In Recruiting and Retaining Educators of Color, Watson, Bristol, White, and Vilson discuss the shortage of teachers of color why it is so important to increase their numbers. In addition to teachers of color preparing student for a diverse world, teachers of color can “serve as role model and cultural brokers for children”, provided increased learning when students and teachers are of the same race, and effective teachers of color undermine negative biases about people of color generally. The authors go on to provide recommendations of how to increase the number of teachers of color in the workforce. They suggest districts focus on retention, particularly for teachers of color who work in challenging, high-poverty, high-minority urban schools that are more likely to lead to early exit. They also suggest offering teachers of color differentiated professional development who have specific asset but their teaching roles often have different, more strenuous expectations. Finally, they suggest recruiting more teachers of color through a variety of preparation programs (Watson, Bristol, White and Vilson, 2015)

In We Need Teachers of Color, Murray and Jenkins-Scott also discuss the shortage of teaches of color and why it is crucial to grow this number. The authors emphasize not only the generally low number of teachers of color but the gap that exists between the number of teachers of color and students of color, particularly in urban schools. Murray and Jenkins continue on stating the importance of teachers of color for their ability to improve educational experiences and academic outcomes for students of color, provide more culturally responsive teaching, act as “cultural mediators and advocates. They also state the urgency to increase teachers of color in the context of community desire for greater diversity in representation in teaching, law-enforcement, and other civic professions in the #BlackLivesMatter era. The article goes on to describe successful programs and strategies in recruiting teachers of color, why teacher of color exit the, profession (authoritarian management, isolation, and expectations based in negative stereotypes) and an example of a successful retention program (Murray and Jenkins-Scott, 2014).

While these two articles mostly focus on the need for teacher of color and not activist teachers of color, by reading them together we can glean the underlying importance of activism. The articles mention that teaches of color tend to have higher expectations for students of color and use more culturally relevant teaching strategies. Also, both articles mention the ability of teachers of color to act as cultural mediators for students for color. While this is important quality in school for these teachers to communicate with students, this cultural broker ability also allows these teachers to better communicate with parents of color as well as the larger surrounding communities of color that urban school are typically situated in. Considering the mention of community desire for teachers who match their demographics, we can see the expectations of community members that teachers of color act as more than just school teachers but as community advocates. In their role as cultural brokers teachers of color can advocate not just for students’ educational wellbeing but broader social justice for students. Therefore, it is important not just to increase teachers of color but to increase teachers of color who can be activist for educational equity and social justice.