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Where are the minority teachers?
The majority of Nashville public school students are not white, but that’s not the case for Metro’s teachers.
In fact, there are several Metro schools with zero to just a few teachers who are not white, according to Erick Huth, president of local teachers’ union the Metro Nashville Education Association (MNEA). “Isolated” examples of this include Pennington Elementary and Percy Priest Elementary, two schools with very few — if any — teachers who are not white, according to December district data obtained by the MNEA.
At both Pennington and Percy Priest, nearly 30 percent of the students are not white. There are employees at both schools who are of different racial groups, but those employees don’t work as teachers.
Huth doesn’t know the reason for this, but he considers the statistics a “red flag.” He raised this concern publicly during the school director search process, and considers the situation a concern both for students and for Metro employees.
Racial homogeneity of teachers is the case nationally, as well as locally.
In Tennessee, the State Board of Education found a shortage of minority teachers in 1987, and implemented recommendations from a task force the following year to add more diversity to the teaching force. State legislation was passed in 1993 urging local school boards to set goals for recruiting and retaining African-American teachers, according to the state Department of Education.
According to a 2006 report from the DOE, 60 percent of MNPS teachers in the 2004-2005 school year were white. While that percentage is lower than in many other state school districts, just 33 percent of teachers in the Memphis city school district that year were white. The percentage of white students in Memphis city public schools was, that year, far lower than the percentage for MNPS.
Huth has a theory as to why this is the case. MNPS, he believes, tends to hire many new teachers from “two local, private universities,” he said. Memphis has a solid track record of recruiting graduates from local historically black college Tennessee State University. In addition, Huth said, starting teacher salaries are higher in Memphis than at MNPS.
Huth’s theory makes sense to school board member Gracie Porter, a longtime educator who has worked with new teachers in district schools and in university classrooms. Few minorities enter teacher education programs, she said, indicating that barriers must be removed.
“Visit some of the schools, and you will see that the population of minority teachers is just about extinct in some of the buildings,” Porter said. “Maybe we need to encourage more of our [students], right here in the city of Nashville, to enter teacher education programs.”
New organization works to address teaching force diversity
Few would argue that race alone determines whether a teacher is good or bad. There is research indicating that teachers of racial groups similar to their students can have a positive effect on student success, as well as research indicating no effect whatsoever, according to Layla Avila, vice president of teaching fellows for national teacher recruitment organization the New Teacher Project. But many believe, she said, that there is an inherent value to increasing diversity at schools.
The New Teacher Project recently established a Nashville program called the Nashville Teaching Fellows, which will place as many as 100 new teachers in Metro classrooms this fall. On an ongoing basis, the program will work with MNPS to help recruit adults from professional backgrounds to teaching. The New Teacher Project, which already has a program in Memphis, was brought to Nashville in large part through the efforts of Mayor Karl Dean.
In Nashville, the program will launch “specific and aggressive” recruiting efforts toward potential teachers who are not white, Avila said. That will include reaching out to community organizations, churches, and other pipelines, in addition to targeting college student organizations that tend to draw students of diverse races and ethnicities.
“They are highly sought after, and we think they’re incredibly valuable,” Avila said.
The New Teacher Project’s efforts in this area have paid off on the national level, Avila said. Last year, 34 percent of the organization’s recruited teaching force was not white, compared to 13 percent of the national teaching force, she said.
MNPS did not comment for this story. But Avila said the Nashville’s public school district is ahead of the curve in addressing the situation. Metro Schools employs a full-time minority recruiter. That isn’t the case at many school districts served by the New Teacher Project, she said.
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It is beyond all comprehension that anyone would want their children in a Metro public school.
Basing hireing teachers on race is unfair to the kids. Assumeing that the amount of black teachers equals the proportion to the overall population it is not unusual for a system with more black students to have a ratio imbalance.The quality of education in Tn is poor and we should be trying to hire the best we can not hireing by the color of their skin.Think about it if you were black and a teacher would you want to live in Memphis or somewhere else? Race related hireing assures you in most cases your are hireing someone that can't get hired somewhere else.
I do not have these stats, but would like to see a track on the students starting with the number of minority students in the sixth grade. From those students, how many graduate high school, then how many attend college, and finally how many of those students graduate from college. I suspect you would then have your answer as to why there are so few minority teachers. There are so few minority teachers even available.
When did we start promoting diversity over unity in this country? Why is it white teachers aren't suffcient for teaching black students anymore? That sounds like resegregation to me. I thought segregation was a the thing we fought against in 1960's. MLK Jr. would be so disappointed. SKIN COLOR DOESN'T MATTER! Unity NOT diversity!
The fact that this is the case is merely symptomatic of other far more serious issues. First, given the initial (and unfortunately ongoing) low levels of compensation, and the lack of incentive and/or opportunities available for further advancement; we continue to scrape bottom barrel for the few highly qualified candidates who actually choose to become educators. Second, although far more Americans of African descent are attending college today; there exists a dire lack of quality standards which continue to decline throughout the educational system in general, and sadly, throughout the African-American community in particular. In addition, further exacerbating this situation we have the compounding issues of the system's inherent internal politics; as well as the influences of labor (teachers) unions whch are permeated with corruption. These too, have the general effect of driving away the most qualified individuals from the profession. In the final analysis we find that the majority of our educators are basically the least ambitious, and generally least successful candidates from a cross-section of our society in general. Which, as it happens to be, is more than 80% non-African/American. Again, the fact that most qualified African-Americans (just like the rest of us)choose to avoid the educational system is (regretably for our society) a testament to both their intellect and their common sense.
aledford, that is one of the best and most thought out responses I've read. thanks for posting!
