Supporting and Sustaining a Diverse Teacher Workforce

A growing body of research demonstrates the vital importance of a diverse teacher workforce that can support student achievement and school climate, while enriching the whole school environment. Despite growing recognition of the importance of building a more racially and ethnically diverse teacher workforce, the teacher workforce plateaued at about 20% teachers of color between 2017 and 2020, raising questions about how teachers of color are entering the profession, how they experience teaching, and what would sustain them in the classroom. Using nationally representative teacher survey data, this study investigates the representation of teachers of color in the workforce—who stays, who leaves, and who would like to leave—and the conditions associated with their retention. The study primarily draws on data from the 2017–18 and 2020–21 National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS), the 2021–22 Teacher Follow-up Survey (TFS), and teacher education data from 2008–09 to 2020–21 collected pursuant to Title II of the Higher Education Act.

Although recruiting more teachers of color into the profession can help to increase the diversity of the workforce, it is equally important to retain those teachers and the veteran teachers of color who are already in classrooms. Through descriptive analyses, this study finds that teachers of color were less likely to have access to the conditions associated with longevity in the profession. Teachers of color, compared to their peers, entered the profession through pathways offering less preservice preparation, taught in more challenging school settings, and reported limited access to competitive compensation and supportive mentoring. They were more likely to face higher financial burdens throughout preparation and while they were teachers, and they reported a high level of stress related to their debt. All these factors are associated with higher turnover rates. Indeed, teachers of color were more likely than White teachers to consider transferring schools or leaving the teaching profession entirely.

Why Increase Teacher Diversity?

Many studies show that Black student achievement and attainment are strongly and positively affected by access to Black teachers. Other studies have demonstrated broader influences of Black and Latino/a teachers on improved school climate, classroom perceptions, and learning outcomes across student groups. Importantly, all students benefit from having diverse role models who enrich the whole school environment.

Why Retention Matters for Increasing Teacher Diversity

The demand for teachers each year is largely a function of the number who have left the year before. Indeed, recruiting a revolving door of teachers year after year is a futile exercise that takes a disproportionately high toll on students of color and students from low-income families, who are more likely to attend high-turnover schools. Not only does teacher turnover undermine growing the share of teachers of color in the workforce, but it also exacts significant costs on the schools that are most impacted by high turnover rates. Decades of research show that several factors are associated with teacher retention, including access to comprehensive preservice preparation and supportive teaching conditions.

The State of Teacher Diversity

The proportion of teachers of color has increased by over 50% since 1987–88 (from about 13% to 20% in 2020–21), and more new teachers today are teachers of color than 30 years ago. However, between 2018 and 2021, the share of teachers of color entering the classroom failed to keep pace with an expanding White teacher workforce (including reentering teachers). At the same time, the attrition of thousands of teachers of color further undercut their ranks. For example, in 2021, 44% of teachers of color said they would “leave teaching as soon as possible” if they could get a higher-paying job; in 2022, 9% of Black teachers did leave teaching, compared to 7% of White teachers.

Access to Comprehensive Preservice Preparation

Prior research shows that access to comprehensive preparation—including preservice coursework and student teaching—is associated with greater retention rates among teachers, which in turn supports school stability and student achievement. Although the share of teacher candidates of color has been growing in recent years, enrollment trends suggest their access to comprehensive teacher preparation has been in decline. The number of candidates of color enrolling in alternative teacher preparation programs grew threefold between 2013 and 2021, while the number of enrollments in traditional preservice programs dropped by 10% for candidates of color. Moreover, we find that those enrolled in alternative teacher preparation programs were less likely to complete their preparation than those in traditional preparation programs.

Teachers of color were nearly twice as likely as White teachers to have entered teaching through an alternative route (31% vs. 17%) in 2020–21, with Black teachers being the most likely of all groups to enter through an alternative route. Relatedly, teachers of color were less likely than White teachers to have taken courses on topics critical to effective teaching, including classroom management and lesson planning, or to have completed any student teaching. Only about half of beginning teachers of color—including just 37% of Black and 50% of Latino/a beginning teachers—had taken any teaching classes prior to teaching, compared to 59% of beginning White teachers.

Teachers of color may be more likely to pursue alternative certification—which can typically be completed while earning a full teacher’s salary—due to the steep cost of higher education. Indeed, Black teachers were more likely than other teachers to have taken out a student loan to pay for their undergraduate or graduate education, whether related to teacher preparation or otherwise (71% vs. 60% for White teachers). Student loan debt may affect teachers of color long into their careers. Teachers of color, and Black teachers in particular, were more likely to report that they “still owe” all the student loans they had borrowed compared to peers, and they reported experiencing a high or very high level of stress regarding their student loan debt.

