In addition to our own research, WXXI News has been referring to numerous previous studies and research initiatives regarding teacher diversity and the impact on students. Here’s a list of some of that research.
Ana Maria Villegas and Jacqueline Jordan Irvine at Montclair State University put together the most comprehensive review of previous studies we have yet encountered. They broke down the previous research by category and found that more teacher diversity has measurable impacts on students of color. In particular, it positively affects their test scores while also impacting graduation and incarceration rates. Villegas and Irvine found that there have been concerns regarding the lack of diversity’s effects on white students for decades. However, those concerns are difficult to measure in studies. In other words, they found a great deal of concern that white students who don’t encounter teachers of color will be negatively affected; however, there isn’t much research to support this concern. But that doesn’t mean the concern isn’t valid; it’s more difficult to test.
http://www.montclair.edu/profilepages/media/439/user/Villegas_%26_Irvine--2010.pdf
This next paper evaluates the test score data from Tennessee's Project STAR class-size experiment, which randomly matched students and teachers within participating schools. Empirical results based on these data confirm that the racial pairings of students and teachers in this experiment were independently given. Models of student achievement indicate that a one-year assignment to an own-race teacher significantly increased the math and reading achievement of both black and white students by roughly three to four percentile points.
Published: Dee, Thomas S. “Teachers, Race and Student Achievement in a Randomized Experiment."The Review of Economics and Statistics 86, 1 (February 2004): 195-210.
Educators, administrators and policymakers focus much attention on closing the achievement gap, and this next research project looked at what the authors call “student-teacher ethnic matching.” Here’s the main takeaway: A student having at least one teacher who ethnically matched themselves between kindergarten and fifth grade had a significant impact on mathematics achievement.
http://uex.sagepub.com/content/46/6/1280.abstract
Next, a study that examines whether a greater number of ethnic minorities has an impact on effective governance and market competitiveness. The answer: yes, but not uniformly.
http://aas.sagepub.com/content/39/4/497.refs
The Albert Shanker Institute has been tracking diversity in urban school teaching populations, and found that African-Americans are most under-represented. There’s a lot more here to digest, but the report is now several years old.