Understanding the Attrition Rates of Diverse Teacher Candidates

Abstract

The National Center for Education Statistics has indicated that the vast majority of New York State teaching positions remain disproportionately reflective of and populated by members of the dominant culture even while student populations grow increasingly diverse. New York has experienced a dramatic increase in the number of racially and ethnically diverse students, including many immigrant groups, in nearly all regions of the state. Consistently, teacher education research has underscored the importance of having multilingual, multiethnic, and multiracial teacher candidates successfully enter the teaching profession. Yet it appears that too few teacher preparation programs have altered preparation practices to accommodate this need. While acknowledging the need for a more diverse teaching force, this chapter examines 5 years of teacher candidates' educational outcomes in an urban community college. The empirical data underscore a complicated and often exclusionary teacher preparation pathway. This pathway, inadvertently, often precludes racially and ethnically diverse teacher candidates.