{"id":5180,"date":"2018-03-29T15:46:36","date_gmt":"2018-03-29T19:46:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lawyerscom.org\/?p=5180"},"modified":"2019-05-14T23:53:47","modified_gmt":"2019-05-14T23:53:47","slug":"boston-civil-rights-and-educator-groups-call-for-greater-teacher-diversity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lawyersforcivilrights.org\/our-impact\/education\/boston-civil-rights-and-educator-groups-call-for-greater-teacher-diversity\/","title":{"rendered":"Boston Civil Rights and Educator Groups Call for Greater Teacher Diversity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Boston Civil Rights and Educator Groups Call for Greater Teacher Diversity<\/strong><\/p>\n

Boston \u2013\u00a0a group of leading Asian American, Black, and Latino educator and civil rights groups, together with the Boston Teachers Union, released\u00a0Broken Promises<\/em>, a call for greater teacher diversity in Boston Public Schools (BPS).\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The paper highlights research on the positive impact that a diverse teaching force has on all students, but particularly students of color.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a district whose student body is 86% Latino, Black, and Asian American, it is high time our students see themselves better reflected in the front of the room,\u201d said\u00a0Edith Bazile<\/strong>, President\u00a0<\/strong>of the Black Educators Alliance of Massachusetts (BEAM)<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe research confirms what we\u2019ve always known: a racially diverse teaching corps positively impacts all students, but especially those students who aren\u2019t used to having teachers who look like them,\u201d said\u00a0Go Sasaki<\/strong>, Co-Chair of the\u00a0Massachusetts Asian American Educators Association.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Teacher diversity has been a focal point in Boston for decades.\u00a0\u00a0The district\u2019s 2016\u00a0Opportunity and Achievement Gap Policy\u00a0<\/em>calls for a diverse corps, and Boston\u2019s longstanding school desegregation order requires the district to maintain it.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlarmingly, the percentage of teachers of color in BPS is basically what it was\u00a024 years ago<\/em>, when the final judgment in Boston\u2019s desegregation case was signed,\u201d said\u00a0Matt Cregor<\/strong>, Education Project Director at the\u00a0Lawyers\u2019 Committee for Civil Rights and Economic Justice<\/strong>.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cIt is hard to point to this past quarter century as progress.\u201d<\/p>\n

BPS\u2019 student body has grown increasingly diverse in the intervening decades.\u00a0\u00a0Today, Asian Americans comprise 9% of enrollment, but only 6% of the teacher corps.\u00a0\u00a0Blacks make up 35% of the student body, but only 20% of teacher corps.\u00a0\u00a0And Latinos represent 42% of enrollment, but only 10% of the teacher corps.<\/p>\n

“We applaud the efforts of our business and civic organizations that have stepped up in recent years to help tackle this challenge, but BPS continues to struggle with the implementation of innovative strategies to increase teacher diversity. The result being incremental increases among educators of Latino and Asian descent, and a troubling decline of Black educators who\u00a0have been the hardest hit over the past 15 years by the lack of intentionality in the district’s recruitment, selection and retention practices,” said\u00a0Tanisha Sullivan,\u00a0<\/strong>President of the\u00a0NAACP \u2013 Boston Branch.<\/strong><\/p>\n

“Parents of color understand how important representation is for their child’s long term academic and social emotional success.\u00a0As a Latinx parent with school age children in Boston, I think it’s disheartening that\u00a0Latinos account for four times more of the student body than they do of the teaching force.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s evident that we still have work to do.\u00a0\u00a0That\u2019s simply not a recipe for success,\u201d said\u00a0Julia Mejia<\/strong>, Executive Director of the\u00a0Collaborative Parent Leadership Action Network (CPLAN)<\/strong>, a member of the\u00a0Greater Boston Latino Network<\/strong>, a collective of nine Latino community organizations in the region.<\/p>\n

The paper highlights a number of steps BPS can take to improve the recruitment, hiring, and retention of teachers of color, including many that the district undertook to successfully increase teacher diversity in the late 1990s and that can be reinstated.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cBoston has the tools \u2013 and legal obligation \u2013 to do more than talk the talk when it comes to employing teachers of color.\u00a0\u00a0All of our schoolchildren benefit from walking this walk,\u201d said\u00a0Rev. Willie Bodrick, II<\/strong>\u00a0of the\u00a0Boston Network for Black Student Achievement.<\/strong><\/p>\n

“The professional educators of the Boston Teachers Union agree with these findings which are reflective of our experience in the schools and our prior research on teacher diversity. We also support the solutions set forth in this report. Together with our allies who organized this report, we share the goal of improving teacher diversity within BPS as well as the very important reasons why that improvement must be prioritized. As the conclusion of this report states, it is time to lend the goal of improving teacher diversity the urgency it deserves. We look forward to collaborating with BPS leadership and other stakeholders to advance these recommendations,” said\u00a0Jessica Tang<\/strong>, President of the\u00a0Boston Teachers Union.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Click here for coverage from the Boston Globe <\/a>and Bay State Banner<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Boston Civil Rights and Educator Groups Call for Greater Teacher Diversity Boston \u2013\u00a0a group of leading Asian American, Black, and Latino educator and civil rights groups, together with the Boston […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[24,34,36,40,78],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawyersforcivilrights.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5180"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawyersforcivilrights.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawyersforcivilrights.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawyersforcivilrights.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawyersforcivilrights.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5180"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lawyersforcivilrights.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6926,"href":"https:\/\/lawyersforcivilrights.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5180\/revisions\/6926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawyersforcivilrights.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawyersforcivilrights.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawyersforcivilrights.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}