Posted on 05/27/2009 6:41:58 AM PDT by decimon
A study forthcoming in the Journal of Labor Economics suggests that high-quality teachers tend to leave schools that experience inflows of black students. According to the study's author, C. Kirabo Jackson (Cornell University), this is the first study to show that a school's racial makeup may have a direct impact on the quality of its teachers.
"It's well established that schools with large minority populations tend to have lower quality teachers," Dr. Jackson said. "But it is unclear whether these schools are merely located in areas with a paucity of quality teachers, whether quality teachers avoid these schools because of the neighborhood or economic factors surrounding a school, or whether there is a direct relationship between student characteristics and teacher quality."
Dr. Jackson's findings suggest that it's not neighborhoods keeping high-quality teachers away; it's the students—and it's directly related to their race.
"This is particularly sobering because it implies that, all else equal, black students will systematically receive lower quality instruction," Jackson said. "This relationship may be a substantial contributor to the black-white achievement gap in American schools."
The study focused on the Charlotte-Mecklenberg school district in North Carolina. In 2002, the district ended its race-based busing program, which distributed the district's minority population across its schools. When the policy ended, some schools had a large and sudden inflow of black students. Since the racial makeup of the schools changed suddenly but the neighborhood and economic factors surrounding them stayed the same, Jackson could test the impact the student body itself had on teacher quality.
Using data supplied by the North Carolina Education Research Data Center, Jackson found that schools that had an increase in black enrollment suffered a decrease in their share of high-quality teachers, as measured by years of experience and certification test scores. Teacher effectiveness, as measured by teachers' previous ability to improve student test scores, decreased in the black inflow schools as well. The change in quality for each school generally occurred in the same year that the busing program ended, indicating that teachers moved in anticipation of more black students.
"This study implies teachers may prefer a student body that is more white and less black," Jackson says.
Black teachers were slightly more likely than white teachers to stay in the schools that experienced a black inflow, the study found. However, those black teachers who did leave black schools tended to be the highest qualified black teachers. So the decline in quality was somewhat more pronounced among black teachers than white teachers.
Just what it is about black students that pushes high-quality teachers away is hard to pin down, Dr. Jackson says. It could be that teachers are reacting to notions about black students' achievement or income levels.
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C. Kirabo Jackson, "Student Demographics, Teacher Sorting, and Teacher Quality: Evidence from the End of School Desegregation," Journal of Labor Economics 27:2.
Since 1983, the Journal of Labor Economics has presented international research that examines issues affecting the economy as well as social and private behavior. The Journal publishes both theoretical and applied research results relating to the U.S. and international data. And its contributors investigate various aspects of labor economics, including supply and demand of labor services, personnel economics, distribution of income, unions and collective bargaining, applied and policy issues in labor economics, and labor markets and demographics.
Are you suggesting that "race" makes a person behave badly?
What is your excuse, whitey?
I think that's the new DNC motto.
This past December a math teacher was taking his own time after school to tutor kids for the state exam for which a passing grade is required to get a diploma. He was after school unpaid to try and help. A really good guy. African American. Very competent. His class was just across and down from mine, but this day I was out with the flu.
During the day, he'd had the occasion to confiscate a cell phone from a female student (banned on campus and especially IN class). She proceeded to slap him. He called security and she was placed on ... you guessed it ... outdoor suspension (although board policy mandates an arrest in such a situation). She returns after school with her crackhead mom and her brother who happens to be a golden gloves boxer. They ambushed the teacher outside his classroom as he was locking up to go home. Nobody else on the floor. His jaw was broken in three places and he is still on paid medical leave.
Next day I'm in school and all my kids want to know if I'm now afraid to come to work. I laughed and replied thusly: Look folks, I'm too young to die and too old to take an a$$ whuppin'..... so I'm just gonna kill ya. To which my kids said: Yeah, we thought you'd say that, sir.
I'm a former State of Florida Probation and Parole Officer and a former US Army Infantry captain. Nobody in these schools scares me. I was recruited to start a psychology program at this school. I also teach AP American Government. When I left mid year to come here from my other school (where by the way, I was voted social studies Teacher of the Year), those kids all got on the phone and called their buddies here. The gist of it: Awesome teacher but do not mess with him. That white man will kill you dead. I treat my students exactly the way I always treated my troops.
What you said earlier: Show them some tough love and a bit of TLC and they will try to walk on water for you. Some of them are the hard core, wanna be thugs, but are willing to work hard for me. This applies to me 1000%.
