Teacher Diversity in MN

Jim Robinson shared this article from Minn Post: Minnesota’s increasingly diverse students need a more diverse teacher corps.

The article points out some interesting statistics regarding Minnesota’s growing diversity:

·      Teachers in Minnesota, on average, are caucasion (over 95% on average)

·      As of Fall 2014, the majority of children in US schools were expected to be non-white

·      By 2050, it is expected that 34% of US schoolchildren will be immigrants, or children of immigrants

Why is this important?

·      Research has shown that teachers of color have a positive and significant impact on students of color – including improving academic achievement.

TPI is focused not only on recruiting, preparing and supporting an increased number of teachers of color, but also improving the cultural competence of all of our teacher candidates. 

How can we do a better job as a partnership between higher education and P-12 to encourage students of color to become teachers?  To increase our teacher candidates and veteran teachers/faculty members cultural competence?