New Study: Building a Truly Diverse Teacher Workforce Will Take Many Decades--Even With All Hands on Deck

A study released today by the Brookings Institution shows that achieving genuine racial parity between public school teachers, whose minority representation constitutes 18 percent of the workforce, and public school students, whose minority representation has increased to 50 percent, will be incredibly difficult, requiring an additional 300,000 black teachers and over 600,000 Hispanic teachers.

This study, High Hopes and Harsh Realities: The Real Challenges to Building a Diverse Workforce, focuses on the four main problems that contribute to the dearth of minority teachers: lower retention rates for minority teachers, lower hiring rates, fewer minorities interested in pursuing teaching, and lower college graduation rates.