Effort to increase teachers of color finds bipartisan support at state Capitol

Minnesota has some of the widest education disparities in the nation between white students and students of color. When it comes to who is teaching students, the state lags far behind, too.

More than a third of the state’s K-12 learners are students of color, but fewer than 6 percent of teachers in Minnesota are educators of color. A set of bills at the state Legislature to close that gap, the Increase Teachers of Color Act, has garnered bipartisan support this year. Some provisions are included in a draft K-12 omnibus bill that a House committee will take up on Friday.

MPR News host Cathy Wurzer talked with Jess Davis, a racial equity coach for St. Louis Park Public Schools and the 2019 Minnesota Teacher of the Year, about the Increase Teachers of Color Act.

• Third annual Anishinaabe Arts Festival offers community engagement — and food 
• Minnesota school settles with professor who was fired for showing image of the Prophet Muhammad
• Joyner Emerick focuses on the future for Minnesota’s disabled students