The Need for a Diverse Teaching Staff
"It is also important to expose children to a diverse teaching staff within each of our schools. Every child has a basic right to a great public school with a qualified and caring staff, including educators who look like them, who share similar cultural experiences, and who can serve as role models demonstrating that education and achievement are things to be respected..."
President's Viewpoint
'NEA Today,' September, 2006
Diverse Educators Critical to Quality Teaching (en español)
In increasing demand are teachers with math, science and special education backgrounds. But not enough attention has been paid to the need to recruit teachers with racially and ethnically diverse backgrounds.
NEA Proposes Minority Outreach, Higher Pay for Educators
President Reg Weaver recently outlined NEA's strategy to improve America's public schools, during an interview on National Public Radio's "News and Notes" with Ed Gordon. (AUDIO, 11 minutes, 18 seconds).
Show Them the Love—and The Money
According to the Educational Testing Service, only 59 percent of Hispanic and 69 percent of African-American teaching candidates are currently passing their certification exams—as compared with 91 percent of the Whites. What this means, of course, is that at a time when the number of minority students is skyrocketing, the number of minority teachers—already at an all-time low—will continue to drop even further
(NEA Today, February 2005).
NEA Clears Path for Teacher Diversity
Like a lot of school districts across America, Clark County in Nevada has plenty of students of color—and not many teachers who look like them. Here's what NEA leaders are planning to fix the disparity (NEA Today , February 2005).
Student Chapters Put Diversity Training Front, Center for Prospective Teachers
Whether new teachers end up teaching in Kentucky, Kansas, or points beyond, they'll likely face a class of students from every ethnicity, language, income level, and learning style. It can be overwhelming. Find out how student members of the Kentucky Education Association are preparing themselves (Tomorrow's Teachers , 2005).
Having More Minority Teachers Narrows Achievement Gap
An analysis of teacher diversity prepared by the National Collaborative on Diversity in the Teaching Force found that increasing the percentage of teachers of color in classrooms is connected directly to closing the achievement gap. Read the report, Assessment of Diversity in America's Teaching Force (October 2004), (PDF, 512KB, 16 pages).
Diversity's Opportunity
Most parents prize diversity within their children's public schools. They know that learning to cooperate and excel in a real-world setting is a key to success in the workplace and marketplace. But how diverse is a school with no minority teachers?
Why Aren't There More Minority Teachers?
The impediments that students of color face when considering a career in teaching center on the attitudes that surround them, that affect them, and that humiliate them as future teachers. The image of teaching as a 'namby-pamby,' 'goody-two-shoes,' part-time, female job with 'summers off with the kids' still lingers even as the actual requirements for the profession demand highly competent, computer-skilled, multilingual, dynamic individuals who can handle kids from every walk of life. (NEA Today, March 2002).
Help Wanted: Minority Teachers
According to U.S. Department of Commerce data, more than one-third of students in today's public schools are people of color. By the year 2025, at least half will be. Meanwhile, only 13 percent of their teachers are minority. More than 40 percent of schools across America have no teachers of color on staff (Tomorrow's Teachers, 2002).
The Teacher-Student Mismatch
The nation's student body has grown more heterogeneous, but White women continue to dominate the teaching profession. Nearly three out of every four public school teachers are female, and 89 percent are White, whereas only 7 percent are Black and 2 percent are Hispanic. Read more in this Andrew S. Latham article originally published by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
The Praxis Series Assessments
NEA Offers PRAXIS Study Guide for Future Educators
We're committed to placing highly-qualified teachers in every classroom. Most states require that new educators pass the standardized Principals of Learning and Teaching test before they can become licensed. Check out our tutorial for ways to relieve test anxiety, sample questions, and more. (2007)
NEA Helps Preservice Teachers Prepare for Praxis
For many future educators, Fear Factor is more than a popular reality stunt show—too often it's an obstacle to surviving the Praxis I and II tests required by 35 states for certification as a highly qualified teacher. The failure rate is particularly high among minority college students who attended high-poverty rural and urban secondary schools. Learn about our efforts to increase teacher diversity—including grants to provide testing support (Tomorrow's Teachers, 2004).
'Diversity in America's Teaching Force: A Call to Action'
Despite NCLB's focus on teacher quality, little attention is paid to cultural competence and diversity in the teacher workforce—critical factors in improving the performance of students of color. This report examines the relationships among educational opportunity, achievement, educator diversity, and teacher quality (PDF, 16 pages, October 2004).
Tom Joyner
NEA, Tom Joyner Team Up to Boost Number of Minority Teachers
The nationally syndicated radio personality and philanthropist and the National Education Association are working in partnership to provide financial assistance and career support to increase the number of certified teachers working in priority or low performing schools with high concentrations of African-American students.
Walking the Talk
You know the saying, "Put your money where your mouth is." That's what the Tom Joyner Foundation is doing in partnership with the National Education Association (NEA). The Foundation has committed $700,000 for a scholarship program to improve teacher quality where it's needed most—in urban, rural and suburban public schools where minority students are facing challenges in academic achievement.
Educational Testing Service
'Solving the Teacher Shortage: A Matter of Professional Standards'
We should invest in attracting top tier candidates and nurturing their professional development, writes Kurt M. Landgraf, President & CEO of Educational Testing Service in this article. He also quotes Arthur Wise, president of the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education who says, "We have a huge teacher retention problem. And, the more we resort to emergency procedures to get warm bodies into the classroom, the higher the attrition rate is going to be."
Minority Mentoring in Higher Education
The College Game
Low-income and minority students often lack basic supports when getting ready for college. Read about innovative ways NEA members are helping kids navigate the system. (November 2005).
Encouraging Minority Teachers
NEA has partnered with the Tom Joyner Foundation to distribute more than $700,000 to Historically Black Colleges and Universities to encourage minority teachers to complete their teacher certification and ultimately teach academically struggling children in urban, suburban, and rural public schools.
Minority Mentoring Programs in Higher Education
Here's a state-by-state look.
Minorities in Higher Education
Despite gains in minority enrollments at U.S. colleges and universities over the past two decades, African-Americans and Hispanics still lag behind their White counterparts.
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