Black History Month Focus 

Serving Students of Color: Infusing SEL, CLSP, and DEI into Teacher Residencies

How can decades of social and educational scholarship influence Black teachers’ empowerment, and all teachers’ effectiveness, within inequitable systems?  NCTR’s new brief “Infusing SEL, CLSP, and DEI Into Teacher Residencies” decodes these common acronyms and cites key research on the practices employed deliberately by teachers-in-training and their mentors in the teacher residency model.  Almost all (97%) of NCTR residents in partner programs teach in Title I schools, which serve low-income populations that are majority Black, Hispanic, Native American, Asian or multi-racial.

Described as “mutually reinforcing” strategies that can enhance one’s individual interactions with students, and also guide a resident’s overall approach to teaching, Social Emotional Learning (SEL); Culturally and Linguistically Sustaining Practices (CLSP); and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) are more than buzzwords in professional development or policy.  Rather, to NCTR and its partners, SEL, CLSP, and DEI efforts begin with the recognition that young people of diverse backgrounds (especially students of color whose identities intersect with other marginalized groups) need and deserve the advocacy of adults: trusting relationships, cultural affirmation and high expectations; and, an ongoing analysis of institutional barriers that may hold these students back from achieving their potential.
 

Report Finds Students of Color Have Less Access to Experienced Teachers

In a report released this month entitled Inequitable Inequitable Opportunity to Learn: Student Access to Certified and Experienced Teachers, the Learning Policy Institute (LPI) analyzed the U.S. Department of Education’s Civil Rights Data Collection from 2014 and 2016.  The research found that children in schools with 86%-100% students of color were as many as four times more likely to be taught by an uncertified or inexperienced teacher as students in predominantly white schools. 
 
LPI’s policy recommendations to address the inequitable distribution of novice teachers include investments in the teacher residency model and the early-career support educators need to thrive in their new profession: 

• Support high-quality teacher residency programs through increases in state and federal funding.
• Provide novice teachers with mentoring, support, and other professional learning opportunities.

LPI has come out against the U.S. Education Department’s proposed changes to the Civil Rights Data Collection, which has been conducted every two years since 1968, that would eliminate questions that yield data on teacher experience, staff per-pupil ratios in schools, and more factors that illuminate inequities for students of color in America.