Do States Integrate Culturally Responsive Teaching Competencies into their Professional Standards for Teachers?

There is a growing recognition that culturally responsive teaching practices are essential to fostering learning encounters that are engaging and accessible to today’s increasingly diverse student population. Culturally responsive educators recognize that all students bring strengths into the classroom that can be used to make learning experiences more relevant to and effective for them. Compelling research shows that students who have the opportunity to experience classrooms where their culture and backgrounds are affirmed, are more likely to achieve academically. Students can also reap benefits in the form of improved feelings about school, increased motivation, stronger engagement, and even an improved ability to connect across lines of difference. Despite these advantages, culturally responsive teaching is far from widely understood and implemented. At the crux of the problem: teachers are not being sufficiently prepared and supported to teach in culturally responsive ways.

In a new report, New America highlights the critical need for culturally responsive teaching and the central role state-level professional teaching standards play in ensuring teachers are prepared to teach in culturally responsive ways.

Culturally Responsive Teaching: A 50-State Survey of Teaching Standards draws on theory and research in the field and outlines eight interrelated competencies that promote culturally responsive teaching. These essential competencies include drawing on learners’ culture to shape curriculum instruction, promoting respect for student differences, collaborating with families and the local community, and engaging in culturally and linguistically relevant communication. In addition, we find that culturally responsive educators need to inspect their own cultural worldviews and biases, and they need to develop a strong understanding of the systemic biases that underserved students face. A brief overview of each of the eight competencies, represented in the infographic below, can be found in the report.

New America researched, analyzed and coded teaching standards in all 50 states across these eight culturally responsive competencies. An interactive data visualization describes the prevalence of CRT competencies addressed by each state’s professional standards. We find that while all states include some combination of teacher competencies—such as the ability inspect their own personal biases and communicate in linguistically and culturally responsive ways—states vary with regard to what competencies they address, how much detail they provide for each competency, and whether they describe a trajectory of teacher practice across multiple levels of development.

Ensuring that culturally responsive teaching practices are clearly integrated into professional teaching standards is a foundational step states can take to help foster a culturally responsive teaching workforce. The information presented in the report and the data visualization tool can help with such state efforts, and can also help district leaders, school leaders, and individual educators as they work to implement culturally responsive teaching at all levels.

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