AACTE Names NIC Participants for ‘Changing the Demographic Makeup of the Teaching Workforce’
AACTE has selected 10 institutions to participate in the Association’s first Networked Improvement Community (NIC), aimed at increasing the diversity of our nation’s teacher candidate pool by focusing on recruitment of more Black and Hispanic men into teacher preparation programs.
More than 50 AACTE member institutions in 25 states applied to be a part of this NIC, known as Changing the Demographic Makeup of the Teaching Workforce. Following a rigorous review by the AACTE Committee on Professional Preparation and Accountabilty, AACTE congratulates the following institutions on their selection:
- Boston University
- California State University Fullerton
- Florida Atlantic University
- MidAmerica Nazarene University
- Northeastern Illinois University
- University of Arkansas at Little Rock
- University of Connecticut
- University of Saint Thomas
- Western Kentucky University
- William Paterson University of New Jersey
The NIC aims to address the problem of alignment between the teacher workforce and the demographic makeup of the PK-12 student population, particularly in relation to increasing the percentages of Black and Hispanic male teachers.
Currently about 80% of PK-12 teachers are White, middle-class women. The PK-12 student population is much more diverse; over 40% of students are non-White. Yet more than 40% of public schools have no teachers of color at all. According to data collected from AACTE members through the Professional Education Data System, of the total number of bachelor’s degrees awarded in 2009-2010 to teacher candidates, only 6% were awarded to Black candidates and about 4% to Hispanic candidates. And according to the National Center for Education Statistics, 2% of public school teachers are Black males, and fewer are Hispanic males.
As the profession moves to reorient itself more closely around the needs of the education workforce, there is significant need to develop programs’ capacity to meet schools’ needs. As a part of the capacity building component of the Innovation Exchange, this NIC will support research and improvement to meet the demographic imperative of developing a diverse teaching workforce by focusing on one point in the pipeline: recruitment.
The goals of this NIC are important to many of our members; the fact that so many applied confirms that there is widespread interest in how we can work together to address these concerns. AACTE is committed to working with our members to support innovative practices and the dissemination of those practices to the larger professional community. We will be posting updates on the work of this NIC over the course of the next 3 years through the web site http://theinnovationexchange.net/ and through this blog. Our goal is to ensure that the innovations that emerge from the work of this small group will be shared with the entire AACTE membership.
For more information on this initiative and other Innovation Exchange programs, please click here.
Tags: advocacy, content areas, diversity, membership, research, workforce development
