WASHINGTON, D.C. – A Center for American Progress panel discussion on Wednesday sought to elevate the discussion on the merits of making America’s teaching force more diverse, but it sometimes got snagged by questions about the need to make the case for diversity itself.
“If we are embracing diversity in all aspects, then we need to stop wondering why we need to have diverse teachers,” said Rachelle Rogers-Ard, program manager at Teach Tomorrow Oakland, an alternative teacher certification program, in response to an audience member who asked her and the other panelists to elaborate on the “why” behind the argument for greater teacher diversity.
“That should no longer be a part of the conversation,” Rogers-Ard said during the discussion, held at the Washington-based Center for American Progress and titled “Diverse Schools Need Diverse Teachers: Strategies to Increase Diversity in the Teacher Workforce.”
“We’re embracing diversity because this nation has children who are diverse, and we need to have people who are diverse in all aspects of all professions,” Rogers-Ard said.
Still, the reality is that Rogers-Ard finds herself having to defend diversity when she speaks of the alternative teacher certification program she runs in California. Even at Wednesday’s discussion, one of the most oft-repeated claims made to bolster the case for diversity was that students of color often “do better” on various academic outcomes when taught by students of color—almost as if the absence of better results would undermine the case for diversity.
When a reporter asked Rogers-Ard why so often words such as “qualified,” “talented” and “effective” precede the word “minority” in discussions about minority teacher recruitment, Rogers-Ard said it’s because of a largely unspoken reality about how minority teachers are perceived by hiring managers as less able than their White counterparts.
“I have never been able to talk about recruiting diverse teachers without having to also justify the notion that the diverse teacher will be as effective, and then the ellipsis after that is ‘… as a White teacher,’” Rogers-Ard said in an interview with Diverse that followed the panel discussion.
