Enduring Problems, Rethinking Process, Fulfilling Promises: Reflections on the Continuing Shortage of Teachers of Color

Abstract

Thirty years ago, “Problems, process, and promise: Reflections on a collaborative approach to the solution of the minority teacher shortage” (Goodwin, 1991) offered a perspective on an approach to the minority teacher shortage. That piece represented the start of the author’s life-long work on teacher preparation, with a particular focus on the recruitment and retention of teachers of color in response to growing numbers of students of color juxtaposed against a predominantly white teaching force. Now, several decades later, this article is her opportunity to reflect on those early thoughts, framed by the question: What progress have we made (or not) as a profession, and a society, in addressing this imperative? In pondering this question, this piece returns to the focus of the original article to think anew about problems, process, and promise as conceptual lenses for assessing how far we have come and where we now need to go.