America is getting more diverse, and that means more children of color are students in our schools. But teachers are still overwhelmingly white, so many of these students rarely see teachers who look like them. Professor Michèle Foster tells the little-known story of why America lost many of its black teachers, what that means for students, and what can be done to change things.

For More on this Topic:

• Read Foster’s brief, Why America Needs More African-American Teachers and How to Recruit and Retain Them
• Check out her feature in an episode of Revisionist History on black teachers after Brown v. Board of Education.

This episode originally aired on June 14, 2018.