Posted on 01/21/2003 2:38:44 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Certain neighborhoods in the South are weathering a new version of an old phenomenon: white flight.
Across the region, white, often middle-class, teachers are leaving schools dominated by African-Americans almost as fast as they arrive. Many are moving to school districts with smaller populations of blacks, new studies show.
Critics see the exodus as a new form of segregation, encouraged by court rulings that no longer enforce racial diversity. But teachers say that cultural and economic barriers, not racial ones, are fueling the trend in a region where more than 40 percent of the public school population is black.
At the very least, the growing shortage of white educators is creating a dilemma for black schools from Picayune County, Miss., to Decatur, Ga. Right now, there aren't enough black teachers to go around, either. "All the stars are aligned for white teachers to leave," says Gary Orfield, an education professor at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass. "It's a combination of poverty and racial segregation, added to cultural differences, that all makes it tough for suburban teachers to figure out the black and Latino cultures."
In Georgia, the trend is as pronounced as anywhere: A new study from Georgia State University (GSU) in Atlanta says that 32 percent of white elementary school teachers left their posts at predominantly black schools in 2001 - up from 18 percent in 1995. Moreover, they left well-to-do black districts at about the same rate as poorer ones.
Recent studies in Texas, California, and North Carolina reach the same conclusion. The effect, critics say, is that black students aren't getting an equal shot at good schooling. The reason: As white teachers leave, many blacks are fleeing the profession, too, leaving a dearth of qualified teachers of any kind. "As a result, we have lots of classes being taught by substitute teachers, who don't usually have degrees and aren't licensed to teach anything," says Tom Clark, a former superintendent of the Picayune County, Miss., schools.
Other factors are contributing to the exodus. A recent school building boom in Georgia created more job options for teachers - many of whom wanted to work closer to their own neighborhoods. What's more, many qualified teachers tend to leave lower-performing schools at faster rates.
But the authors of a new Harvard study on the "resegregation" of the South believe the flight is rooted in something more ominous. They see it an inevitable result of a backsliding society where white and black students increasingly go to different schools. They trace that divide, in part, to recent federal court decisions outlawing civil rights-era protections, such as busing and affirmative action in college admissions. What's more, fewer and fewer Southern schools are under court order to end discrimination.
As diversity diminishes, the problems become exacerbated. Mr. Orfield notes that white teachers who grew up in integrated schools have less trouble adjusting to crowded hallways where most of the kids are black. Even practical complaints can mask deeper motivations. "It's race, not test scores, not income, that's the motivating factor, says David Sjoquist, a professor involved with the GSU study. "If there's a concern about safety simply because there are black people in the neighborhood, sociologists would say that's a form of racism."
Still, not everyone agrees that faulty motives are behind many of the white teachers' decisions to leave. In many cases, it's more a matter of general frustration and unhappiness. "I don't think that the majority of these teachers [who leave] are racist," says Mike Worthington, the white principal of predominantly black Avondale High School in suburban Atlanta.
Cultural differences certainly play a part. Mr. Worthington notes that many of the white teachers who come to his school from white high schools and predominantly white colleges have trouble adjusting to the different speech patterns and classroom characteristics at Avondale. Among other things, he would like to see new teachers learn the Creole that many blacks here speak.
"I see my kids as bilingual," says Worthington, who received his cross-cultural training as a high school football coach. "There's a language that they use within their own culture that may not be used in the majority culture at large. My teachers should know that, so they can understand what's going on and allow it to be acceptable."
Today, there are signs that colleges are trying to address the exodus as a product of teaching methods rather than latent racism. "[White flight] is a major subject of debate in the literature right now," says Christine Sleeter, an education professor at California State University at Monterey Bay.
North Carolina Central University in Durham now offers a course in "dealing with classroom diversity." At one teachers' college in Milwaukee, some interns are required to "immerse" themselves in the neighborhood where they'll be working before taking over a lectern. "White teachers need all the help they can get," says Kian Brown, a black teacher at Durham's Y.E. Smith Elementary School.
