Public education is at a crossroads. Federal funds for public education have been threatened over the Trump administration’s war on DEI. Mental health funds for schools have been cut. The federal government’s move to slash AmeriCorps programs is already hitting classrooms in low-income ZIP codes hard. And all the while, teacher shortages continue to rise, and stark disparities in educational opportunities persist.

The future of our students depends on how we invest in and support our educators, especially teachers of color, who face systemic barriers to recruitment and retention despite their vital role in student success.

Philadelphia provides a case study in how to address these challenges. Organizations like Breakthrough of Greater Philadelphia and the Center for Black Educator Development are leading the way in building strong teacher pipelines, ensuring that students have access to educators who reflect their experiences and communities. Their work offers a model for school districts, policymakers, and education advocates nationwide who are committed to breaking the cycle of inequity and creating a diverse, well-trained teacher workforce.

Despite overwhelming evidence that students of all backgrounds benefit from having teachers of color, these educators remain underrepresented in classrooms across the country. Nationally, while more than 50% of public school students are people of color, only about 20% of teachers are. When schools face budget cuts, outdated policies like seniority-based layoffs disproportionately push out early-career teachers, many of whom are educators of color.

The impact extends beyond statistics. As David Blazar, education policy researcher at the University of Maryland, College Park, has found, “being assigned a Black teacher increased students’ math and reading test scores and decreased chronic absenteeism by roughly 60% – all at the same rates for Black and non-Black students. Several of these benefits could still be seen up to six years later.”

When teachers of color leave the classroom due to systemic challenges, students lose mentors who reflect their lived experiences, school communities become less stable, and trust in public education erodes. With students facing declining test scores, chronic absenteeism, mental health challenges, and ubiquitous violence, they need the steady presence of dedicated, culturally responsive educators more than ever.

Fixing this problem requires a two-pronged approach: building robust pipelines to bring in diverse educators, and changing the policies and practices that make it difficult for them to stay.

Breakthrough of Greater Philadelphia offers one such model, introducing middle school students to transformative educational opportunities while simultaneously exposing college students to the teaching profession. Over the past 30 years, Breakthrough has helped 1,600 students receive the academic preparation needed for long-term success. More than 80% of its eighth-grade Breakthrough Scholars are admitted to one of their top three high school choices. Its teaching fellowship has trained 500 college students since its founding in 1995, with three out of four of them likely to pursue careers in education and two-thirds staying in the profession for more than five years. This program also diversifies the pipeline: two out of three teaching fellows from the 2024 summer program are people of color.

At the Center for Black Educator Development, the focus is on recruiting, training and retaining Black teachers by addressing the systemic barriers that prevent educators of color from entering and staying in the profession, as well as re-introducing Black teaching traditions and techniques to current and aspiring educators. Their programs provide mentorship, coaching and culturally responsive training to ensure that Black educators are not only hired but are also supported and empowered to thrive.

Their efforts have resulted in initiatives like the paid summer teacher apprenticeship program, Freedom Schools Literacy Academy, and the Future Teachers of Excellence Fellowship, which supports 159 aspiring Black educators, and the Teaching Academy, a dual-enrollment Career Technical Education teaching pathway program where nearly 450 high school students have gained hands-on experience as student educators, providing the clinical experience and career exploration to prepare future generations of educators for the classroom. The center’s recent Black Men in Education Convening brought together a whopping 1,400 educators from more than 40 states and four countries.

These initiatives offer a roadmap for school districts and charter networks across the country. But pipeline programs alone aren’t enough. Once teachers of color enter the profession, they need job security, fair policies, safe practices, and working conditions that make them want to stay. Traditional and non-traditional public-school districts and policymakers nationwide must rethink layoff policies so that effectiveness, not just seniority, is considered. Teachers should have access to strong mentorship, culturally responsive curricula, and the respect and compensation that make the profession attractive and sustainable.

The work happening in Philadelphia should serve as a model for the rest of the country. If we are serious about transforming education nationwide, we must take bold action to recruit, retain, and support diverse educators. District leaders must prioritize hiring and retaining teachers of color through strategic investments and policy shifts. Nonprofits and community organizations must continue to support students and educators by bridging gaps where the system falls short. And state and federal policymakers must ensure that education funding is not only sufficient but also equitably distributed to the schools that need it most.

The path forward is clear: If we want to build a strong future for our students, we must first invest in the educators who guide them. By working together, locally and nationally, to recruit, support, and retain a diverse teaching workforce, we can break the cycle of inequity and give every student the high-quality education they deserve.

This post was originally published on Next City.