Testimony before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights

In this testimony Al Shanker addresses the presence of Hispanic, primarily Puerto Rican, educators in the New York City public school system. Shanker says that diversity is improving but that the number of Hispanic faculty and staff is not representative of the number of Hispanic students. He cites systemic problems of poverty and education for this, and states that those Hispanics who do earn college degrees frequently do not choose to go into teaching. Shanker also warns against the danger of lowering teacher standards so as to attract a more diverse workforce, and he criticizes the assumption that having an ethnically Hispanic teacher automatically means the teacher is also bilingual. Shanker urges that changes be made from the bottom up: improving the quality of life and of education for Hispanics from a young age will produce more Hispanics qualified to be part of the educational work force later in life.

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