In 2006, The United States Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics recorded there were forty nine million students enrolled in 2007 in U.S. schools, and that number was projected to increase to fifty eight million by 2015 (Howard, 2010). Over the past few decades the concern over the disparity between the rising number of students of color in comparison to, teacher of color has grown significantly (Waddell, 2012). According to Waddell (2012) researchers claimed that the demographic disparity between K-12 students and the teaching force not only harms the concept of equity , but that it also causes damaging effects on students’ achievement, particularly students of color. A growing concern about the demographic …show more content…
Waddell and Ukpokodu (2012) also argued that the” lack of diversity in the teaching force is a causative factor to the over-representation of students of color and those from low-income backgrounds in special education programs”. Large disproportions in advanced course enrollment, rates of participation in gifted programs and suspension rates for Black and Latino students were also noted (Pabon, 2011 ; Howard, 2010). For example, the United States Department of Education reported that in the 2005-2006 academic year, sixty four percent of White students took Algebra II , in contrast to forty eight percent of Latino and fifty five percent of African American students (Howard, …show more content…
Specifically, the study explored teacher’s perceptions and expectations of minority students. In this work, the teachers acted as the unit of analysis as they provided the primary data. The study focused on six school teachers, coming from various backgrounds, and years of experience. There were four high school teachers and two middle school teachers. In addition, three African American, one Philipino and two White teachers interviews were used for this study. This research was significant because it adds to the research being done on teacher expectations and