Study shows the positive impact of teacher diversity on students

Back in March, Hofstra University published a study that explores Long Island’s teacher diversity and how it affects the children growing up here.

Titled “Teacher Diversity in Long Island’s Public Schools,” there is a lot to digest from this study. For those with a hankering to read studies, it is available here in full.

It highlights that all students, regardless of race or ethnicity, benefit from being exposed to diverse teachers. There are specific gains for students of color that help them be more upwardly mobile and successful.

They also quoted a researcher writing for the Center for American Progress, Ulrich Boser, that:

“…it is important for all students to interact with people who look and act differently than they do in order to build social trust and create a wider sense of community. In other words, the benefits of diversity are not just for students of color. They are also important for White students.”

How does that fare for Long Island children? We will be digging into this in a series of posts, but let’s start here:

A whopping 35 percent of schools on Long Island do not have teachers that are Black or of Latino origin.

But what does that mean for the students? The numbers are troubling.

“… 212,000 children attend schools where they never see a Black teacher.”

“… 129,000 children attend schools without a single teacher of Latino origin.”

Clearly, a significant portion of Long Island’s student population do not have Black or Latino teachers. Regardless of the race or ethnicity of these students, they are being done a disservice by this lack of diversity.