Study Shows TNTP’s Teacher Prep Programs Can Improve Workforce Diversity

America’s teaching workforce is overwhelmingly white. But as pandemic stresses add up and a tight labor market offers other options, it’s Black and Hispanic educators who are substantially more likely to say they plan to leave the profession, threatening to exacerbate this lack of diversity.

And yet, people of color aren’t being recruited into teaching—at least, not at the pace needed. But research from the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation shows that local, “grow your own” alternative teacher preparation programs can help to strengthen the diversity of the teaching workforce, as well as enable districts to address broader staffing challenges.

The nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND corporation studied six alternative teacher preparation programs in U.S. urban school districts that serve substantial numbers of low-income students and students of color. The programs were designed and administered by the organization TNTP in partnership with the local districts.

In every case, these programs recruited more people of color into teaching than the districts’ other recruitment efforts typically did. On average, across all the programs, the TNTP recruits were 52 percent people of color, compared with 43 percent for other new teachers. In one program in Massachusetts that was particularly successful, 44 percent of the TNTP recruits were individuals of color, compared with just 21 percent for the district’s other new teachers.

Overall, the TNTP effort added 74 more teachers of color than might otherwise have been hired just in those six districts. Teachers recruited by the TNTP programs were also at least as effective — and in some cases more so — at raising student achievement as other new teachers.