Posted on 02/05/2011 8:41:31 AM PST by reaganaut1
U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan and filmmaker Spike Lee teamed up Monday to urge more black men to consider teaching.
More than 1 million teachers will retire during the next decade, according to federal estimates, and leaders have embarked on a nationwide drive to build a more diverse teaching force. Duncan on Monday took the campaign to Atlanta's Morehouse College, the nation's only all-male historically black college.
Teachers should look more like the people they serve, Duncan said. While more than 35 percent of the nation’s public school students are black or Latino, less than 15 percent of the teachers are black or Latino, according to federal figures. Less than 2 percent of the nation’s teachers are black men.
In Georgia, about half of the public schoolchildren are black or Latino, but only about 25 percent of the teachers are.
"Something is wrong with that picture," Duncan said. "We've got to fix it. We've got to fix it together."
Morehouse offers education degrees, but few choose the field. Of the nearly 500 students expected to graduate this year, six will leave with majors or minors in education, college officials said.
"Everybody can't be a business major," Lee, a Morehouse graduate, told the crowd. "We have to educate ourselves. We have to educate young black men."
Tyron Young, an education major at Morehouse, plans to teach in elementary school. He started college as a psychology major but switched after attending a conference led by 100 Black Men.
"The profession isn't pushed for males," Young said. "We need to see teaching as a way to touch lives and help our community. If you saw your family member wasn't succeeding, you'd step up to help. I believe we're all family. I need to do my part and help out."
(Excerpt) Read more at ajc.com ...
Must......smash.......fingers........
Sexist.
Somebody gotta teach kids to hate whitey.
Very unrealistic! Dealing drugs is more lucrative than a teaching career.
So?...How many Morehouse officials, who taught the 500 who will graduate this year, actually have “education” degrees, themselves,..Huh?
Yeah! I do think we need to educate young black men. If that is the goal then the last place to find it is in a collectivist government school. The last place for a motivated black teacher to effectively use their talents is also a collectivist government school.
Now, why would black men wanna be actin’ white like dat?
So Spike, how many years have you been a public school teacher since you graduated Morehouse in the '70s with a degree in Mass Communication?
Black men should research their family trees. They would undoubtedly find real men who were loyal to their families, were possibly not slaves, who stood up for what is right. It might have a huge impact on them.
This is such a stupid line. The only people who look like me are members of my own family. The idea that any person of a given race looks like everyone else of that race is bad enough; that this comes from the Sec of Education is pathetic.
My solution would start with abolishing that dept.
Terrific suggestion! There are hundreds of thousands of people already looking for teaching jobs and coming up short.
There are many skilled, competent, high-caliber black men (and women) where I work. None of them can afford the pay cut to become teachers. I can’t either.
My three white daughters have the greatest respect for the two black men who coached and mentored them- over all of the coaches that they worked with because they demanded excellence, worked them hard, and provided examples of integrity and superior moral values.
The problem is that leadership in the black community does not have the backs of people like this...instead, they continue to make excuses and play the race card incessantly because it increases their own power and influence to the detriment of those they purport to serve.
At this point public school teachers earn much more than the average breadwinner (even more so now that their wages have continued to increase while others have stagnated or fallen). Recommending anyone becoming a public school teacher at a time when (at least here in NJ) they’re under fire for salaries and benefits, with no new hiring in sight (teachers here are in no rush to retire; they earn enormous salaries for 180 days of work) is just foolish. Many young people just p!ssed away 4 years of school, and a lot of money, for an “education” degree that they won’t be using anytime soon (unless they work in a private school, for 50% of what they would have earned on the public dole).
Enough of this tribalism.
I think the inner-city war zones are still hiring.
Really; I had a lot of female teachers, so I guess I was cheated. This is about wealth re-distribution pure & simple, and I have no sympathy for white public school teachers who lose their positions to make way for a token that wants to rob the taxpayer in the same manner they did. Any teacher in a black neighborhood makes a LOT of money (”combat pay”); there certainly is a lot of wealth to re-distribute. Even with reductions in state aid here in NJ, it is the cops & firemen getting the axe; teachers are still laughing all the way to the bank (better union, I guess).
Well the, if teachers should look like those they “serve”, then I guess “white” students shouldn’t have any teachers that are not deemed “white”? “Black students, Black teachers”?
Bull puckey. I do think IMHO (I went through teaching school, volunteered, and a parent), that many of the areas without Male Roles Models and high crime areas, that MALE teachers in the UPPER grades (JR. High on up) would help the yuts wilding.
They have high turnover (with younger teachers), but the “outside funding” spigots are being turned off and they can’t really raise property taxes. I believe that is where some of these young people could find work, but they often won’t even consider it (these places are unsafe, and the young people too sheltered).
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.