Michael Hansen writes in the Hechinger Report, “The cards are stacked against public schools ever having a truly diverse teacher workforce. And unless we find a way to plug these leaks — all of them — we will make little headway toward closing our diversity gaps in the decades ahead … [We will be stuck] in the same vicious cycle in which low teacher diversity contributes in a myriad of ways to low minority student success in K-12 and college, which results once again in low teacher diversity.”

The issue has been covered extensively in the American media. Coverage resumed with renewed urgency in 2014, when, for the first time, there were more minority students than white in America’s schools. As classrooms diversified, the teachers at the front of the room had not followed suit. In fact, from 2002 to 2012, the share of black teachers actually decreased — Philadelphia saw a 20 percent dip, while Chicago faced a 40 percent decline. Researchers have cited a range of reasons for stagnant and declining rates: closure of urban schools where minority teachers are concentrated, changes in certification procedures that disproportionately hurt minority test takers, and the continuing expansion of career paths available to middle class black communities.

How important is it that students are exposed to minority teachers? Articles feature studies showing that when black students learn from teachers that look like themselves, they are more likely to be identified for talented and gifted programs and to graduate from high school. Further, Adam Wright of UC-Santa Barbara found that if schools doubled the ranks of black teachers, the black-white suspension difference would be halved. Plus, being the only black teacher in a school poses serious challenges for those teachers - black teachers have reported being led into a disciplinarian role or tasked with individually mentoring all students of color.

In tackling this same problem, veteran teacher Gloria Ladson-Billings said in an interview with Mother Jones, “The way a problem is defined frames the universe of possible public actions.” Gelani Cobb followed up in The New Yorker, “The current language of educational reform emphasizes racial ‘achievement gaps’ and ‘underperforming schools’ but also tends to approach education as if history had never happened.”

For instance, the current trends I just documented don’t fully situate the present crisis in its historical roots. Some publications have worked to weave this background into the present narrative, but more often the story meets the fate Cobb describes.

Before the court-mandated integration of America’s schools, there were 82,000 black educators; by 1965, 38,000 black teachers and administrators in Southern States were out of work. Today, the minority teachers that do exist mirror the segregated nature of the students’ themselves - the average black teachers instructs in a school where three fifths of students are low-income compared to their white counterparts for which only a third of students are low-income.

But even as we understand and acknowledge the roots, because of pervasive and longstanding patterns of structural discrimination, we are stuck with this "vicious cycle," somewhat of a chicken and egg conundrum. At what point do we intervene to “plug the leaks”? Which leaks do we plug? Is it possible to plug all of them?

So far, Teacher for America (TFA) is the organization recruiting and producing the greatest quantity of minority educators. 49 percent of the 2017 class was nonwhite. But Terrenda White calls TFA's diversity initiative “paradoxical” : “I don’t see them making a connection between their own diversity goals and the hits that teachers of color have taken as a result of policies to which TFA is connected: school closures where teachers of color disproportionately work, charter school expansion, teacher layoffs as schools are turned around.”

So how are other organizations and administrations reframing the problem and thus “the universe of possible public actions?”

To start, journalists are gradually starting to move beyond our established knowledge of discouraging teacher demographics to seek out notable innovations. Universities, cities, and activists are working across the country to first frame or reframe the pressing problem and then develop appropriate solutions, looking at aspects of existing recruitment, hiring, certification, training, and retention processes. “Grow Your Own” teacher programs, such as Clemson University's Call me MISTER initiative and Colorado's Pathways2Teaching identify promising low-income teacher candidates in high school and college and mentor them through the certification process so they can return to their communities -- this time at the front of the classroom. Other programs are resisting the sole focus on recruitment and pushing to improve retention infrastructure for minority students who are often placed in the most challenging schools. In Boston, San Francisco, and rural New Hampshire, this has meant the introduction of residency programs for low-income students, providing participants with compensated, hands-on work while still in school. Researchers have pointed to biases in the hiring practice as another possible point of intervention. In Louisiana, one district was ordered to desegregate its teacher workforce and hire more minority teachers. It now has the highest percentage of minority teachers nationwide and test scores have improved.

Have you come across other creative solutions to the persistent teacher diversity paradox or solutions that combine multiple interventions? Plug multiple "leaks"? Any solutions journalism focused on rural recruitment?

Email emma@solutionsjournalism.org.

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