American students are far more diverse than their teachers. Some 79 percent of U.S. teachers are white compared to 44 percent of students. As a result, students of color are far less likely to have a same-race teacher than are white students, a phenomenon that has attracted the attention of philanthropists and policymakers alike. Foundations have made big investments in building the Black teacher pipeline, and across the country, policymakers in states like North Carolina, California, Maryland, Massachusetts, and New York have launched initiatives to recruit and retain more diverse public-school teachers. The issue of underrepresentation in credentialed professions like teaching was referenced by the Biden White House in the 2023 Economic Report of the President, and the U.S. Department of Education recently awarded $18 million in grants to support and expand teacher-training programs at Historically Black Colleges and Universities, which prepare half of the nation's Black teachers. But some policy pundits are quietly raising questions about race-matching, including asking if the evidence has been overhyped and oversold. In this article, 12 studies were reviewed weighing the claim that teacher race-matching boosts students' academic outcomes. These were published between 2004 and 2023 and are based on state data sets from Tennessee, Texas, North Carolina, and Florida; results from several large school districts, including Los Angeles Unified; and federal longitudinal data collected by the National Center for Education Statistics.