Arne Duncan on Monday: We need more black men in classrooms
Arne Duncan will be here Monday to talk to Morehouse students about teaching. US DOE/photo
Less than 2 percent of the nation’s teachers are black males.
U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, film director Spike Lee and Congressman John Lewis will try to change that Monday when they appeal to the men of Morehouse College to consider teaching as a career.
In a phone interview Friday, Duncan said the nation’s teacher workforce does not reflect the diversity of its student when only one in 50 teachers is a black male. “This is a national problem,” he said, “and one in which most schools of education have not shown leadership or foresight.”
So, Duncan has been traveling the nation to appeal to students of color “to consider coming back to the community and making a difference.”
Wouldn’t those students or any students, I asked Duncan, be more interested in coming to New York and being Spike Lee? (Lee is a Morehouse grad.)
“Maybe,” he said, “but I went to Howard University with John Legend who talked about the importance teachers made in his life. I think it is effective message to hear people like John talk about the role of teachers in his life.”
I told Duncan about a blog comment posted here at Get Schooled from the wife of an African-American male teacher about the pressure on her husband in the school since people expect him to mentor the many fatherless boys.
Isn’t that asking too much of a teacher, to teach kids algebraic equations and how to be a good person?
“It wouldn’t surprise me if her husband was the only black male in that school,” said Duncan. “We have to make this much more the norm. We need everybody to step up and help. We need more men of color in our schools, especially at the elementary schools.”
He agreed that a single caring adult often can make a difference for a child. I mentioned to Duncan that during a speech he made in Atlanta, I talked to Kerrie L. Holley, one of the thousands of South Chicago kids who attended the after-school math and reading program run by Duncan’s no-nonsense mother, Sue.
Holley talked about the role that Duncan’s mother made in his life. He attended her program from age 7 to college, and said Sue Duncan became his second mother. (Sue Duncan opened her educational and recreational after-school program in 1961 and still operates it today as a free service for neighborhood kids.)
Based in San Francisco with IBM, Holley was named an IBM Fellow in 2006, IBM’s highest technical leadership position. And in 2004, Holley, who used to tutor the sixth grade Arne Duncan in math, was named one of the 50 most important blacks in research science.
Duncan said, that if schools could increase the pool of mentors, drawing from the community as a whole, “mentors who could really get behind that child not at age 15, but at age 5, the impact could be powerful. We know in kindergarten which students are struggling. We don’t have to wait for high school.”
I told the education secretary that Georgia teachers were wary of Race to the Top’s requirement for a teacher performance evaluation system as they don’t think there is a fair way yet to measure performance.
“There are a handful of places around the country where this is being done really well,” he said. “There is not one that is perfect, but the teacher evaluation system is broken. The status quo is broken. Great teachers don’t get encouraged, and teachers who need improving don’t get support. A handful of districts are doing this in a thoughtful, creative way in partnership with labor and management working together.”
Duncan said 12 of those places will present their programs at conference in Denver in February being hosted by his department.(Denver is one district, he said, that has made a good start at a teacher evaluation system.)
With $4 billion dollars aimed at improving the nation’s lowest performing schools. Duncan also talked about how those struggling schools are in the process of making fundamental differences, of doing what he called transformational work.
You can see Duncan at Morehouse at noon on Monday. I have not received any word yet on whether his second appearance at Gwinnett’s Meadowcreek High School is open, but will post if the public can attend that event.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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155 comments Add your comment
5150 UOAD
January 29th, 2011
11:21 pm
The best Black male teachers nee to be 50+ yrs old and married. If they are not then I don’t buy the crap they are selling. A couple in our Sunday School calss are grandparents and they are rasing 5 count it 5 grand kids form their children. She holds a Masters from Spielman(?) amd he is a Howard Man. Their children are well educated too, but they passed the grand children to the grnd parents. I can’t respect that type of MAN to teach public school kids. I bet the same man you are talking about thinke the US is a Democracy too.
Toto: Exposing naked body scanners...
January 29th, 2011
11:31 pm
Here’s a great video about a white family who really knows the art of living well. We could all learn from them – schools too. I think we should plow up the football fields and have the students start growing FOOD.
See urban farmers……
http://www.nextworldtv.com/videos/community/sustainable-family-outside-la—-keeping-it-extra-real.html
DMACK
January 30th, 2011
12:11 am
Poor Chris…..his black girlfriend broke up with him. I agree, the world would be better off without people like you……Please leave a note when you shoot yourself in the head…….
Nikole
January 30th, 2011
12:29 am
I graduated from Spelman in 2004, and Morehouse did not have a teaching program then. In fact, the entire AUC was supposed to get together to form a teaching program, as Spelman was going to get rid of their program.
