When it comes to recruiting prospective teachers of color, some school administrators and human resource managers claim that there aren’t enough viable candidates available to hire. When that premise is debunked, the next excuse they (administrators and HR managers) use is that they don’t know where to find teachers candidates of color. I would argue that administrators and HR managers who make such statements have not prioritized hiring teachers of color in the first place. Most are willing to hire teachers of color, however; they will not go out of their way to look for them. Many of these folks believe in the mantra, “if you build it they will come.” The problem with having the field of dreams recruiting philosophy is that it is reactive and not proactive. If a school district is committed to hiring more teachers of color, they must take a proactive approach and not a reactive one. A proactive teacher recruitment strategy includes making your presence felt at schools of education on college campuses. School districts often do set up shop at local colleges and universities with teacher education programs. Those schools however tend to be local to the district and primarily White institutions (PWIs). District leadership must consider reaching out to minority serving institutions (MSIs) if they want to find a vast pool of qualified candidates of color.
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Urban Education Mixtape 