And when she graduates in 2016, the Milwaukee native plans to look for a job where she believes there’s a greater emphasis on educating black students using a curriculum that incorporates a student’s background and culture.
“I never had a teacher that looked like me,” Blue said. “I wanted to become a teacher because I wanted to influence future generations, and have kids see that I’m here, so you can be here, too. You can do this, too.”
Fewer than 5 percent of Wisconsin’s teachers and other staff are not white, according to 2014 state data. In Dane County, a handful of school districts don’t have any staff who aren’t white. About 88 percent of the staff and teachers in the Madison School District are white, but 56 percent of their students aren’t, leaving what has been dubbed nationally as a “diversity gap” that district officials want to close.
“(White teachers often) don’t know the struggles (of black children); they don’t know what those children have been through … it’s not their reality,” Blue said.
At UW-Madison, 10 percent of the students studying to be teachers are minorities compared to about 14 percent of the total student body. During the 2013-14 school year, just 16 of 131 students who received a degree in elementary education were minorities — the highest number in at least 30 years, according to UW-Madison registrar data. Of those, just three were black graduates. The year before, just one black student received an elementary education degree. Only data on the elementary education program was readily available.