Teacher diversity

This editorial appeared in the Meriden Record-Journal. I t makes sense, and there are also studies to back it up: Teacher diversity helps close achievement gaps and improves test scores and graduation rates of minority students. The elusive question that remains is how to increase diversity, how to bring more minority teachers into the fold.

Connecticut, along with many other states in the nation, has long been struggling with this question, and struggling with an imbalance. Though 44 percent of the state’s students are nonwhite, just 9 percent of public school teachers in the state are African-American or Latino.

Legislation approved last week aims at bridging that gap, by creating new ways to get teacher certifications and help state agencies identify suitable candidates.

“We’ve been identifying this as a challenge for decades and yet our numbers weren’t really moving at all in spite of what we thought were reasonable efforts,” said Dianna Wentzell, Connecticut’s education commissioner.

Other changes involve making it easier for teacher’s aides to become full teachers.

Legislation also calls for the Education Department to back preparation programs and advise local school boards on how to make minority recruitment a priority.

As the Associated Press reported, Wentzell said the new legislation would help efforts to reduce the hurdles associated with teacher certification, address hiring bias and bring in teaching candidates from new fields.

Decades of frustrated efforts show that significant improvement is going to be a tall order, but the goal remains an important one, not just for the minority students when it comes to achievement gaps and test scores, but for society as a whole.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy is to review the legislation. It’s worth his support.