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.
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Utter bovine scat.
This canard ignores the reality of prevailing "black culture" in today's America, especially among their youth: hip-hop, rap, gangsta mentality, hostility toward academic achievement ("excellence"? forget it; that's a tool of da man), glorification of thuggery in music and professional sports......two industries that provide the worst of examples for young blacks, a "you OWE me" mentality, slovenly language to the point of nonstop, uninterrupted profanity that would make a sailor blush, etc.
Blacks have evey bit the same opportunities that the rest of us have. They have merely chosen........chosen, mind you.......to squander them.
I truly believe that MLK is spinning in his grave.
The only reason they even bother with black conservatives is simply the threat they pose to the leftists' power.
In the past day or so, our local Superintendent of Schools (yes, a black man) publicly declared that anyone who was for neighborhood schools and against forced busing is a racist. Period.
This is in Raleigh, NC, by the way.......hardly some Northeast liberal bastion. He's being publicly gutted for it on talk radio, but nowhere else. The gall of this man. He not only insults his own race to a shocking degree (in effect saying "unless we mix our kids with those rich white kids, we just can't make it").........he insults parents of all races by insisting that he knows what's best for OUR kids.
An odd sentence. What does it mean? Are the white teachers causing the black teachers to leave or is there some other underlying cause?
I wonder, how many of these teachers have moved on to private schools or are tutoring?
"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."
The “cultural differences” is probably the biggie here. Such differences as respect for teachers and education, the attitude toward crime, etc.
Worded so as to place the blame of good black teachers leaving the profession squarely on the shoulders of white teachers who leave.
Yes. When you read about parents coming into the classroom and beating up the teacher for some perceived affront to their child, it's easy to see how the school environment has changed.
Exactly. Apparently, ALL teachers are fleeing those innercity hell-holes, black as well as white, there were just more white teachers there to begin with.
And the article states they are leaving for schools with less black students. I'll bet they are leaving for smaller rural schools with less students of ANY color.
These kids were angry and scared and felt unwanted and unnecessary in the white schools.... it took years to get past those hurts, if they ever have been put aside. I thought it was stupid to close a neighborhood school and ship kids completely across town......and note that they didn't close the older high school in town and ship the white kids to the black school.......
Very good post!
Political correctness and euphemism drive pretty much all our social and political debates these days.
This makes it so easy to talk around the heart of the issues.
This tap-dancing about lower-performing schools focuses on the results, rather than the causes.
Ignore the causes, for whatever reason, and the results will never change. Indeed it can be expected to get worse, and spiral down into educational, social and political explosions.
Bottom line is that student discipline and the cultural malaise that fuels it in students of all colors are the major cause of poor performance.
And the combination of "attitude", the preoccupation with "student rights"(?), and other societal degradations (faith, patriotism, individual responsibility) have reduced schools to little more than baby-sitting criminal training centers.
This pathology spreads from the source outwards; it is only a matter of time until the symptoms are obvious in schools everywhere.
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