The Commonwealth of Virginia has looked in the mirror and acknowledged the grim reality, the lack of teacher diversity in the Commonwealth reflects that of the nation. Historically, African Americans have been excluded from the standardized test-making process. Since African Americans typically have restricted roles in the development of these types of assessments, the expectation for accomplishment among African American test participants has remained low (McAdoo & Harrison, 2018). This article will address barriers to teacher diversity: the teacher licensure process, assessment requirements, best practices, and relevant statutes and regulations.
Research on implicit bias has found that when individuals of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds have childhood interactions with individuals of other racial backgrounds, they are less likely to hold implicit biases in adulthood than those who have had less interracial contact in childhood. Furthermore, a shortage of teachers harms students, teachers, and the public education system as a whole (Garcia & Weiss, 2019). Current policies and initiatives to increase teacher diversity have not been effective.
