FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
AUGUST 21, 2018
CONTACT: ATNRE ALLEYNE, (302) 497-3226
EMAIL: 
ATNRE.ALLEYNE@DELAWARECAN.ORG

 

WILMINGTON, Del. – In most traditional Delaware public schools, three in 10 teachers or fewer are teachers of color—even at Stubbs Elementary in Christina and Highlands Elementary in Red Clay, where the majority of students are black and Hispanic or Latino.

Yet on the whole, student diversity is unmatched by diversity among teachers and school leaders, according to data compiled into interactive charts by a local nonprofit.

You can explore the data here.

“Research and commonsense tells us that representation matters. And if we want to solve a problem, we have to see it for ourselves,” said Atnre Alleyne, executive director of DelawareCAN: The Delaware Campaign for Achievement Now.

Warner, Bayard and Elbert-Palmer have the most diverse teaching forces in the state, comprised of 50 percent or more people of color. The greatest gaps between students and teachers of color exist in North Dover Elementary (where 70 percent of students are children of color and just 3 percent of the schools’ teachers are), Brookside Elementary and Highlands Elementary.

When it comes to administrators, Christina School District schools are among the most diverse in the state—and among the districts, including Capital and Newcastle Vocational Tech, where students of color are most likely to learn from classroom role models who look like them.

On average, one in five Delaware public school students are Hispanic, compared with 2 percent of public school teachers, according to a student-authored report called “REPRESENTED.” It was released in July by the Youth Advocacy Council and also noted that three in 10 Delaware public school students are black, compared with one in 10 public school teachers.

Alleyne said the students inspired DelawareCAN’s interactive tools.

“Diversity is too often presented as an intractable problem,” Alleyne said, “but the data show there are schools that successfully recruit a diverse teaching force despite the narratives. We should learn from them.”

DelawareCAN used data from the state Department of Education to create its interactive and visual representations of diversity. The tool allows community members to search their districts and compare diversity among traditional public and charter schools.

The scatterplot charts show the average percentage of administrators and teachers of color in each of Delaware’s school districts and charter schools. Due to different reporting metrics for students and teachers, “teachers of color” are those who identify as African-American, Asian or Hispanic, while “students of color” are those who identify in the same three categories plus multi-racial.

If you have questions/comments about this data or wish to further the conversation on diversity in Delaware’s schools, please visit www.delawarecan.org or email atnre.alleyne@delawarecan.org.

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About DelawareCAN: Launched in 2017, DelawareCAN: The Delaware Campaign for Achievement Now is a nonprofit organization that empowers, mobilizes and collaborates with everyday Delawareans to advocate for a high-quality education system.

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