Educators in Connecticut are in a tizzy because of the “racial gap” — not in academic achievement this time, but “the gap between the 7 percent of the faculty who are minorities and the 23 percent of the students who are.”
As I’ve said many times before, absent any evidence of discrimination (and none is presented here; quite the opposite), I’m not at all sure this is a problem, certainly not one worth the expenditure of many resources to solve. But Connecticut disagrees, with a vengeance.
Some of the analysis of the cause of this “problem,” as well as some solutions, are almost humorous. As it happens, for some reason the percentage of minority teachers mirrors the percentage of minority graduates of teacher preparation programs.
But the real problem, according to Ellen Flanagan, the [Greenwich] district’s director of human resources, is that there simply aren’t enough qualified minority teachers to hire.
“I don’t think it’s necessarily a Greenwich problem,” she said. “Our minority percentage is pretty good compared to the rest of the state. I think the colleges need to do a better job recruiting and preparing them.”
Greenwich’s percentage of minority teachers is dead even with both the state average and the rate of minorities graduating from teacher preparation programs, according to state Department of Education figures and education experts.
Marge Klar, personnel coordinator for the district, who oversees the district’s minority recruiting efforts, said, “All districts are after the same very few candidates, and our district is doing better than most.”
There are several reasons the pool of minority teachers is so small, according to Denise Lee, program coordinator for the Minority Teacher Recruiting Program at Hartford’s Capitol Region Education Council.
“Now that minorities have more options, fewer are opting to become teachers,” she said. “Education is not held in as high esteem as it once was. There’s a misconception that the salaries don’t keep pace with business and industry.”
In addition, potential minority teachers suffer from some of the effects of the achievement gap among students, she said. “We have found that the entrance requirements for teacher prep programs tend to present barriers,” she said.
Well, yes. Exams, those pesky things, do tend to present barriers. And I can see how it can be a problem to recruit minority teacher if other employers are also furiously courting minorities and offering them better deals. It never seems to occur to anybody that requiring all employers to treat all prospective employees equally, i.e., preventing them from giving any preferences based on race, would level the playing field.
At least one “solution” to this “problem” — the state’s “offering scholarships for minority students” —I think is probably illegal. Another seems related only tenuously to the problem, though no doubt fun: Greenwich’s Marge Klar
chaired the town’s first minority recruitment and retention committee for a while, before handing it over to Kelly Houston, the town’s affirmative action officer, when she was hired.
Klar said Houston has done some innovative things in this capacity, such as creating the Diversity Resource Network, which gathers district minority teachers together for social events a few times a year.
In addition, it appears that the jargon of “cultural competence” is spreading throughout educationdom as a rationale for hiring minorities. “Minority teachers act as cultural interpreters for the entire school community,” one administrator claimed. And another, Deputy Superintendent Mary Capwell, stated:
“We want a diverse staff for the purpose of serving all of our students,” Capwell said. “Minority teachers are not necessarily for minority students. When you have a minority teacher as part of your teaching staff, they [sic] can serve as a model to all kinds of kids.”
What struck me most about Connecticut’s effort to close this particular “racial gap,” however, was just how much time, attention, effort, and money is dedicated to it. Just one example:
The bulk of district and town efforts to recruit minority teachers consists of going to minority recruitment fairs….
Minority recruitment fairs in the Northeast can be staggeringly expensive. For example, the price tag for six administrators from Greenwich to get a table for one day at the National Minority Careers in Education job fair in New York on March 25 is just under $4,000, Klar said.
… not to mention the costs beyond the table itself.
Just in this one article, mainly about schools in and around Greenwich, the following positions were identified:
- a “personnel coordinator … who oversees the district’s minority recruiting efforts”;
- a “program coordinator for the Minority Teacher Recruiting Program at Hartford’s Capitol Region Education Council”;
- a “director of diversity at Greenwich Academy” who is also “co-chair of the Fairchester Faculty of Color, a group of minority teachers from independent schools throughout Fairfield and Westchester counties”;
- the Greenwich “affirmative action officer”;
- district “district’s director of human resources” who spends much of her time on minority hiring and retention;
- “Parkway School Assistant Principal Medard Thomas, who, as one of the district’s most visible black administrators, will be acting as a recruiter at the New York job fair this month”;
- the “the district committee to close the gap,” headed by the Deputy Superintendent.
I find it hard to avoid the conclusion that if Connecticut devoted a fraction of time and effort and resources to finding the best teachers that it spends on hiring minority teachers, the quality of education in that state would improve dramatically. And the article managed to find one person who shares this view:
But not every minority teacher thinks looking at things through the lens of race is so important. John Yoon, the high school’s band director, is Asian, but rarely thinks of himself as part of a group of “minority teachers.”
“I’m a taxpayer in town, and I’m a minority teacher, but I would hope that my son and daughter are taught by teachers who were best qualified,” he said. “I don’t really think in terms of cultural background.”
I think that more attention to finding the “best qualified” and less to increasing the percentage of “cultural interpreters” would go a long way.
“… the 7% of the faculty who are minorities and the 23% of the students who are.” Clearly, we need to expel minority students until their percentage is down to 7%. Presto, problem solved!
I bet I can find an even larger gender gap — students about 50/50, and elementary school teachers are almost 100% female. I don’t hear much about that disparity. If the sex of the teacher doesn’t matter, then why should the race of the teacher matter?
1. “Mr. Washington-Malik, you’re black. What’s the black position on this topic?”
If he’s there to be a representative for his race, why would this question be out of bounds?
2. “Mr. Washington-Malik, I know that as an African-American you have some strong views about race relations in this country. But please try to present your views with as much balance as possible.”
I’ve never quite understood what we’re supposed to get merely by working with people who *look* different. If Mr. Washington-Malik is only supposed to teach math and *not* give us the benefit of his cultural experiences, why does it matter what that culture is at all?
I’ll definitely be linking to this post and amplifying on these comments.
I wonder what the delta is for Hispanic students and Hispanic teachers. If I had that number, I would then compare the number of black “diversity coordinators” to the number of hispanic “diversity coordiantors.
I suspect that a much greater effort is being put into finding black educators because the diveristy staff is generally all black.
John Yoon, the high school’s band director, is Asian, but rarely thinks of himself as part of a group of “minority teachers.”
As does just about every other Asian. As a group, they are the best performing academically, yet have virtually no “role models.”
Why is that?
Look at that list! This is the diversity industry busily perpetuating itself, students and education be damned.
Did I say “industry?” Sorry, I meant racket.