Research consistently shows that having one or more teachers of color has a dramatic, positive impact on students of color, including higher academic achievement, better attendance and higher rates of high school graduation and college-going. Yet just 20% of teachers are people of color, compared with 50% of public school students.

With an eye toward changing this, the National Council on Teacher Quality, a nonprofit focused on educator quality, has issued “State of the States 2023,” a report detailing the size of the gaps throughout the country and summarizing promising policies. To diversify the ranks of their teachers, the group’s researchers say, states need to attend to every aspect of training and hiring people from underrepresented communities and making the schools where they work more hospitable.

“Data suggests there is a profoundly leaky pipeline of potential teachers of color into the classroom, with candidates leaving the pipeline at every point from high school through teacher preparation,” the report states. “States can slow the leak by shoring up the pipeline at each point where potential teachers of color slip through.”

Here are five top takeaways from the report:

  • States should set explicit diversification goals and collect data tracking progress toward meeting those targets.
  • Track how well early career teachers are faring using retention data disaggregated by race and ethnicity at the individual school level.
  • Pay teachers more to work in hard-to-staff schools.
  • Change layoff policies so teachers of color are no longer disproportionately impacted.
  • Teachers of color should be at the policymaking table.

Read the full article about teacher diversity strategies by Beth Hawkins at The 74.