Calif. Program Takes Aim at 'Teacher-Diversity Gap'

Cicely Day, a 3rd grade teacher at PLACE at Prescott School in Oakland, consoles one of her students, Earl Johnson. Ms. Day became a teacher in Oakland through a program aimed at making the teaching corps more representative of the student body and the community.

—Ramin Rahimian for Education Week

An Oakland, Calif., program emphasizes keeping mix of educators on the job

By Stephen Sawchuk

Oakland, Calif.

As the country's K-12 student population grows more ethnically diverse, students of color face the troubling possibility of never having a teacher who looks like them.

According to federal data, more than 40 percent of students are nonwhite, compared to just 17 percent of teachers, and that mismatch appears to be on the rise.

But a new project here is taking a deeper aim at the factors contributing to what's sometimes called the "teacher-diversity gap." The organizers hope to encourage more adults from a variety of ethnicities and backgrounds to enter the...