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BRONX TIMES REPORTER, APR. 15-21, 2022 BXR
opinion-editorial
To achieve education equity,
teachers need to reflect their students
BY REBECCA WATTS AND MAMIE PACK
For many K-12 public school students,
teachers serve as a first introduction to
a world outside their homes. Young students
often spend more waking time
around their teachers than they do any
other adult role models. Fostering learning
environments where students feel secure
and can identify with a teacher is
vital to helping young learners gain necessary
skills and envision their potential
for lifelong success.
Children may feel unsafe and uncomfortable
in classrooms when they don’t
feel that their race is seen or valued,
or where diversity is lacking. Learning
from racially diverse educators provides
tangible, relatable, aspirational
examples for students. Research by the
Learning Policy Institute (LPI) clearly
demonstrates the benefits of developing
and sustaining a diverse teaching
workforce, including increased academic
performance by students of color
as measured by: improved reading and
math test scores; higher graduation
rates; and increased aspirations to attend
college. The same research also
found that students of color and white
students reported having positive perceptions
of their teachers of color — including
feeling cared for and academically
challenged.
However, the Pew Research Center
paints a concerning picture — America’s
public school teachers are far less racially
and ethnically diverse than their
students. A 2019 report by the New York
State Education Department notes that in
2017 just 20% of New York state’s teachers
were persons of color, compared to
approximately 56% of the student population.
And while urban, suburban and rural
schools are all welcoming an increasingly
more diverse student community,
the make up of New York’s teacher population
has remained constant.
New York City fares better in its
school diversity than other areas of the
state, but we can and must do better. In
2018-19, 47% of school building leaders
in New York City were leaders of color,
compared to only 16% in the rest of the
state. While overall New York City has
the most diverse teacher workforce in
the state, employing almost 42% teachers
of color, the city’s student of color
population is 85%, resulting in a disappointing
1:30 ratio of teachers-to-students
of color.
LPI cites numerous barriers to recruitment
and retention for teachers of
color, including inadequate teacher preparation
when teachers enter through alternative
routes; a lack of ongoing support
for new teachers; teacher licensure
exams that disproportionately exclude
teacher candidates of color; poor working
conditions and low salaries; as well as
displacement from the high-need schools
where accountability strategies have often
resulted in staff reconstitution or
closing schools rather than designing,
implementing and measuring the impact
of improvements.
It is imperative that K-12 schools and
educator preparation programs in colleges
and universities work together
to make the nation’s learning environments
intentionally inclusive and more
reflective of the communities we serve.
Competency-based education — which
measures skills and subject knowledge
rather than time spent in a classroom —
is one relatively new approach that has
proven successful at saving time and
money. Online higher education also is
gaining larger widespread acceptance
across the nation, and research shows
the structure of remote, competencybased
education is more advantageous to
women.
Committed to strengthening diversity
in the educator talent pipeline, Western
Governors University’s (WGU) Teachers
College is in the top 1% for granting degrees
for Black and Hispanic/Latinx educators
at both the graduate and undergraduate
levels. It is second in the nation
for combined graduate and undergraduate
degrees and credentials for students
of color, according to the federal Integrated
Postsecondary Education Data
System.
If we want to expand college accessibility
to a more diverse population interested
in, and passionate about, a career
in education, higher education providers,
policy makers and students must recognize
the benefits of models that value
skills-based mastery while addressing
affordability. The online, competencybased
model is just one approach. The
key is flexibility — offering options that
provide access regardless of child care
status, location
or wherever the hands
happen to be on the clock.
Teachers are essential to the learning
and development of all our children and
youth. To assure that all learners benefit
from the richness of racially diverse
educators, we must be intentional in designing
and implementing strategies to
recruit, train and retain quality teachers
who reflect the full spectrum of the
race, ethnicity and life experiences of the
students they serve and the communities
they call home.
Rebecca L. Watts, Ph.D., serves as a
regional vice president for Western Governors
University (WGU), a nonprofit, accredited
university focused on competencybased
learning with 3,000 students and
5,000 alumni in New York.
Mamie Pack, Ph.D., is a member of
the WGU Teachers College Faculty and a
leading catalyst of the college’s DE&I and
Healthy Learning initiatives.
Research by the Learning Policy Institute found that students of color and white students reported
having positive perceptions of their teachers of color — including feeling cared for and academically
challenged. Photo courtesy Getty Images
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