We Need More Black Teachers

Guest: Valerie Hill-Jackson, PhD, Clinical Professor in the Department of Teaching, Learning, and Culture, Texas A&M University America’s public schools are becoming steadily more diverse: sometime in the next few years, white students nationwide will drop below 50 percent. But the mix of teachers standing in front of those classrooms is not getting more diverse. The overwhelming majority are white - more than 80 percent. Black teachers are in particularly short supply and becoming more so with each passing decade.  To understand why that is – and why you should care - we need a brief history lesson.