It’s a chasm that has remained stubbornly wide for decades, worsened by barriers to higher education, teacher credential tests and limited funding to diversify teacher training programs.
As students in Washington classrooms have become more diverse, the teachers who stand before them have remained almost always white.
It’s a chasm that has remained stubbornly wide for decades, worsened by barriers to higher education, teacher credential tests and limited funding to diversify teacher training programs.
A joint analysis by The Seattle Times and The Columbian newspapers found that even though the number of teachers of color is growing at a faster rate than that of white teachers, there are still few of them in classrooms. The newspapers looked at all 313 school districts, charter schools and educational service districts that sent teacher and student demographic information to the state. Last school year, nearly a quarter of Washington’s school districts had no teachers of color.
