RALEIGH – What’s wrong with this picture? Last year, 53% of the public school students in North Carolina were students of color – yet nearly 80% of their teachers were white.1
“North Carolina’s educator workforce has been unable to match this rich diversity,” says a new report from the Developing a Representative and Inclusive Vision for Education (DRIVE) Task Force appointed by Gov. Roy Cooper.
The report makes a variety of recommendations to improve recruitment, preparation and retention of minority teachers in North Carolina schools.
“With racially and ethnically diverse students emerging as the majority population in our K-12 public schools, it is vital that our educator workforce reflect the students whom they serve,” Task Force Chair Dr. Anthony Graham, Provost at Winston-Salem State University, says in a letter accompanying the report.
“Research shows that all students, but particularly students of color, experience benefits when taught by teachers of color,” Graham says. Yet research also finds people of color become teachers at lower rates and leave the profession at greater rates.2
In an interview from 2017, Ellen McIntyre, then Dean of UNC Charlotte’s Cato College of Education, explains the need for more teachers of color.
Cooper welcomed the report, calling it one of the more substantive he’s seen. He said his own school integrated when he was in 6th grade.
“I remember distinctly and vividly … the teacher of color that I was fortunate to have from 6th grade all the way through high school, and how it enriched my life in many ways,” he said.
The governor focused on two points in particular, starting with the need to continue raising teacher pay in North Carolina.
“Needs to be done urgently – it’s part of the recruiting job,” he said.
He also agreed that the state needs to greatly expand the NC Teaching Fellows program, which offers forgivable loans to students who agree to teach in STEM fields and special education, to the state’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).3
The report makes 10 specific recommendations:
- Offer affordable postsecondary access through scholarships, loan forgiveness and tuition reimbursement to encourage diverse people to become teachers. The report notes that the Teaching Fellows program is not offered at any of the state’s 11 Historically Minority-Serving Institutions (HMSIs). Just 19% of students in the program in 2018-19 were students of color.
- Expand and develop entry points into the educator pipeline with proven results in attracting diverse applicants. The NC Community College System has developed a program where students spend two years at a community college to obtain an associate degree, then transfer to a four-year university to complete their bachelor’s in education – all while holding down student debt.
- Embed diversity goals in performance metrics for schools and districts statewide.
- Make sustainable investments in educator preparation programs at North Carolina’s HMSIs to increase their impact.
- Adopt successful residency models for aspiring teachers across North Carolina’s educator preparation programs.
- Revise the NC Professional Teaching Standards to incorporate anti-racist, anti-bias, culturally sensitive teaching methods.
- Strengthen support networks for educators of color and provide professional development that fosters inclusive school environments.
- Develop and sustain pathways for advancement for educators of color.
- Release an annual statewide Educator Diversity Report that tracks the state’s progress.
- Establish a body to monitor North Carolina’s progress on implementing these recommendations.
The report also suggests metrics to measure the state’s progress toward recruiting, preparing and retaining more teachers of color:
- Increase students of color admitted to the state’s educator programs by at least 15% each year.
- Increase the completion rate by students of color to at least 80% across all programs and pathways.
- Ensure that at least 80% of graduates pass licensure exams on their first attempt.
- Retain at least 95% of the state’s educators of color each year.
Graham warned that increasing the percentage of teachers of color is a long-term effort that won’t happen overnight.
He said the Task Force was guided by the adage, “Whatever they see is what they’ll be” – but also by an important corollary: “Whatever they do not see is not what they will strive to be.”4
1 https://hunt-institute.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/HI-DRIVE-Final-Report.pdf, p. 6.
2 Ibid, p. 1.
3 https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article247677990.html.
4 https://hunt-institute.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/HI-DRIVE-Final-Report.pdf, pp. 1-3.
Leave a Reply