A diverse teacher workforce benefits all students, particularly students of color. While there has been real progress over the last twenty years in diversifying the teacher workforce,1 these gains have not kept pace with a rapidly diversifying student population. To accelerate progress, strategic recruitment efforts by teacher preparation programs are essential.
- Teacher prep enrollment: 51 percent candidates of color2
- Georgia teacher workforce: 30 percent teachers of color3
- Local demographics: 50 percent persons of color4
Programs earning an A+ contribute significantly to the diversification of the teacher workforce. Programs earn this grade when the percentage of enrolled candidates of color exceeds the diversity of the state teacher workforce by 10 or more percentage points
and also meets or exceeds the diversity of the local population.
Mercer University is found to be 20.9 percentage points
more diverse than the Georgia teacher workforce and 0.5 percentage points
more diverse than the local population.
1 Ingersoll, Richard M.; Merrill, Elizabeth; Stuckey, Daniel; and Collins, Gregory. (2018). Seven Trends: The Transformation of the Teaching Force – Updated October 2018. CPRE Research Reports.
2 Three-year average sourced from Title II National Teacher Preparation Data
3 National Teacher and Principal Survey data (state supplied data substituted for missing values)
4 U.S. Census core-based statistical area (CBSA) data