Diverse Educator Workforce Passes Committee

HB20-1007 aims to identify barriers to increasing diversity in classrooms

Denver, CO – Today the Senate Education committee passed HB20-1007 to increase diversity in our K-12 classrooms. The bill would create a working group to investigate barriers to preparation, retention, and recruitment of diverse educators, and consider strategies to increase representation in Colorado classrooms.

“It’s critical that our diverse population of students see themselves reflected in their educators," said Sen. Rhonda Fields. "I’m proud to sponsor this bill to identify barriers to success as well as ways we can ensure better representation in our classrooms.”

In 2019, 67% of Colorado's teachers identified as white women, a number that hardly reflects the diverse makeup of our state's students. Only 46% of elementary school teaching candidates pass the licensing test on the first try. But when these statistics are broken down by race — only 38% of black teaching candidates and 54% of Hispanic candidates pass the licensing test, compared with 75% of white teaching candidates. This bill aims to identify barriers to licensing in order to prepare and recruit diverse teaching candidates.

The bill now heads to Senate Appropriations. Read more here.