How many do I reach? Hard to tell. But once in a blue moon I get some indicators. I had one kid at that other school who I swore was going to get killed within a year of graduation if he graduated at all. Heavy into dope and hung with the gangs. He took my course, did very well then seemed to straighten up in all his classes so that he was able to graduate. Then he dropped out of sight for a couple of years. One day he comes striding into my classroom and he's wearing a uniform. Kid's a navy SEAL and he looks at me and says: You deserve all the credit. Coulda knocked me over with a feather.
See those rare moments are my payoff. Sure the pay stinks, but I do better than many and my wife just retired from teaching here for 35 years, so we do alright. Also, name me another job where you get all the teacher workdays (Jewish holidays here) and a 10 day break for Christmas vacation, plus 10 more days spring vacation and 9 weeks off in the summer? Speaking of which, summer vacation is only 7 school days away, now. YeeeeeHAH!
"This study implies teachers may prefer a student body that is more white and less black," Jackson says.
Amazing, and all this time I thought that teachers would like to work in a safe school where the kids are well-behaved. Instead, it's a racist plot. Who'dve thunk it?
Might I ask, if you’ve got such a problem with the behaviour of kids in your daughter’s school, why are you still sending her there?
Although, ironically, in my public high school it was different cause we had a ‘family’ (same adoptive parents) of refugees from Sudan and a family from South Africa, and the kids were all sweet, well-behaved, and hard-working. Of course, this didn’t hold true for all of the African kids in the ‘underprivileged’ school I had to volunteer at for a brief period during college. However, I’ve noticed a common thread between these two schools and your daughter’s school - the African kids who behaved themselves, regardless of race, had good parents who didn’t make excuses for them, and the kids who were likely to have crazy behavioural problems (again regardless of their race or nationality) were clearly the result bad parenting. In some cases, the parents were abusive, neglectful, or just didn’t care to be involved in their child’s upbringing. But, in other cases, the parents would be in denial that their precious child could do any wrong, or worst of all, they’d essentially tell their child that they were ‘special’ and therefore the rules didn’t apply to them, they were just being singled out cause they were a minority/not a minority/ADHD/poor/rich/fat/skinny/pretty/smart/you name it.
You’re kinda stuck on that race thing. I’m sorry, but you should probably try to get over that.
Midland public schools were pretty good back at that time. My sons went to school there too, we pulled them out of a parochial school so they could get into the GEM program, which was wonderful. Not sure how the schools are now tho.
The culture they have chosen is the problem, not their race in and of itself.
Yes, but the Bushes didn’t live in Chicago. Even back then the schools there were terrible, as they are now. Frankly, I’m glad the O children aren’t in government schools. It speaks volumes...
Yes!
And of course, the government was instrumental in creating the culture, but I sure don’t expect anyone to study THAT. (think we could get a grant?)
I wish we could edit posts. Mine had too many typos. Just to correct the one sentence: “They had offered me a permanent in-school disciplinarian floater position, but I liked the class/age/school mix of a regular floating sub.”
Good for you! What did you or anyone else do about that slap getting treated outside of the guidelines? Did the teacher sue the district?
One day I was doing roving disciplinarian “hall walker” duty at the HS. Got called to extract a disruptive student from 11th grade asocial studies class upstairs and escort her to the In School Detention building. She was tough, upset, profane, flailing at people. Fortunately her anger was focused on the handful of kids and the teacher who had engaged her — I was able move them away and block her out to the door. I decided to make the walk very long, so as to get her cooled off. To bring her into the ISD building in her state would have caused chaos there.
So we walked the longest way around. I talked her up. Aksed where she was from. Camden. Camden? Yes, Camden. This isn’t Camden. We are thirty miles from Camden. What are you doing here. I’m at a halfway house. For what? Assaulting an officer. Oh, Right ...
“Yes, but the Bushes didn’t live in Chicago. Even back then the schools there were terrible, as they are now. Frankly, I’m glad the O children aren’t in government schools. It speaks volumes...”
No the Bushes’ didn’t live in Chicage. They lived in Texas. I think you’ll readily agree that the Bush familyis wealthier than the Obama family when the Bush girls were growing up. The Bush family had EVERY reason to send their girls to an elite PRIVATE school but they didn’t. The Bush family sent their girls to a PUBLIC school along with ILLEGALS.
The Obama family has NEVER sent their girls to a PUBLIC school. The Obama family prior to Zero’s emergence made it a PRIORITY to send their girls to a PRIVATE school while in Chicago. I’m sure there are magnet schools in Chicago and even they weren’t good enough for the Obama family. I’d like to see the Obama girls in a PUBLIC school. The Obama’s the hypocrites they are, will NOT allow that.
Read Animal Farm and understand the Obama liberal mentality.
The government could be aggressive in making families. Instead it and the mass culture chase destruction.