LIBERAL Math: School desegregation 'clearly regressing,' study says***The report said many trends had contributed to the resegregation of schools: a growing residential separation by race and income levels, a heavy reliance on neighborhood schools, lower immigration and birth rates for whites, and courts and policy-makers who oppose race-conscious decisions. In King's hometown, Stan Williams, president of the Atlanta Committee for Public Education, a nonprofit watchdog group, said, "Even though we want diversity in schools, what drives it is not really the school system's policies but the overall housing patterns of the city.
"Diversity is a goal we ought to embrace, because that's what [children] are going to face once they get out of school when they get into the work force," said Williams, who is a former regional official with the U.S. Department of Education.
Dennis Parker of the New York-based NAACP Legal and Educational Defense Fund said, "Between the decreasing number of desegregation cases in the South and the increasing housing segregation in so many places, the trends are hardly surprising."
The report called for programs "that diminish segregation" by letting parents send their children to magnet schools and charter schools -- not just in their own school district, but also across district lines -- at public expense.
The Harvard center is generally considered liberal, but conservatives will like several of its proposals that would increase "school choice, letting parents decide where their children go to school," said policy analyst Matt Moore at the Dallas-based National Center for Policy Analysis. ***
The blacker-than-thou paradox divides***When I entered college in 1963, the term "black power" was becoming popular on campuses with black students. ***At first, it was used as an ideological umbrella under which so-called nationalists, culturalists and pluralists of all stripes were grouped. Gradually, we students used the term to convince ourselves that by uniting as one people, by loving our history and traditions, by pooling our vast resources, we could become a powerful bloc that could influence -- if not change -- the basic nature of the United States and thus improve our status as citizens. I remember those days well, a heady time when African-Americans took education for granted as the sure route to self-improvement and the subsequent uplifting of the whole race.
On my tiny Texas campus of fewer than 1,000 students, only fools refused to read and study diligently. Only fools destroyed their brains with drugs. Only fools physically hurt their brethren. In fact, "being smart" was in. We called it being "heavy." We even expected jocks to be heavy. All musicians, especially the jazz types, were heavy.
Black power meant just that: being black and powerful, being armed with education and the drive to improve our lot in a hostile environment where the very concept of racial egalitarianism was still alien to most white Americans. Black power meant sharing the good and eliminating the bad.
In time, the concept of black power changed. Instead of being a sentiment that united us, it became a source of deep division. Those who followed Martin Luther King and his nonviolent movement, for example, were not as black as those who followed, say, Malcolm X's philosophy or that of the fearless Black Panthers. ***
We have no leaders to save our black men-- In his column, "Off the Vine," which appears on the front page, Clayborne has taken on the journalism fight of his life: "Young black men have . . . bought into what apparently is a universal "dumbing down' syndrome where it's in style to be stupid -- with rap lyrics like "Where are my niggas at?' more memorable than their ABCs. Now, give or take a few token whites, our prison system is filled to capacity with young black men -- young men who will leave behind a trail of fatherless babies, single mothers and the untold carnage from the crimes they've committed.
"I was astonished recently when I read a study about a city's school system where out of nearly 6,000 African-American males in its high school, only 135 earned a B average or higher. Yet, we black people seem paralyzed to act, to mobilize -- to be outraged! We have failed miserably in addressing, for lack of a better description, "self-destruction of the black man.' Today . . . women head 70 percent of black households! Now you tell me, how are young black boys going to learn how to be men? Folks, what we have . . . is a national crisis -- demanding the highest attention of civic, business and government leaders. I am proposing that communities across the country initiate and start a "Save the Black Man Project.'
