Cherrel Miller Dyce, associate professor of education and director of Intercultural Education, has been appointed to serve on the Governor’s taskforce to develop a representative and inclusive vision for education in North Carolina.
N.C. Gov. Roy Cooper has selected Cherrel Miller Dyce, associate professor of education and director of intercultural education at Elon, to serve on the statewide Develop a Representative and Inclusive Vision for Education (DRIVE) task force.
With 20 years of experience in social justice work, and a fierce social justice advocate and K-20 researcher, mentor, and social theorist, Dyce will serve as member at large on the 32-member task force. She will also be a member of the executive committee of the task force and a co-chair of a subcommittee.
The task force is focused on improving equity and inclusion in education and will submit a report to the Governor with recommendations to reach that goal. The task force is comprised of 32 parents, educators, administrators, education advocates, representatives of state and local government, representatives from the University of North Carolina system and North Carolina Community College System, and employers with a presence in North Carolina. The Hunt Institute, an affiliate of the Duke University Sanford School of Public Policy, will provide facilitation and research support for the task force.
“North Carolina is committed to living up to our responsibility to deliver a quality education to every student in every county,” Cooper said in announcing the task force’s membership. “This group of experts knows how to tackle the inequities across our state in order to ensure quality education.”
The task force was established by executive order during a December summit for which Dyce served on the planning committee. That summit served as the first step towards developing a statewide plan of action to ensure that there is equitable representation of educators across North Carolina. It brought together educators, school and district leaders, educator preparation programs, philanthropists, parents, advocates, and policymakers to share ideas and to begin to develop strategies to increase the racial and ethnic diversity of our educator workforce. The executive order Cooper signed at the summit can be found online here.
As outlined in the Issue Brief, North Carolina’s public school student population became “majority-minority” for the first time in 2015-16 as the number of students of color exceeded the number of white students. Data from the 2018-19 school year indicates that 53 percent of students are nonwhite while only 22 percent of educators are nonwhite.
Research shows that all students, and particularly students of color, are more successful when they have diverse and representative teachers leading their classrooms,” Cooper wrote in the summit’s welcome letter. “Unfortunately, North Carolina has not been able to develop and recruit enough teachers of color into our public schools.”
According to Latanya Pattillo, teacher advisor to the governor, “ensuring that there is representation in our schools of education is just one step in ensuring that our future educators are prepared to create an environment of success for our students. As the student demographics in the state change, our schools of education must change with them. Elon University’s support of the DRIVE Summit is a testament to their willingness to engage in the important task of recruiting, preparing and supporting educators of color and we look forward to continued partnership.”