The quality of the academics is superior to other nearby schools. We're willing to PAY for an education that makes sense. That is the reason she is there. I don't find the local public school up to the standard we require. She knows not to socialize with those that are out of control and socialize with those that have our values and beliefs. So it is the academics that is keeping us there.
In the near future we will move on. Then she can leverage her John Hopkins work for the advanced classes in another school district. I don’t want her around the lazy, out of control kids. In upper grades I have this uniformly available to me. In their elementary school all they offer is “Enrichment” to a select few that have high S.A.T. scores. In middle school, our local school district has advanced courses which weeds out the clowns and under performers.
“Although, ironically, in my public high school it was different cause we had a ‘family’ (same adoptive parents) of refugees from Sudan and a family from South Africa, and the kids were all sweet, well-behaved, and hard-working. Of course, this didn’t hold true for all of the African kids in the ‘underprivileged’ school I had to volunteer at for a brief period during college. However, I’ve noticed a common thread between these two schools and your daughter’s school - the African kids who behaved themselves, regardless of race, had good parents who didn’t make excuses for them, and the kids who were likely to have crazy behavioural problems (again regardless of their race or nationality) were clearly the result bad parenting. In some cases, the parents were abusive, neglectful, or just didn’t care to be involved in their child’s upbringing. But, in other cases, the parents would be in denial that their precious child could do any wrong, or worst of all, they’d essentially tell their child that they were ‘special’ and therefore the rules didn’t apply to them, they were just being singled out cause they were a minority/not a minority/ADHD/poor/rich/fat/skinny/pretty/smart/you name it.”
You know what's really interesting ... the black families I refer to from Africa, do their best to appear VERY conservative. It's almost to the point where it is galling. In fact one teaches in a horrendous school district. They don't SEE what's wrong with their kids. When their guard is down, you can SEE why the kids are the way they are. It's trickle down from the parents. So between the culture and parents the kids will be a result of that.
I'm glad to hear you have had some exceptions. There is no way you will convince me what you state is the rule. You can't state that with American blacks. I think the recent election, 95% of blacks voted for Obama makes my point. Of course you may believe whatever you wish ... .
I misspoke and corrected that on another reply.
As the tuition goes UP, kids move on because the parents aren't willing to pay for it.
“It was our impression that the tuition went up exponentially because of the scholarships and discounts given, even in a private school atmosphere. We were not eligible for freebies, so we got good and tired of being in the cash cow population. We finally allowed our teenager to transfer to public school. She did just fine.”
We are not eligible for discounts or any other freebies. We too are tired of being the "cash cow". What really ikes me more is fund raisers DURING school time. That's NOT what I am paying for. What I believe this school is doling is heavily subsidizing the kids I refer to, to look more “diversified” and “international”.
We will eventually transfer her to a public school. Right now, I want the grades. This summer she's signed up with John Hopkins for Talented Youth for Math. The rest of their offerings are to the LEFT. I will leverage that and her S.A.T. scores and grades to have her in advanced classes.
“In addition, it galled us that scholarships were given to athletes to insure the school fathers could brag on its state championships. I have no problem whatsoever with giving scholarship money to bright, motivated inner city kids, but NOT with giving it to some kid just because he can throw a ball.”
Yes, it is galling. We no longer give to her school. When I suspect people are funded because of skin color, ethnicity or anything else but merit for ACADEMICS, we stop giving. I also refuse to fund sports scholarships. Instead we use the money we would have given them to an organization called Compassion International. We have a lovely pen pal in Thailand. We also give to local organizations that we approve of. We have become much more selective in our charitable giving. Their ideology must match ours.
I understand where you are coming from ... and our charity has changed accordingly. I hear ya ... and we're just bidding our time ... .
Obviously the people who did this study have chosen to live in downtown Detroit rather than one of the more affluent suburbs.
One year in addition to a school time fund raiser, if you gave a flat donation of $300 per child, each child could have a dress down week. They wear uniforms and love a casual day. So the idea of five days of wearing casual clothes, within their dress code really got the kids begging their parents for the money.
I was torn. I compromised on principle and kicking myself ever since. My initial reaction was NO! Then I allowed myself to be worn down ... . Enough of us parents complained about the obvious (separates haves and have nots) and they didn't repeat that. This was under the new Principal. They're constantly bugging you for money. I just ignore it unless it's something like Teacher Appreciation. Then I will write a check directly to the teacher.
It is true that they don't live as well as we do in the U.S.. Look at Obama’s family over there. While those that come over here may have slightly more than those there, it doesn't compare to what we take for granted. Public housing is viewed as “wonderful”. So there is a mentality problem and outlook problem. I make it clear if it should come up subtly that in the U.S. you WORK for what you have and shouldn't expect the GOVERNMENT to pay your way.
Many have the Obama mentality.
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