It’s a serious concern for Denver Public Schools that only 6.1 percent of its teachers are African American when 17.2 percent of its students are black.
Added to that concern is a worrisome trend that the number of black teachers at DPS declined from 324 in the 2000-01 schoolyear to somewhere around 250 today.
DPS must do a better of job of reaching out into ethnic minority communities to bolster its teaching ranks, but also, it seems, must do more to ensure their retention and success in the classroom.
We are surprised by a complaint that the Denver-based Black Education Advisory Council is filing with the U.S. Department of Labor that claims the district is plagued by “systemic discrimination.” We sincerely hope such discrimination does not exist at DPS. Whatever the reason though, intentional or otherwise, the situation deserves action.
DPS also has a low percentage of Hispanic teachers when compared to the student population, according to statistics reported by The Post’s Claire Trageser. Though 55.5 percent of DPS students are Hispanic, only 14.3 percent of its teachers are.
Larry Borom, who chairs the Education Advisory Council, tells us he believes that qualified black candidates are being turned away at DPS.
But the district’s new superintendent, Tom Boasberg, says the district has gone out of its way to recruit and retain quality teachers of color and is pursuing plans to focus on a diverse faculty.
A central challenge, Boasberg says, is that year after year the great bulk of graduates from Colorado’s teaching schools are white.
Meanwhile, educators say, about 80 percent of teachers end up working in schools within 50 miles of where they grew up. The Denver metro area, despite changing demographics, is still primarily Caucasian.
Because of that, DPS also recruits in states that have greater numbers of minority graduates.
The superintendent says that of the 137 new hires under probationary status who were let go this past school year, only five were African- American. And of the 15 new principals who will start at DPS this fall, eight of them are persons of color.
“We’re deeply committed to diversity,” Boasberg said. “It’s a core value.”
The district is in the process of hiring a diversity coordinator to oversee recruitment and retention of teachers of color. And in its pilot “Urban Teacher Residency Program,” which started last year, more than half of the 27 participants were teachers of color.
Borom claims that black teachers “are not having the opportunity to have positive career experiences at DPS.” Yet the many efforts DPS is making to promote diversity among its faculty appear to be well-intentioned.
We urge the district to continue trying to solve this problem despite the real-world challenges and demographics it faces.
