Preschool teachers are less likely to be white and more likely to be women than teachers in elementary and secondary school, says a report on early-education teachers.
One-third to one-half of early educators are people of color, according to Marcy Whitebook, the director of the Center for the Study of Child-Care Employment at the University of California, Berkeley.
That’s a good thing, Ms. Whitebook argues in the report out last month, because “minority teachers typically hold higher expectations for minority children and are less likely to misdiagnose them as special education students.”
And she adds: “Minority teachers often are more attuned to the challenges related to poverty, racism, and immigration status that many children of color face in their communities.”
