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At this briefing, speakers discussed a new report from the Learning Policy Institute, Diversifying the Teaching Profession: Barriers to Recruiting and Retaining Teachers of Color and How to Overcome Them. The report reviews the research on the recruitment and retention of teachers of color, examines the current state of teachers of color in the workforce and the factors that affect their recruitment, hiring, and retention, and highlights opportunities for policymakers to grow a stable workforce of teachers of color in their districts and states.

As states, districts, and schools are expanding instruction to include the competencies associated with college, career, and civic readiness, they are also developing ways to measure mastery of higher-order thinking skills. These measures include performance assessments that show what students know and can do through demonstrations of their thinking, writing, research, and products. During this briefing, speakers shared information on how performance assessments can inform teaching and learning, advance educational equity, and be used to inform the postsecondary admission, placement, and advisement process in ways that increase access.

On March 21, LPI, the National Conference of State Legislatures, Learning Forward, and the National Association of State Boards of Education launched State Efforts for Building an Effective, Diverse Teacher Workforce, a series of webinars on how states can help develop and support a diverse workforce of teachers who develop greater mastery and leadership. The first webinar addressed opportunities under ESSA for effective professional learning systems, professional development to help teachers provide instruction that supports deeper learning, and how state departments of education can work with state boards of education to develop state-funded strategies.

On March 20, LPI held the second webinar in a series that explores why deeper learning is crucial for students in today’s innovation economy and how we can achieve greater equity in access to deeper learning. This webinar explored how performance assessments are providing all students, including those who are farthest from opportunity, a vehicle to show what they know in a way that matters.

Fifty years ago this March, the Kerner Commission issued a seminal report on racial division and disparities in the United States. On February 28, the findings regarding education from the 50-year update to the commission report were released and discussed at a Washington, D.C. At the event, some of the nation's leading policymakers, journalists, researchers, civil rights activists, and educators discussed the state of public education in the United States, and what policy levers are needed to eradicate racial inequities that have persisted in historically marginalized communities and that can improve educational opportunities for all students.