ND
January 30th, 2011
2:14 am
Every time some dumbass white supremacist like Chris shows up to spew his easily disproven propaganda, hit him with a little bit of this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/09/opinion/09nisbett.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1
Educator at heart
January 30th, 2011
3:09 am
“Most important, we know that interventions at every age from infancy to college can reduce racial gaps in both I.Q. and academic achievement, sometimes by substantial amounts in surprisingly little time. This mutability is further evidence that the I.Q. difference has environmental, not genetic, causes. And it should encourage us, as a society, to see that all children receive ample opportunity to develop their minds.” excerpt from “All Brains are the Same Color”
Peter Smagorinsky
January 30th, 2011
5:54 am
Goodness, this one really got the racists to come out of the woodwork.
Just a brief remark about Duncan’s remark that “This is a national problem and one in which most schools of education have not shown leadership or foresight.” A college of education can only recruit students who’ve been admitted to the university in the first place. So it’s part of a general recruitment problem. Here’s an excerpt from something I’m currently writing that puts the issues in perspective:
The University of Georgia, where I teach, is similar to many state namesake institutions in that it is attended primarily by White students of comfortable levels of affluence. It further ranks last among the United States’ 50 flagship universities in the percentage of minority and impoverished high school graduates it enrolls: Nearly 40 percent of Georgia high school graduates in 2007 were Black, Latino, or Native American, yet less than 10 percent of UGA’s freshman class emerged from these minority demographics (Haycock, Lynch, & Engle, 2010).
This dominant culture population in turn provides the pool from which the College of Education draws its teacher candidates. Guarino, Santibañez, and Daley (2006), in their comprehensive review of research on teacher recruitment and retention, find that over 70% of all people choosing teaching as a profession are women. Further, they summarize a variety of studies of the demographic makeup of the teaching population and find that the profession is roughly 85% White. Racially categorized pass rates on the Praxis licensure exams, according to one study (Gitomer, Latham, & Ziomek, 1999), suggest that “the teacher applicant pool was disproportionately White before testing, so the effect of testing was to make an already homogeneous pool even more so” (Guarino et al., 2006, p. 180). In my 20+ years of teaching certification courses, I have averaged about one non-White student a year, which no doubt follows from the winnowing of potential candidates at the university’s initial admissions level and whatever factors contribute to career decisions in students’ first two years of general education coursework.
You can’t recruit people who aren’t there to begin with, and it’s hard to be sure that any effort to recruit at the high school level will produce students who will eventually choose that major. So it would be a very low-return effort to recruit at the high school level, and the pool from which we might recruit after enrollment is relatively small. Catch-22.
Fred
January 30th, 2011
6:45 am
@Indeed
“It is the lackadaisical, cell phone happy, overly social, non-achieving attitudes that some of these students bring with them from an absentee father, dysfunctional home.”
Your quote speaks volumes. Unfortunately, that’s the standard across all of society today.I think you hit the nail on the head.
Jack
January 30th, 2011
6:56 am
It starts at home. We all know that. It matters not the color of the teacher or mentor: if a child doesn’t receive nurturing, encouragement and geniune love at home, the child is handicapped for life; handicapped in school, the job market and handicapped in becoming a responsible parent.
PappyHappy
January 30th, 2011
7:47 am
When will John Lewis start speaking to the need of Black fathers taking part in their child’s rearing and schooling? It is going to be near impossible for your Black boys and young men to have a constant role model while in school (maybe a couple of hours a day, five days a week), when there is no male in the home. John Lewis is not the only one — there are many Black leaders who seem to avoid the most single obvious problem — too many Black men shirking their duties as a father, and FAILING TO PROVIDE CHILD SUPPORT!!
Guess the bigger question is: WHERE IS THE VOICE OF BLACK LEADERSHIP?
Joe 6-Pack Public
January 30th, 2011
9:13 am
Thomas Jefferson was simply wrong. His idea of “free” education for all was – and still is – utopian.
Probably won’t happen, but schooling needs to go private. Competition will make for better schools.
Ah, but then, what to do, out of “fairness” for those who cannot (or will not) pay their own way in society? Why the dear government must solve all of their problems of course.
Obama is in the unique position to echo Bill Cosby’s message that the black men need to step up in their own homes and communities, but I don’t see Obama preaching that gospel anytime soon.
Obama could help the black youth see that growing up to be Mike Vick or a gansta rap star is not the wise thing to plan on, but he’s too busy polishing his image.
