More Hispanic teachers needed
by Adriana Villavicencio
Last week, the Center for American Progress published a report on teacher diversity, finding that every state has a teacher diversity gap. In other words, there is a large difference between the race/ethnicity of the American teacher workforce and that of the students they serve. While students of color (students who are not non-Hispanic white) make up more than 40 percent of the public school population, teachers of color make up only seven percent.
The problem
According to the report, “more than 20 states have differences of 25 percentage points or more between the diversity of their teacher and student populations.” Notably, the states with the largest gap in the teacher diversity index – New York, Arizona, Illinois, Nevada, and California – are more heavily populated with Hispanic residents. In fact, the widest diversity gap is among Hispanic teachers and students: More than 21 percent of students are Hispanic compared to only 2 percent of teachers.
This is in part due to the fact that the portion of Hispanic students in public schools doubled from 1989 to 2009.