Disillusioned with the public school system - Black families explore home schooling *** The reasons African-American parents give for choosing to teach their children at home varies from family to family. Some cite poor instruction, low student achievement and a lack of safety in the public schools. Others fret over the lack of moral or religious values taught in public schools. ***
It might occur to astute observers that Powell is not the daddy of any of those boys in that Milwaukee mob. Nor is Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, or any other black conservative who arouses the dudgeon of Afro-America's depressingly liberal leadership. If every black conservative in America disappeared tomorrow, absolutely nothing would change for the better in communities like that one in Milwaukee. That's why blacks on the liberal/left side of the political spectrum need to find new targets for their ire. They can start by unzipping their lips and going to Milwaukee to confront the parents of the accused, to ask them just what kind of parents they are and to demand where they were the night of Sept. 29. Then they can head here to Baltimore, hit those drug corners and finish the job Angela and Carnell Dawson so courageously started.***
Let's keep it simple: School Choice slices through this morass of complications. But better than school choice, parental tax credits would be even better. Someone pointed this out to me. Rather than a government-run voucher system, simply give a flat dollar amount per child to the parents, with a simple recommendation that the money be used to pay for an education. Make the public schools similar to the postal service, forced to compete with the private sector, the education version of UPS and Fex-Ex. Parents, having complete control over the money, would have absolute control, making them completely immune to the Federal Courts, etc.
True, some evil parents would pocket the money and not educate their children. But there could be a minimum standard test for the children in order to get future tax credits. An annual or bi-annual test could be the only control the government would have. If tax credits are denied, then the child is required to attend a public school and might be put in a lower grade level.
A huge number of new teachers just don't stay on the job once they hit public classrooms. Others have left out of disgust. Bumpersticker propaganda has replaced knowledge in government schools.
It certainly is learned behavior and encompasses all skin colors.
A LIBERAL nightmare. They want to blame class size, too many immigrants with so many different first languages (they LOVE bi-lingual education), crumbling schools, lack of books, racism, poverty, etc. The answer: MORE MONEY!!!! How much more money and how many more educational experiments will it take? The Left and the teachers' unions have taken our public educational system and literally destroyed it. And in the process they are destroying our country's foundation.
However, we live about 30 minutes outside the city in a mostly white, rural area. We have new schools, and we get the benefit of those good teachers leaving Memphis. They come here where there is a great learning environment, discipline, and adequate funding. We even get some good black teachers from the Memphis area, leaving for the same reasons.
Didn't some "black leader" recently state that whites were incapable of properly teaching black kids?
Exactly. Many teachers don't expect their students to learn. The entire "system" is abysmal.
She loves to teach, and is very good at it--but she rarely had the chance at that school. She spent most of the classroom time trying to maintain some semblance of discipline among the thug students. The few good students suffered because the disrupters ran the classroom.
She receieved no backup from the administration at all. The principal was so frightened of the parents that he ALWAYS took the kids' side in any argument or confrontation: If there was a problem it was the teacher's fault, end of discussion. The veteran teachers told her that's the way it has always been, and live in fear that some student will accuse them of something.
Attempting to get the parents' help with disciplining the little angels was a joke. She would usually get cursed out for bothering them.
She got fed up and quit the hellhole just before Thanksgiving break. The money wasn't bad (almost $40,000/year), but I don't blame her. Why anyone would teach in that asylum is beyond me.
Progressive white educators who support Afrocentrists insist that it is wrong to correct students' usage and grammar. Unfortunately, this approach leads teachers to give passing grades on writing-proficiency exams. The CUNY remedial students then are permitted to take college-level classes despite possessing only semiliterate reading abilities.
Many middle-class blacks like to sometimes "go ghetto" and use street slang. But these professionals can speak standard English - in many cases, better than I can - and can always go home. The poor and working-class blacks to whom Afrocentric educators have refused to teach standard English, however, have nowhere to go. ***
Obviously an impossible situation. How can any one be expected to, or eventually even care about passing on knowledge or inspiring academic excellence, in such an environment? The inmates are running the asylum.
My cousin is one of these teachers. He left a much better paying job to teach english in an inner-city high school in Milwaukee. He thinks he can make a difference. Time will tell, but the odds are against him.
The kids know what is going on, and often brag that they "got rid of" a teacher who was trying to make them work too hard. I am not kidding.
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