MILWAUKEE— A shortage of Black and Latino educators is an issue plaguing the entire nation. In Wisconsin, Milwaukee is seeing the severest repercussions.
The U.S. Department of Education reports enrollment in teacher preparation programs has declined over the past decade. Enrollment rates are down 26% among Black students and 27% among Latinx students.
In teacher education programs at Wisconsin colleges, Latinx students make up 3.8%. Black students make up 2.2%.
That data comes from Milwaukee-based non-profit City Forward Collective. Its leaders have teamed up with ad agency Serve Marketing to redefine what it means to be a teacher. Seven minority teachers have been featured in videos and on billboards, in hope of enticing more people of color to enter the profession. The campaign is called Why They Teach.
One of the educators featured in Darnell Hamilton. He teaches special education math at Golds Meir High School.
“I’m the only black male in this building and at one point, I was the only black male in the entire program,” he said.
Hamilton takes his high school students on tours of college campuses each year. The group spends six days exploring historically black colleges and predominantly white institutions as well.
“Most of the time when they get back, they hit the ground running,” he said. “Now, they’re talking to themselves and their friends about what it’s going to take to get into those schools.”
In Milwaukee, 90% of students are minorities. That’s compared to just 30% of teachers.
“Especially for my kids of color and for our white students, it’s really important they get perspectives from different people,” Darnell said. “In life, you won’t be surrounded by one breed of person who thinks like you and looks like you.”
“One of the most recent studies showed for Black male students in poverty, that can reduce drop-out rates by 39%,” said Yaribel Rodriguez, Director of Teacher Talent Initiatives for City Forward Collective. “We have the largest black/white achievement gap in reading, math and graduation rates.”
The non-profit has secured $250,000 for six city schools to help recruit minority teachers.
Wisconsin’s Department of Workforce Development has also provided $500,000 to help 140 para-professionals obtain a bachelor's degree in education.
The two main reasons people do not enter the profession are low wages and excessive workload. City Forward Collective reports there are 700 teacher vacancies in Milwaukee as of 2019, out of about 5,000.