Dashboards displaying demographics on student-teacher racial diversity by state and district have been published by TNTP, an organization dedicated to creating more equitable outcomes for young people and ensuring they have access to effective educators.
“To thrive in an increasingly diverse world and workforce, young people need to learn in multicultural environments led by effective and diverse educators,” according to TNTP, formerly The New Teacher Project. “Research shows that all students benefit academically, socially, and emotionally from having access to teachers of color.”
Nationally, 55 percent of students identify as a person of color compared to 22 percent of teachers. Twenty-one percent of school districts don’t have a single teacher of color and 14 percent have just one.
“Nationally the student-teacher ratio is 14.8 to 1 for all students. Yet the ratio of white students to white teachers is 8.5 to 1 while the ratio of students of color to teachers of color is 36.5 to 1,” according to TNTP. “In 97 percent of school districts, the percentage of teachers of color is lower than the percentage of students of color.”
At the national level, a gap of more than 30 percent has persisted between students and teachers who identify as people of color over the past five years (2017–18 to 2022–23) for states with available data. The percentage of teachers of color increased in that period.
California
In California, the student-teacher diversity gap is almost 42 percent with 77 percent of students identifying as a person of color (4.75 million) compared to 35 percent of teachers (104,125), according to the dashboard. Data used for California represents the 2018–19 academic year although other states pull from more recent years.
More than 1.4 million California students (23 percent of the total student population) and 190,667 teachers, or 65 percent of the total number of teachers, identify as white.
Hispanic/Latinx students experience the largest student-teacher gap at 33 percent. Fifty-five percent of students identify as Hispanic/Latinx compared to 22 percent of teachers.
The gap for Asian students is 4 percent, students of two or more races is 3 percent, Black students is 1 percent and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander students is 0.1 percent. American Indian/Alaska Native students, who make up 1 percent of the population, had no gap with teachers.
Get detailed student-teacher demographics by district here.
