• Today’s Students Tomorrow’s Teachers and Founder/President/CEO (Dr. Bettye Perkins) were honored with an honorary degree in pedagogy and served as keynote speaker during Manhattan College’s 2017 Spring Commencement. This honor demonstrates that the TSTT model is being recognized as a leader in helping to close the teacher diversity gap in America’s schools.
  https://patch.com/new-york/rivertowns/tstts-dr-bettye-perkins-receives-honorary-degree-pedagogy-manhattan-college
• In April 2017, TSTT was invited to participate at the American Institute for Research (AIR) Equity Project’s first National Summit on “Teachers for the Next Generation”.
  http://www.air.org/topic/p-12-education-and-social-development/equity-education
• TSTT was featured in the fall (September 2016) issue of the American Educator publication, AFT's widely-read quarterly magazine, "Growing the Next Generation: A Program Encourages Students of Color to Become Teachers".  
  http://www.aft.org/ae/fall2016/perkins
• TSTT's Diversity in Education Series, TSTT hosted a Workforce Diversity Forum in September 2016 to address the Skills Gap Crisis in the workplace, with the goal of identifying and highlighting the necessary critical skills needed for young people to identify and purse viable career pathways.
   http://www.lohud.com/story/news/education/2016/10/08/teacher-nonprofit-starts-discussion-diverse-skilled-workforce/91260550/
• TSTT endorsed by Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), on the importance of addressing the skills gap issue and educating a highly competent, diversely rich, talented workforce pipeline.
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E39QyrCSxAk&feature=youtu.be
• In the September 2015 report published by the Albert Shanker Institute (ASI), “The State of Teacher Diversity in American Education,” TSTT was highlighted as one of the leading innovative career development programs in the U.S. that is focused on teacher diversity, especially in the area of recruitment and retention of teachers of color.
  http://www.shankerinstitute.org/resource/teacherdiversity
• TSTT CEO, Dr. Bettye Perkins highlighted the need for more black male teachers in the Op Education section of the NY Amsterdam News, February 17, 2011 – “The critical shortage of Black male teachers: To close the gap, we have to start them Young”.
  http://tstt.wpengine.com/images/Amsterdam%20News_2.17.11.pdf
• TSTT’s comprehensive, eight-year full circle program model was selected by the American Association of School Personnel Administrators (AASPA), as a “Best Practice in School Personnel” and was featured in the organization’s publication “Best Practices in Human Capital Management Strategies” July 2009.
  http://aaspa.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Best-Practices-2009.pdf
• In 2014, TSTT became a member of 100Kin10 - network of partners to assist with the creation of a sustainable framework that addresses the nation’s shortage of STEM teachers.

Research shows that diversity is inherently valuable.  Many corporations, colleges and universities and government institutions have stated that we are stronger as a nation when people of varied backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives work and learn together; and that diversity and inclusion breed innovation.

Although progress has been made in recent years to improve graduation rates among students of color and to attract more teachers of color, a new report released by the Center for American Progress finds that nearly every state in the U.S. is experiencing a growing teacher diversity gap.

Only about 18% of teachers in the United States are men and women of color. In 2016, The U.S. Department of Education reported that over 50% of public school students are students of color, while only about 18% of teachers in the United States are men and women of color. And the number of male teachers of color is even less – nearly 4% of all teachers nationally.

Research has demonstrated that without having teachers of color as role models, students of color lag behind their white counterparts in the following areas: high school graduation rate; college admission rates, college graduation rates, higher dropout rates, higher suspension rates.

In a 2015 Harvard study, the research shows that diversity among teachers in the classroom can provide significant benefit to students. "Representation in the classroom: The effect of own-race teachers on student achievement", revealed disproportional numbers, in terms of a teaching staff that did not mirror the cultural diversity of the students being taught. Its goes on to state that the academic achievement of students of color increases when taught by teachers of color.
https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecoedu/v45y2015icp44-52.html

A John Hopkins Study, April 5, 2017 – “With Just One Black Teacher, Black Students More Likely to Graduate”  - The study points out that having at least one black teacher in third through fifth grades reduced a black student’s probability of dropping out of school by 29 percent, the study found. For very low-income black boys, the results are even greater – their chance of dropping out fell 39 percent.
http://releases.jhu.edu/2017/04/05/with-just-one-black-teacher-black-students-more-likely-to-graduate/