N.C. State professor Anna Egalite discusses the future of research on teacher-student race matching in light of the new Fordham Institute report that compares matching in North Carolina charter and district schools.  Dr. Egalite offers three takeaways from the study.

First, we need to be pushing harder on the question of what is different about the charter school environment that seems to magnify the potential benefits of race-matching. …

Second, we should be paying greater attention to the intersection between the race/ethnicity matching literature and school choice research, more broadly. …

Third, and finally, when sample sizes are reasonably large, I would love to see greater attention to the Hispanic population in studies of this nature.

She concludes, “The state of educator diversity research can be pushed forward by thoughtful work like this, but let’s not lose sight of the underlying theories as we develop the next generation of research questions.”