Invest in retention efforts for teachers of color that improve working conditions and provide personal and professional growth opportunities¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · no claims cited

Description¶

The third policy lever is to invest in retaining teachers of color through improved working conditions and opportunities for personal and professional growth. Proposed solutions include creating a reimbursement program aiding pre-service and in-service educators, pushing state leaders to allocate funding to specific retention efforts, and creating a task force. Minnesota's $6 million investment in 2022 and 2023 for affinity groups and other retention strategies prioritizing teachers of color is cited as a promising practice.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Dedicated state funding for retention efforts such as reimbursement programs, affinity groups, and task forces

Constraints¶

Target Learners¶

• pre-service and in-service educators of color
• state leaders

Target Learning Goals¶

• retaining teachers of color in the profession

Related Strategies¶

• Retain teachers of color through leadership pipelines, multi-year induction and mentoring, and culturally responsive school climates
• Underwrite comprehensive preparation, improve teaching conditions, raise compensation, and expand induction to retain teachers of color
• State and federal policy recommendations: recruit and prepare more candidates, retain new teachers through early-career mentoring, and improve working conditions
• A federal Marshall Plan for Teaching focused on seven areas: compensation, debt-free preparation, high-retention pathways, mentoring, expertise-sharing, school redesign, and accountability
• State policy actions across the career continuum: attract, prepare, and develop/support/retain educators
• Build high-retention, supportive pathways into teaching for candidates of color
• Six state-level strategies for increasing the racial diversity of the educator workforce
• Set clear numeric educator-diversity goals at the state, district, and teacher preparation levels with public progress reporting
• Invest in high-quality induction and mentoring programs, which are associated with higher retention particularly for teachers of color
• Invest in retention of teachers of color through residencies, affinity groups, and induction/mentoring
• Institutional, state, and federal actions to increase faculty diversity

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• EdTrust. (2022). Make the Case for Teacher Diversity: Educators of Color. https://edtrust.org/educator-diversity/