**Partnership for Los Angeles Schools. (2022). Closing the equity gap in school staffing: How LA Unified can address teacher shortages for students of color and high-need schools. Available at https://partnershipla.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Partnership_2022_ ClosingtheEquityGapInSchoolStaffing.pdf.
This policy brief recommends steps that Los Angeles Unified School District can take to increase equitable staffing practices throughout their system. The authors describe the district’s history of challenges associated with inequitable staffing outcomes at its highest-need schools and report that they were made worse during the COVID-19 pandemic. The brief’s recommendations focus on prioritizing and addressing staffing disparities for the district’s highest-need schools, including in the areas of hiring, professional supports, and working conditions.
While we encourage you to read the entire piece, we especially recommend the executive summary for those who are short on time.
Carver-Thomas, C. (2018). Diversifying the teaching profession through high-retention pathways [Research brief]. Available at https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/sites/default/files/product-files/Diversifying_Teaching_Profession_BRIEF.pdf.
This research brief from the Learning Policy Institute illustrates the importance of teacher diversity because of the substantial benefits teachers of color provide not just to students of color but all students. Despite state-wide efforts to recruit teachers of color, turnover rates are high, in part due to inadequate preparation and mentoring, poor teaching conditions, and displacement from the high-need schools in which they teach. The author asserts that it is necessary to recruit and retain teachers of color by building pathways into the field that offer high-quality preparation and financial supports and by implementing policies and strategies that improve teacher licensure, hiring, professional growth, and teaching conditions for teachers of color.
**This document is a priority reading.