Having a diverse teaching staff that reflects a school's population leads to better educational outcomes.

Even though studies show this, many states, including New Jersey, have failed to attract teachers of color.

A new report from Chalkbeat, finds in Newark Black and Latino students make up 90% of the school's population, but Black and Latino teachers make up just over half of the staff.

And across the state, it's even worse.

Department of Education data shows that Hispanic students make up 33% of the population.

Yet have 8% of teaching staff, while white teachers make up 82% of staff.

Chalkbeat reporter Jesse Gomez recently sat down with Briana Vannozzi to talk about these numbers and segregation in New Jersey schools, a matter that's before the state's superior court now.

Jesse, it's good to see you again.

It's interesting that you chose the state's largest school district, also a pretty diverse district.

What overall did you find about the disparities between the staff and the students?

So it's 2023 and schools across New Jersey, including Newark, are still figuring out how to diversify their student body.

So after analyzing student and teacher demographics and student teacher data, we found that schools in Newark are pretty much split down the middle, serving mostly Black and Latino students, again, mostly Black or mostly Latino students.

But again, the racial and cultural makeup of those teachers varies.

So other cities, you know, across New Jersey, as they grapple through this, they may not have the same demographics as Newark.

But, you know, throughout Newark's schools, there's roughly about there's roughly there's majority white teachers.

So roughly 20% of Newark schools have a majority white teachers.

And again, other cities in New Jersey have even lower proportions.

Now, Black and Latino teachers account for just about half of the staff in Newark public schools.

But we're also seeing that the population of Latino students has grown at a rate that far outpaces the Latino teachers in Newark.

So when they have that underrepresentation, what do we know about how it impacts, you know, relationships between students and teachers, which we know can be invaluable throughout a student's life, but also, you know, their scores, their grades and their ability to place in college, in AP courses, things like that.

Yes.

So experts have said that having teachers that represent the racial and cultural makeup of students is beneficial.

And it's also just one component of creating what we call healthy schools or better learning environments for students.

And although it's just one component of that, research has shown that it leads to better attendance, better student performance, and it just overall motivates students to stay in class.

Now, I spoke for the story.

I spoke with a Newark Public Schools alum.

Her name is Melissa, and she's actually pursuing teaching.

Her parents immigrated from Brazil in the 1990.

And I asked her, what were some of the challenges you faced?

And she said her parents, who mostly spoke Portuguese, really found it hard to navigate the public school system.

But she vividly remembers her second grade teacher, who was one of the few teachers she encountered that actually spoke Portuguese and was able to communicate with her parents.

Have a relationship with them, keep them up to date on her progress.

And that was a big burden taken off of Melissa's shoulders because at the time she had to be the one kind of you know, translating for her parents and relaying the school information to her parents in her native language.

So again, not only does it help in the classroom, but it also helps just overall relationships between teachers, families and the school.

Wow.

Pretty powerful, too, that that's impacted the trajectory of her life that she's now going to go into that profession very quickly.

Though, because in a district like Newark, where things like attendance and student performance have been a real struggle.

What's being done then to retain and attract recruit these teachers when we know that there's a correlation between.

Yes, so currently and Newark, since it returned its local control, it was previously under state control for the last 25 years.

It's made really big strides in creating partnerships that allow these sort of pipelines from student to the teaching profession.

Jesse Gomez, really great reporting.

Thank you for sharing it with us.

Thanks so much.