As students in Washington classrooms have become more diverse, the teachers who stand before them have remained almost always white. A joint analysis by The Seattle Times and The Columbian newspapers found that even though the number of teachers of color is growing at a faster rate than that of white teachers, there are still few of them in classrooms. To Washington’s students, that lack of diversity matters — researchers say it can have lasting effects on high school completion, discipline rates, and test scores for students of color.
