This week’s “question-of-the-week” is:

What impact can having more teachers of color have on our schools & what needs to be done to make it happen?

In light of the killings of African-American youth in Ferguson, Cleveland, and elsewhere, the issue of recruiting and retaining teachers of color has drawn more attention. Some groups and individuals have been working on that challenge for quite awhile, and others have taken note of it more recently. I’m embarrassed to say that I’m in the latter category. Here are links where you can read more about the concrete work of organizations and public bodies like Educolor, the Boston Public Schools, and the Montgomery County Schools. You can read about these efforts and others at the recent Education Week column, We Need Teachers Of Color and in a collection of other articles I’ve “curated.”

During the next week, this blog will host contributions from researchers, teachers and students about this topic. I hope readers will share their own thoughts, too.

Please share your thoughts in the comments or, if you prefer, feel free to email them to me.

You can also send questions to me at lferlazzo@epe.org.When you send one in, let me know if I can use your real name if it’s selected or if you’d prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind.

Another option is contacting me on Twitter at @Larryferlazzo.

Anyone whose question is selected for this weekly column can choose one free book from a variety of education publishers.

Just a reminder -- you can subscribe and receive updates from this blog via email or RSS Reader..

And,if you missed any of the highlights from the first three years of this blog, you can find a categorized list of posts here, along with an “all-time” list of the ones that have been most popular. This year’s posts aren’t there, but you can find them by clicking on the archives found on the sidebar.

Education Week has published a collection of posts from this blog -- along with new material -- in an ebook form. It’s titled Classroom Management Q&As: Expert Strategies for Teaching.

Last, but not least, I record a weekly eight-minute BAM! Radio podcast with educators who provide guest responses to questions. You can listen and/or download them here.