WASHINGTON

A national strategy to avert teacher shortages as well as improve overall teaching quality in U.S. public schools will include the participation of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) as key players in the formulation of strategic policies, U.S. Education Department officials told a gathering of HBCU education school officials and HBCU presidents on Tuesday.

Noting that HCBU graduates account for 50 percent of African-Americans teaching in U.S. public schools, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said HBCUs will play a critical role in helping the United States meet the demand for new teachers in the coming decade.

“Education is the civil rights issue of our generation,” Duncan told attendees at the HBCU Teaching and Teacher Education Forum that was held at the U.S. Education Department.

The meeting, which was organized by the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities and the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, brought together many of the veterans of past teacher education programming and credentialing reforms to plot new strategies based on what one attendee called “an ideal moment in time.”

Dr. Leonard Haynes, executive director of the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities, said the meeting was a historic and timely gathering. It was the first time, according to Haynes, that the education department has sought to enlist HBCU teacher education programs to help formulate strategy to address what many see as a looming national teacher shortage. Duncan noted that in the next 10 years the U.S. would need an additional 1 million teachers.

In the past, contentious issues, such as accreditation, teacher standards and testing, have proved to stifle policymakers on plotting a coherent national strategy that would include HBCUs. One of the more volatile matters has centered on devising acceptable qualifications for those entering the K-12 teacher corps. Standardized testing of teachers has survived as a gatekeeping mechanism but has proved controversial as certain groups, such as African-Americans, have tended to perform worse on state and national teaching examinations than others.