For the 2006-07 school year, 13.25% (24 of 181) of teachers hired by MMSD were minorities. Over the last four years, the district has averaged 14.31% minority hires. When the district sharpened its focus on minority hires during the 1999-2000 school year, there had been only 8.6% minority hires (24 of 279) that year.

Complicating the goal of hiring more minority staff, in 2000 Recruiting New Teachers magazine reported that only 12% of teachers nationally were minority, and by 2010, less than 6% of all teachers would be minority. With minority teachers declining every year since 2000, the MMSD Minority Recruitment Plan is making a difference.

The February 2006 issue of The Black Collegian magazine ranked MMSD 26th on its list of the "Top Employers for the Class of 2006." The Black Collegian, serving the career and self-development interests of African-American collegians, annually surveys major employers and ranks respondents according to the projected number of hires from college recruiting and number of campuses on which they recruit.

During the next few years, the market for minority teachers will become a major problem for school districts nationwide and almost all urban school districts will employ a recruiter. The Madison Metropolitan School District, as in the education of our children, is a leader in the recruitment and hiring of teachers of color.