Grow Your Own: Fostering a Diverse Teacher Workforce in Missouri

Research suggests that students may have better outcomes with teachers who match their own race/ethnicity. Missouri sees the need to recruit high-quality, diverse teacher candidates to better match the diverse student populations in many Missouri schools. This infographic will help MO DESE build awareness of the need for GYO programs by familiarizing stakeholders with key demographic differences among students and teachers, including individuals enrolled in educator preparation programs and teaching certificate holders across the state. Among the noticeable differences are percentages of students and teachers from racial/ethnic minority groups. Since students seeing teachers who are representative of the makeup of the community is important for positive student outcomes, fostering a diverse teacher workforce is key.