We Must Repair a System Historically Unjust to Black Students And Teachers

By Angela Burley

In elementary school, all of my teachers and most of my classmates were White, and I often felt singled out as different but special, the token Black among my teachers and peers. I remember comments like “You are so smart” and “You speak so well” or “You’re not like other Blacks.” I will never forget the time my history teacher told me, during a heated class discussion about an African medallion worn around my neck, that if I was so unhappy with America, I should “go back to Africa.’’ I was shocked that pride in my ancestry was so offensive to her. When I became an educator, I was determined to right the wrongs of my past by creating a culturally affirming space for all children, especially Black children.

Throughout my career, I have been intentional about where I teach and who I teach with. I have, for the most part, taught in predominantly Black communities, with other Black teachers and Black administration because that is where I feel most comfortable. In fact, my 20-plus year teaching career has served as a healing balm to the traumas I endured growing up in a small, highly segregated, racist North Texas town. My own history as a student and work as an educator are the reasons why the recent report from Teach Plus and the Center for Black Educator Development, To Be Who We Are: Black Teachers on Creating Affirming School Cultures, speaks to me so deeply.

The first condition for creating a culturally affirming school culture To Be Who We Are identifies is for schools to recruit, support, and retain a diverse school faculty. My high school’s faculty was 90% White, while the student body was 50% Black. I wish there were more teachers of color who could have helped me to navigate my hostile academic environment.

Even though I always excelled academically in school, I never felt authentically connected or valued by any teacher in my life. While I identify with To Be Who We Are as a student, I also identify as a teacher. In my 4th year of teaching, I worked on a campus with a mostly White faculty and the racial disparities on that campus were shocking. My classroom was in the back field in one of 20 portable buildings. And of course, most of the teachers and students in the portables were of color. All the Advanced Placement classes were in the building attended by mostly White students who made up just 20% of the school population and were taught by mostly White teachers. The running joke was that the students learning in the portable classrooms were “field N — — s.” This was the culture of the school.

Since I served on the leadership team at that school, I tried to work with the campus instructional leaders to effect change, offering ideas about more engagement between “regular” and “AP” students but the conversations went nowhere. I left after one semester and vowed to never work in a community with such stark racial disparity. Thankfully, I was able to find work in a more nurturing school community, but many Black teachers do not have such opportunities and would not be able or even willing to give the profession another chance.

My hope is that school leaders and policymakers will heed the conditions and recommendations in To Be Who We Are. A Black teacher, or any other teacher of color, should not feel the need to segregate themselves in schools, teach in isolation, or be disconnected from the professional learning community because it stifles the opportunity to truly achieve diversity, equity, and inclusion in America’s schools. It is our collective obligation to repair an academic system that has historically been unfair and unjust to Black teachers and students. I agree with the report that “Black teachers face an opportunity gap like that of their students,” and the suggestions found in To Be Who We Are clearly lay the foundation to repair the seemingly irreparable conditions that have been faced by Black teachers in the American school system. Adopting the recommendations from the report should be the first step in creating culturally affirming schools that provide an equitable infrastructure that is advantageous for ALL teachers and students.

Angela Burley teaches 6th grade World Cultures at Sarah Zumwalt Middle in Dallas, Texas. She is a 2021–2022 Teach Plus Texas Policy Fellow.