Title

Closing the Racial/Ethnic Gap between Students of Color and Their Teachers: An Elusive Goal

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

5-2012

Journal / Book Title

Equity & Excellence in Education

Abstract

This article examines minority teacher recruitment policies and programs of the past two decades and explores their influence on the racial/ethnic makeup of the teaching force in elementary and secondary public schools. The results show that while important progress has been made toward increasing the overall number and proportion of minority teachers in the public schools, those gains have been eclipsed by the rapid growth of the minority student population. As a result, the racial/ethnic gap between students of color and their teachers has actually increased over the years. The authors provide an overview of current minority teacher recruitment state policies and introduce the Teacher-Student Parity Index, a new metric for comparing the proportions of teachers and students from different racial/ethnic groups to gain a more textured understanding of the demographic reality of today's schools than is presently found in the literature. The authors conclude with recommendations for policy and research.

DOI

dx.doi.org/10.1080/10665684.2012.656541

Journal ISSN / Book ISBN

1066-5684

Published Citation

Villegas, A. M., Strom, K., & Lucas, T. (2012). Closing the Racial/Ethnic Gap between Students of Color and Their Teachers: An Elusive Goal. Equity & Excellence in Education, 45(2), 283–301

Link to Full Text
Link to Publisher
COinS