Giving Compass' Take:

• Brookings discusses a new book by Harvard Education Press that urges public schools to recruit more millennial teachers of color to advance real reform.

• How can nonprofits and other stakeholders in the education sector help in this effort? Are we making training programs as inclusive as possible?

• Here's why we need more diverse teachers. 

Just turn on the TV or flip through a magazine and you will recognize a keen interest in millennials that shines a light on their distinct lifestyles, preferences, and career aspirations. Much of the information about this roughly age 22-37 cohort is generated by the business sector as it designs and markets new products to capture their interest and create work spaces to keep them happy and productive. On the other hand, the education sector has been slow to follow this lead in its effort to recruit, groom, and retain a subset of this cohort: highly sought PK-12 millennial teachers of color.

This May, Harvard Education Press published “Millennial Teachers of Color,” a book that addresses a missing link in the recurrent conversation about teacher diversity. Though the new teachers we are trying to recruit are racially and ethnically diverse, we often overlook that they are also part of the millennial generation — the most diverse, educated, socially connected, and now largest generation in the workforce. They come to the classroom with perspectives and attitudes about education that have been shaped not simply by race or ethnicity, but by all of these characteristics. Yet, too often, these diverse perspectives go unnoticed and even dismissed, and schools miss an opportunity to improve their culture in ways that could benefit teachers and students.

Read the full article about millennial teachers of color by Mary E. Dilworth at Brookings.