Equity and Diversity By Design

Research substantiates the significant benefits teachers of color have for all students. Teachers of color have been shown to increase student engagement, improve reading and math test scores, and boost college attendance rates for students of color while also ensuring White students feel cared for and challenged. Thus the gap between student and teacher diversity is a cause for concern in the Illinois educational system. Although efforts to recruit more teachers of color have produced a steadily-increasing pipeline of diverse applicants, the rate of attrition tends to erode these recruitment efforts. Teachers of color are leaving the profession at higher rates than their White colleagues. In 2017, students of color made up 52 percent of Illinois’ student population. In the same year, teachers of color comprised only 14 percent of the teaching population. Without clear practices and systemic policy measures to recruit and retain teachers of color, students in Illinois will be disadvantaged, concluded the Council of Chief State School Officers’ (CCSSO) in its report A Vision and Guidance for a Diverse and Learner Ready Teacher Workforce, which noted “a diverse teacher workforce is valuable for all students in a pluralistic society, a racially diverse teacher workforce is a necessary step to advance educational equity.”