Stepping up efforts to find minority teachers

Akey to bridging the chasm in Connecticut between the haves and have-nots is education. The richest state in the country nonetheless harbors a persistent student achievement gap among ethnic backgrounds.

The fix is complicated and can seem intractable — we have consistently argued, for example, for a more equitable formula in the Education Cost Sharing grant through which the state provides money to municipalities for education. Though tweaked here and there by legislators, substantive reform remains elusive.

One path to improving educational outcomes is hiring teachers who reflect the faces and cultural experiences of students. Connecticut still falls woefully short, but is trying to make progress.

Of the 52,416 certified full-time equivalent educators in the state only 8.5 percent are minority, according to the state Department of Education, far short of the 46 percent of the students who are minority.

The disparity means that many students of color will spend 13 years in school learning only from white teachers, Camara Stokes Hudson with Connecticut Voices for Children testified this spring before the General Assembly’s Education Committee.

This makes a difference. Research shows that students respond positively to role models reflective of their race and culture. “Black students who have Black teachers have been found to have greater gains in their reading and vocabulary test scores. Test score improvements in math were significantly greater in Latino students that had a Latino teacher,” Hudson said. This translates also to lower dropout rates and higher college expectations.

A bill passed in the recently finished General Assembly session could help with improving the recruitment of minority teachers, but is not without controversy. SB 455: An Act Concerning Minority Teacher Recruitment directs the state education department to update its educator certification requirements and processes, develop private partnerships to increase recruitment and work with local education boards to make hiring of minority teachers a priority.

A focus on recruitment is good, though hardly new. Two years ago a law established an oversight

School districts need to make every effort to find and hire minority teachers, not because the state tells them to, but because that’s better for the classrooms.

council within the state education department and was to make certification of out-of-state teachers easier.

School districts need to make every effort to find and hire minority teachers, not because the state tells them to, but because that’s better for the classrooms. A common refrain, though, is that minority teachers are hard to find.

The approved bill seeks a path for para-educators and charter school teachers to become state certified to teach. Teachers’ unions, however, are concerned about opening the door to charter school educators with less rigorous training. And some, such as Mia Dimbo, a Bridgeport teacher, said they would find it “insulting” to lower standards of certification for people of color.

We would like to see incentives, such as grants, to encourage minorities to pursue education in fields with teacher shortages.

Students should be able to see themselves reflected in their teachers, and a more diverse faculty that represents the real world is better for all students.