Wisconsin students increasingly diverse, but teachers still overwhelmingly white, Policy Forum study

[TexasTowelie]

Wisconsin students increasingly diverse, but teachers still overwhelmingly white, Policy Forum study shows


Wisconsin public school students have become significantly more diverse in the last decade, while teachers have remained overwhelmingly white, a new study by the Wisconsin Policy Forum reveals.

The report describes a cycle in which: Students of color chronically achieve less than their white counterparts, and the gap might narrow with a more diverse teaching pool, but the supply of young teachers of color is dropping and those that do enter the field don't stay long.

"A Teacher Who Looks Like Me: Examining racial diversity in Wisconsin's teacher workforce and the student-to-teacher pipeline," released last week, is the first in a series that will examine the magnitude of the teacher-student race gap and the trends leading to it. Future installments will also look at potential solutions to the issue, said senior researcher Anne Chapman, author of the report.

Over the past decade, disparities have been wide between white students and several groups of students of color, with the gap between white and Black students among the widest in the country, the report said. "Wisconsin’s Black-white score gaps on both reading and math and in both fourth and eighth grade rank it highest of any state in the nation," it said.

Read more: https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2020/07/05/wisconsin-students-become-more-diverse-teachers-still-mostly-white/5350564002/