I know...Let's have an all black school (no whites) black teachers, black students, gold fixtures in the restrooms, bathroom attendants (black of course) free meals catered from Ruth's. Allowance money for showing up to class. Free clothes, free tuition and the best black teachers money can buy... Oh! That still wouldn't be good enough.
Ok...please tell me in the current 'budget crisis' we are NOT paying for a full time 'minority' recruiter??? I must be reading this wrong. We need only a RECRUITER to hire the most qualified...black or white should not be a consideration whatsoever. If that's the case, we need a 'FEMALE' recruiter, a 'MALE Recruiter' and an 'AGE' recruiter. Finding a way to fix the budget means cutting out STUPID AND NON-ESSENTIAL positions and efforts - and they wonder what is wrong with the school system??!!!!
MTSU and Belmont, and to a lesser extent Vanderbilt, place many teachers in Metro schools. It is likely these are people who don't want to leave the area to find a job. Tennessee State produces many equally qualified educators, but many of them are from the Memphis and Atlanta metro areas and they likewise want to start their careers near home. Trying to socially engineer the numbers is not the way to approach this issue, but more active recruitment at TSU and Fisk would not be a bad idea. Many of these students probably grow to like Nashville while they are here.I saw no specific mention of Hispanic students and teachers, but that could have been in the first paragraph which on my computer is covered by the picture.
How about asking "where are the qualified teachers?" Geez, like so many times, you guys are focused on the wrong stuff.
FTA -"In Nashville, the program will launch “specific and aggressive” recruiting efforts toward potential teachers who are not white, Avila said. That will include reaching out to community organizations, churches, and other pipelines, in addition to targeting college student organizations that tend to draw students of diverse races and ethnicities."Translation - racial discrimination in the hiring of teachers in TN.FTA - "Last year, 34 percent of the organization’s recruited teaching force was not white, compared to 13 percent of the national teaching force, she said."Looks like it's sucessful.
Makes you wonder why we are all on the same page and they are on a different one.Perhaps they are the ones that need to be replaced.
I think there is a big difference between 'recruiting' and quotas. The end result should be hiring more of the well qualified minority teachers we aren't getting now rather than making that minority status a requirement. The goal should be and can be to improve quality in the classroom.
Don't you think they would if they could find them truth?
I can't beleive some of the statements made on this blog! The anonimity of a blog seems to allow one to make the most uncensored, insulting, and racist comments about various groups of people. These comments would never be made in a fact-to-face discussion without some serious repercussions.And learn how to spell "hiring," you big dummy. Please!
Why would minority's who can get better jobs because they are college grads want to except low paying teaching jobs? There minority status puts them in a position to apply for better paying jobs, so they do the smart thing and except the position which has the best benifits and better pay.
Citizen, I guess you’re addressing me.Uncensored – this is a good thing. Freedom to express your opinion is protected by the 1st amendment.Insulting – that is a personal viewpoint. I’m sorry if you feel insulted.Racist – absolutely. The article addresses the recruitment of teachers based on race.This group is recruiting teachers based, in large part, on the recruits’ non-white status. Of course, the polite term is “affirmative action” or “diversity”. When you use race to make a distinction between different people, you are discriminating. That is merely a fact. And, whether you believe that black children learn better when taught by black teachers or whether diversity is best for everyone involved, you should agree that skin color should never be the primary factor when assessing a teacher’s qualifications.Also, please excuse the word “hiring”. That’s the proper spelling per the American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language. I’ll just say that you are free to beleive (sic) what you choose.
There are plenty of people that are qualified to teach at Metro. There are people with BS and MS's in science or math and can't teach because they don't have an education degree. Why can I teach at the community college level and not the high school level? I have more credit hours and experience in science but because they had more classes teaching them how to teach, they can teach for metro. That is another facet that makes it difficult to find qualified teachers, minority or not.
Dragon, I think Citizen was addressing id.vej, there are programs in place that are designed to look past certification in order to get qualified teachers with life experience, especially in math and science. I don't know if Metro is participating but I know they looked at the idea.And as rwjack said, anyone (minority or otherwise) who can make 70k in the private sector instead of 35k as a starting teacher would likely follow the money unless they really WANTED to teach.
I have looked into that, but it requires an unpaid summer program or an 8 mo. program through UT Martin that you have to pay for. You may get reimbursed in the end. Either way, its even more school before you can teach. It just bothers me that you have to have fancy specialized teaching classes and less math and science to teach. I think waters down the science that teachers need to know. I tutor high school kids in math and science and I see what happens when teachers have education degrees vs. science degrees.
I wish someone would just decide if we would like to be segregated or not. I for one no longer care. I just want the best for my family however that can be accomplished. The only thing that I will never understand is this notion that blacks can only seem to learn anything from only blacks. If I had a child that was interested in the software industry I would like them to figure out what Bill Gates did. If they had potential to be a pro golfer I would think you would like them to figure out what Tiger did. If blacks can only learn from blacks why the screaming about the most recent rezoning. Folks we can't have it both ways, we are one Country and it is getting tougher financially. We better all pull together to make it work for everyone.