Diversifying teaching and teacher education: Beyond rhetoric and toward real change

In this column, the author raises and explores questions about new teacher diversity initiatives and the call for more teachers of color. Such questions include, why is there now a heightened awareness and focus on the need for more teachers of color? How are these new initiatives different than those that came before? How has the context–politically, socially, and economically–shifted and evolved to warrant successful teacher diversity reform? Or has it? The author examines the historical conditions that influence the presence and lack thereof of teachers of color and the policy reforms that both support and undercut teacher diversity initiatives.