Access to Sustaining Teaching Conditions

While strong preparation enhances retention, preparation alone cannot overcome the challenging teaching conditions many teachers—including teachers of color—face. Teaching conditions can be key factors in whether teachers continue to stay in the profession. We found that teachers of color were particularly prone to less supportive conditions in their schools. In particular:

• Teachers of color disproportionately taught in schools serving more than 75% students of color (62% vs. 20% for White teachers) and with more than 75% students from low-income families (50% vs. 28% for White teachers). Other research indicates that these are desirable and sought-after schools for teachers of color but are often underresourced for meeting the needs of students.
   
• Teachers of color were more likely to report that “the stress and disappointments involved in teaching at this school aren’t really worth it” (30% vs. 24% of White teachers).
   
• More than one third of teachers of color worried about the security of their job because of the performance of their students or their school (35% vs. 26% of White teachers).

Access to Competitive Compensation

Prior research demonstrates that compensation makes a difference for retaining teachers and that teachers, overall, earn less than other college-educated professionals. In recent years (2016–2020), all teachers, on average, earned just 73% of what the average non-teacher college graduate earned, after adjusting for state cost-of-living differences. In contrast, teachers of color earned from as little as 61% of non-teacher wages for Native American/Alaska Native teachers to 72% for Latino/a teachers, while White teachers earned just above the average (74%).

Access to Mentoring and Professional Development

Beginning teachers who have access to early-career mentoring and induction support are far more likely to stay in teaching, but few teachers receive that support. For instance:

• In 2018, fewer than half of teachers overall (38%) or of teachers of color (44%) received regular mentoring (at least once per month), and even fewer received mentoring weekly (14% and 17%, respectively).
   
• In 2021, early-career teachers of color (those in their first 5 years of teaching) were less likely than their White peers to report being provided mentoring (79% vs. 83%) or induction programs (71% vs. 74%) during their first year of teaching.

Policy Implications

With the growth of teachers of color in the workforce at a standstill in recent years, it is more important than ever that decision-makers make a concerted effort both to recruit larger numbers of candidates of color and to better retain teachers of color. Prior research demonstrates that comprehensive teacher preparation, access to mentoring, competitive compensation, and positive teaching conditions matter for retaining all teachers; however, teachers of color often have less access to many of these conditions. Policymakers can do the following to provide more teachers, including teachers of color, with these key conditions:

• Provide Greater Access to Comprehensive Preparation. Federal, state, and local agencies can increase access to comprehensive preparation by underwriting the cost of preparation through service scholarship and loan forgiveness programs as well as supporting high-quality teacher residencies and apprenticeships that can provide funding to candidates.
   
• Improve Teaching Conditions. Policymakers can better retain all teachers, including teachers of color, by supporting efforts that improve the teaching conditions they encounter. States can develop equitable school funding formulas that provide an adequate and reliable base level of funding for all schools and additional funding to meet the needs of various student groups. The federal government and states can support teacher retention by supporting school leader development focused on creating supportive collegial environments, particularly for schools in greatest need. States can establish or improve annual working conditions surveys to collect information about factors that may influence teacher decisions to stay in or leave the field.
   
• Increase Teacher Compensation. Increased salaries can improve teacher retention efforts. States and districts can raise teacher salaries to be more competitive within the local economy. The federal government can also help teacher incomes stretch further by providing refundable tax credits (which could include larger incentives for those in higher-need schools) and providing housing subsidies for teachers.
   
• Improve Access to Mentoring and Induction to Support Early-Career Teachers. Once teachers are prepared, comprehensive induction and mentoring can support them in their first years of teaching. Because of their lower access to preparation and early mentoring, teachers of color in particular can benefit from participating in strong induction programs with support from federal, state, and local agencies.

Supporting and Sustaining a Diverse Teacher Workforce by Desiree Carver-Thomas, Melanie Leung-Gagné, and Emma García is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Core operating support for LPI is provided by the Carnegie Foundation of New York, Heising-Simons Foundation, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Raikes Foundation, Sandler Foundation, Skyline Foundation, and MacKenzie Scott. We are grateful to them for their generous support. The ideas voiced here are those of the authors and not those of our funders.