APS Teacher for now
January 30th, 2011
9:35 am
Black women give birth to Black men. That hasn’t changed. Until the mother of the child is educated and not an enabler, nothing will change. “The truth shall set you free.”.
dawgfan
January 30th, 2011
9:44 am
Why in the hell would anyone want to be a teacher anymore? They get blamed for everything and make absolutely no money. No black man, white man, yellow man, or purple man in his right mind is going to enter this profession until this changes.
Thanks.
Fire Bad Teachers
January 30th, 2011
10:04 am
@Peter Smagorinsky
I do not have the answer, but attempting to blame the Praxis for further reducing the applicant pool is irresponsible. Is is better to have a minority teacher or a qualified teacher? If pass rates are lower for minorities on the certification test, why? Have those students entered programs to meet quotas rather than entering based on merit? Have they been treated differently and passed along through college?
I recently took the K-5 Praxis and passed with flying colors. I have never taken an elementary education course. I bought a study guide at Barnes and Noble and read it the night before the test. To my dismay, while waiting for the test I spoke with scores of UGA College of Education graduates who were attempting to pass the exam for the third of fourth time. I told the graduates I would take my diploma back and ask for a refund. Why is one of the most prominent colleges of education in our state unable to prepare qualified teachers in four to five years?
APS Teacher for now
January 30th, 2011
10:10 am
Young Black women have to be taught that it is not ok to have babies at 12, 13, and 14. Bristol Palin should not be a poster child either. Girls need to graduate from high school before they start these families. I’d be interested in knowing what percentage of the teaching force in the United States is comprised of Black females. I think it is noble of Mr. Dunn to address Morehouse but these guys won’t last in the classroom. They’ll be looking for upward mobility. As a teacher, you only get more money if you get a cost of living raise, a longevity raise or if you get another degree. There is no promotion mechanism. Master Teacher levels 1,2,3,4, and 12 don’t exist. You can try for asst principal, principal, dept chair, instructional coach… Not much space there. And, in APS it’s based on who you know, where you come from (not ATL please), and how young you are.
Let these Morehouse men be Construction Engineers, Entrepreneurs, Investors, Doctors, Professors, Engineers, Homebuilders, Account Execs, Pilots, Hotel owners, Grocery Store Owners, Corporate Farmers, owners of businesses that produce jobs for all people… Just to name a few. And if there are those who want to teach, who have what it takes and are not just taking the 2 or 3 year Peace Corp approach, then by all means recruit them.
Teaching is still a noble profession and I’m glad I took this route. I have no regrets and I would encourage those who care about the plight of African American children to encourage Black, Mixed Race, Asian, White, Hispanic or whatever background or sex to consider teaching if you are qualified and committed.
Kathy
January 30th, 2011
10:25 am
Really, Fire Good Teachers? You took the K-5 Praxis and passed it because you studied it for one night? You are so smart that you bested UGA grads who were re-taking the test? When did this supposedly take place? The state of Georgia has used the GACE exam for several YEARS!!!!
Dumaka
January 30th, 2011
10:44 am
Great, Have a meeting in the middle of the day so positive male educators like myself can’t attend because we are at school. Great planning.
Fire Bad Teachers
January 30th, 2011
10:51 am
@Kathy- You are correct. I took the GACE for K-5 about two years ago at Clarke Central in Athens . I am showing my age. I originally got certified for middle and high school grades by taking the Praxis almost 15 years ago.
The part about the UGA grads taking the GACE numerous times is entirely true. Many of my UGA graduate peers didn’t pass the Praxis on their first or second attempts 15 years ago.
My exeprience with both tests is they covered content at the most basic levels. No true rigor from either certification test.
It is also true that I read through the study guide the night before the test and passed with high scores. The test didn’t cover anything more than basic education theory and content a middle school student could pass.
What Goes Around Comes Around
January 30th, 2011
11:12 am
@Joe 6-Pack Public January 30th, 2011 9:13 am
Your comments sounds like a man who is uneducated, immoral, and a racist. Why do “YOU” people have to always bring up President Obama and Michal Vick. You will never be on the level of President Obama or Michael Vick. STOP BEING JEALOUS OF SUCCESSFUL BLACK MEN. You had 300 years to be where they are today.
GET OVER IT!!!!
I have more respect for them than I do for you!!!
What Goes Around Comes Around
January 30th, 2011
11:24 am
@Chris (A RACIST DUMMY)
ALL BRAINS ARE THE SAME COLOR you idiot!!!!
“I.Q. difference has environmental, not genetic, causes. And it should encourage us, as a society, to see that all children receive ample opportunity to develop their minds.”
Fire Bad Teachers
January 30th, 2011
11:25 am
Does anyone know where the GACE pass rates are reported and if they are reported by college?
