Nebraska is joining eight states in the Council of Chief State School Officers in a new effort to diversify the education workforce.
"Nebraska has more than 120 spoken by students and families. The future of Nebraska is multi-racial and multi-ethnic," said Nebraska commissioner of education Matthew Blomstedt.
The Diverse and Learner-Ready Teacher Initiative is a network of nine states that will connect over the next year with each other and experts in the field to receive individualized support as they create plans to address challenges in their states.
In the United States, five of 10 students in public schools are students of color, yet the diversity of today's educator workforce does not reflect that of students. Today, more 40 percent of public schools have no minority teachers on staff.
CCSSO is proud to launched the Diverse and Learner-Ready Teachers Initiative as we strive to better prepare all teachers to meet the needs of every learner in the classroom," said Carissa Moffat Miller, executive director of CCSSO. "This work is firmly rooted in CCSSO's commitment to providing an equitable education to all states.
The other participating states are Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Mexico and New York.
Through this work, these states hope to revise, enact or remove state policies that will address specific changes for both diversifying the educator workforce and ensuring all educators are culturally responsive in practice by 2020.
