr. Bristol, as well as Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings and many other teachers, discussed some of the reasons of this Teachers of Color ‘Disappearance Crisis’ and its impact in a series appearing here this past January.
You can also listen to a ten-minute conversation I had with Dr. Bristol on my BAM! Radio Show about this topic in a couple of weeks – BAM! Radio had to delay its airing because of technical issues. You can,however, still see a list of, and links to, previous shows.
As Dr. White wrote last week:
Part one of this three-part series will feature examples from school districts that have implemented innovative strategies to recruit and retain teachers of color. Part two will feature the work of universities, schools of education, and teacher preparation programs. And part three will spotlight the work of alternative teacher preparation programs and charter schools, as well as community-based efforts on the part of parents. For each part, we hope that readers will share their thoughts and knowledge about innovative efforts to improve teacher diversity in the nation.
Response: Richard Buery, New York City Deputy Mayor for Strategic Policy Initiatives
As Deputy Mayor for Strategic Policy Initiatives in New York City, Richard Buery leads priority interagency efforts, including Mayor Bill de Blasio’s signature initiative to offer high-quality pre-kindergarten and the development of community schools, and chairs the NYC Children’s Cabinet:
While Black, Latino and Asian male students make up 43% of our entire public school demographic, Black, Latino and Asian male teachers only make up 8.3% of the entire teacher workforce. Increasing the diversity of our teaching force is a significant recruitment priority for the City of New York and one of the initiatives we’ve designed to provide every young man of color with a role model who can mentor them along their path to higher education.
Through the Department of Education and Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Young Men’s Initiative, the City is setting out to recruit an additional 1,000 Black, Latino and Asian men by 2018 to enroll in teacher certification programs. The undertaking will provide young people of color with role models reflective of who they are and where they come from, aiming to address the disparities faced by communities of color and working families. Research shows that students benefit from being taught by teachers with similar life experiences, creating a positive learning environment and leaving a profound impact on students’ grades and self-worth.
This new approach will offer cohort, professional and leadership workshops and programming beginning in spring 2016 to keep aspiring teachers engaged and interested, as well as to build support systems early. Starting in high school, the City aims to build interest in the teaching profession and create a support system for male students of color to begin the path to become teachers. The Department of Education has already established a strong partnership with the City University of New York to recruit graduates from teacher preparation programs, with 35% of this past year’s NYC Teaching Fellows being people of color. But outreach will also target CUNY juniors and seniors on an educational track and community college students that could begin an educational track in senior college, as well as students pursuing degrees in other professional fields.
Response: Margarita Bianco, Founder & Executive Director of Pathways2Teaching; Assistant Professor, University of Colorado, Denver
Dr. Margarita Bianco is an associate professor in the School of Education and Human Development at the University of Colorado Denver. She is also the Founder and Executive Director of Pathways2Teaching:
Like many other teacher preparation programs around the country, faculty at the University of Colorado Denver are involved in various recruitment and retention efforts to increase our diverse teacher candidate pool. One of our efforts has centered on the development of a pre-collegiate Pathways2Teaching program. The program is a collaborative effort between the University of Colorado Denver and several local, urban school districts. Since its inception in 2010, the Pathways2Teaching program has enrolled nearly 300 high school juniors and seniors from 5 high schools in the Denver metro area.
Additionally, in collaboration with faculty from Eastern Oregon University, the Pathways2Teaching program has been replicated there across 3 rural school districts serving predominantly Latino/a and Native American communities. Our potential future teachers look vastly different from the current teacher demographics in Colorado, which is mostly female and 90% White. Nearly 60 % of our current and former students are Latino/a, 35% African American and 42 % male.
The Pathways2Teaching program is designed to encourage high school students of color to explore the teaching profession as a viable career choice by viewing the work of teachers as an act of social justice. In other words, the teaching profession is presented as an opportunity for engaging with, giving back to, and disrupting educational inequities in and for their communities. The curriculum has an explicit focus on preparing students for college through rigorous coursework and experiences that foster students’ abilities to analyze, synthesize, and critically evaluate a range of complex issues that exist in poor communities- the very challenges experienced by many of our students. Students become empowered with “emancipatory knowledge” as they conduct their own research, analyze their data, and offer their perspectives on how to influence positive change. Students are constantly reminded that it is precisely because of their experiences and deep understandings of their communities that they are well positioned to become the teachers most needed in our classrooms.
Teacher diversity must be viewed and accepted as central to any discussion on the quality of education for all students. Addressing the current demographic divide between teachers and students requires more than politically correct rhetoric; it requires deliberate action, clear policy, and strong commitment at the federal, state, and district levels – with legislators ready to champion this cause. For example, during the last legislative session in Colorado, State Representative Rhonda Fields, introduced House Bill 15-1349, Grow Your Own Teachers: A Colorado Initiative. The Pathways2Teaching program was named as a model program in the Bill because of our aim to diversity the teacher workforce. Although the Bill did not pass during the last session, Representative Fields has committed to working tirelessly on future legislation with the same goals in mind. It is this kind of strong commitment that is needed at the policy level for meaningful change to occur. Supporting community based “grow your own” diverse teacher programs holds promise for creating tomorrow’s teachers.
Read more here!