Justin Trinidad
The report “Preparing Teachers for Diverse Schools: Lessons from Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs)” highlights MSIs as historic models for how teacher preparation programs can facilitate meaningful interactions between candidates, students and educators of color through fieldwork, exposure to diverse settings and perspectives in course readings and cultivated relationships with families, school districts and community organizations, among other efforts.
“There’s so much to learn from minority serving institutions” that have a social justice and equity-oriented mission to provide a high-quality education to their underserved students, said Justin Trinidad, an analyst on Bellwether Education Partners’ Policy and Evaluation Team.
He added that these institutions have largely been successful producers of teachers attuned to diverse students’ needs because multicultural education is “well-embedded” in the curriculum, teacher candidates have time to reflect and acknowledge their biases and a range of student experiences are reflected as opposed to just one class focusing on cultural competency in the classroom.
“Schools of education are certainly beginning to prioritize that, but it’s certainly a slow-going process,” Trinidad said.
Bellwether Education Partners’ report was developed after Trinidad and senior analyst Max Marchitello conducted a literature review and interviews with nearly 20 experts and teacher practitioners–mostly from MSIs. It comes as nearly 80 percent of the teacher workforce is White, despite the majority of students being students of color.
