Black Students, Black Teachers: Educational Equity in America
American education is in a state of disrepair. From the mold seeping from the floors of our kindergartens, to the spiraling tuitions of our universities, the entire infrastructure of our education system is trembling. And when the entire building quakes, no one feels the tremors more intensely than African-American children.
Our education system is failing our young minds, as it has been for generations. Our children are being treated as criminals from the moment they set foot into a classroom to the moment their school turns them into some. According to a recent report from the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, Black students and other racial minorities are more likely to be disciplined, less likely to have access to rigorous and challenging coursework, and taught by less experienced teachers than white students. In a system like this, with the entire deck stacked against them, it is a wonder any black students manage to succeed at all.
Black students are suspended and expelled at a rate three times that of white students, despite near-identical rates of behavioral issues. The fact of the matter is, behavior that is viewed as harmless mischief in a white classroom, is elevated to criminality when viewed through a lens of oppression.
Even in preschool, before black children are expected to be able to read or count, they are being conditioned for a life of punishment and discipline. At less than 20 percent of preschool enrollment, black children — black babies — compose more than half of all preschool suspensions.
And it goes beyond discipline. Black students are being discouraged from academic challenges, and shepherded into less rigorous, less demanding courses, that fail to prepare them for higher levels or college. Although black students are taking more course credits by graduation than any other race — more, even, than are necessary for graduation — they are much less likely to be enrolled in any of the full spectrum of math and science courses.
Algebra, biology, calculus, chemistry, geometry and physics — only half of black students even attend schools where all of these courses are offered. When these students matriculate into universities across the country, their lack of secondary preparation disproportionately lands them in remedial education, or prevents their graduation altogether.
The problem isn’t lack of ability; it’s lack of opportunity. Black students in communities across the country are being neglected by their city and state Departments of Education, while the federal government, in its ceaseless push to commodify and standardize education, has become just another part of the problem.
Even encouraging more black professionals to enter the education field is not, in and of itself, a viable solution. Black college graduates already enter the teaching profession at disproportionately high rates. The majority of teachers in urban settings are already black, and their students fare no better in achievement or outcomes.
Black teachers alone are not enough, and subpar black teachers, who treat our children with the same disdain as the criminal justice system, are worse than nothing. What our children need are exceptional black teachers.
Unfortunately, the dismal salaries and deplorable conditions of this nation’s public schools demonstrate all too well the low priority we place on education, and serve as anathema to some of the best and brightest potential candidates. One need look no further than at the condition of Detroit Public Schools, recently the location of several city-wide “sick outs” in protest of the appalling school conditions, to see that teaching is hardly an appealing profession for any but the most ardent advocates.
The solution, if any is to be found, is a drastic recalibration of this nation’s educational priorities. We need to incentivize the smartest and most talented black scholars to return from academia to their communities and teach. But without a salary that allows them to justify a graduate degree with a six-figure price tag, all our exhortations amount to little more than wishful thinking. The salary gap between schools with the largest populations of black students and the district as a whole is more than $2,500. The salary difference between predominantly black and predominantly white public schools skews even larger, at more than $5,000.
Our nation has demonstrated, through the wages we pay our teachers, which school districts we value and which we are willing to sacrifice. Instead of incentivizing teachers to serve the neediest children, we encourage them to do the opposite. We must eliminate that gap if we are going to reverse the one in education.
Finally, without restoration of the infrastructure of this nation’s most neglected classrooms, from the paint in their walls, to the courses that are offered, to way we discipline, we cannot presume any revolution in the education of their students. We need the best teachers, and the best learning environments to educate the most disadvantaged children. Only by restoring the dignity of the black educator can we finally alter the fate of the black student.