What Goes Around Comes Around
January 30th, 2011
11:35 am
@BravesFan79 January 29th, 2011 3:41 pm
I REPEAT – THE BRAIN HAS NO COLOR . Stop spewing your racist comments. When you stand in judgement on judgement day, tell God “teaching your kids white racial pride is just as important as Mexicans teaching their kids Mexican pride.”
He will respond – “WHAT ABOUT MY BLACK KIDS?”
Dekalb Teacher
January 30th, 2011
12:15 pm
I’m confused. Why aren’t we starting at the beginning (headstart and title 1 use in elementary schools) instead of looking at the end (a career in a classroom )and just hoping that with the right “mentor” and lots of “encouragement,” these black males(or any socioeconomically and academically disadvantaged)will wind up teaching?
Has Arne Duncan talked at all about revamping Headstart Programs (Maureen, I hope you ask about this)? According to the NYT last fall, there are only two good headstart programs in the country, yet we keep pouring money into these programs. Title 1 funds are equally mispent. According to Jonathan Kozol, since its inception in the late 1960s, title 1 funds have done nothing to improve (at least in any meaningful, measurable way) education for the economically deprived, yet we continue to channel money into this equally ineffective “program” (which appears to have little to no governance if you judge its worthiness in Dekalb).
APS Teacher for now
January 30th, 2011
1:21 pm
@Dekalb Teacher…good points about Headstart. I can’t remember the name of the program now that Ronald Reagan cut out that taught people trades and got them a job after high school. It kept Black young men and women off the street. I remember now…CEATA. I think it paid them while they learned. APS cuts down on Choral, Drama and music programs and wonders about gangs. Everybody can’t play basketball and football. What happened to the Scouts. They wouldn’t be lame if they were started early in most schools. We need safe places for kids and their brothers and sisters to go together with safe transportation home. Girls and Boys Clubs are great but they’re not reaching enough kids.
African American kids are not all “ghetto” and some of them are brought up in middle and upper income homes. A comparison of those test scores for the brain dead gentleman to the general population might be quite an eye opener. I passed the TCT on my first try with A’s across the board in all subjects. I’m Black, so what? My sister had to take the National One in North Carolina and she passed it with flying colors. I went through the Grad teacher program at GSU, and my White and Black professors were the best. She went through the one at Spelman which was tops at one time. It ain’t about the color of your skin. We humans can be so trifling at times. And, we’re all on this planet together.
Disgruntled Employee
January 30th, 2011
1:48 pm
As a black male teacher I have seen the difference that I make in the classroom. However, to ask a black male who may be the first in his family to go to college to be a martyr by becoming a teacher is asking too much. We need to build wealth in the black community and education as a profession is not the way to do that. Treat education as a true profession and you will get better teachers of all colors. Until then if I’m a black male talented in science and math, I’m never going to be an educator.
What Goes Around Comes Around
January 30th, 2011
2:01 pm
@Disgruntled Employee January 30th, 2011 1:48 pm
I understand and agree with your feelings. Black male teachers are under appreciated. They are often used as disciplinarians in the schools. They are not valued for their talent. I agree that if a black male who is talented in science and math he can make more money in another field.
Let those who have a passion for teaching teach.
Peter Smagorinsky
January 30th, 2011
2:49 pm
@Fire Bad Teachers,
Please note that I am trying to explain some reasons for why things are as they are, not assign blame as you interpret me to say.
Kah
January 30th, 2011
5:47 pm
To: APS Teacher and Dekalb Teacher,
Thanks for bringing up the Headstart &Title 1 programs…The federal government pumps a lot of money in these programs. It is like putting money in a bag with a “hole” in it.
Headstart is nothing but “babysitting”. I heard in Georgia Headstart programs the teachers can not put up alphabet charts and if a child calls a “circle” a “square”, the teacher can not teach what is correct. Even worse, there are no consequences for children misbehaving. For example, if a child hits another child, the teacher should say to the hitter: make better choices…what…
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Ami
January 30th, 2011
9:56 pm
I am not sure if the color of their skin is important or as Dr. King put it..the content of their character. I think students should have a male role model as they travel through their school career. In my small town, many of the male teachers only teach a few years before they are the up and coming administrators. There are only a handful of early elementary male teachers. The majority of middle and high school male teachers are coaches or administrators. I have known a few male teachers leave the profession because of budget cuts and begin making more money pursuing other career opportunities. Students need to be influenced by male and female adults. With the cuts in education, I am afraid we will lose many great educators both male and female.
ScienceTeacher671
January 30th, 2011
10:36 pm
“Back in the day” we never had any male elementary school teachers. NEVER. In some of the schools, even the principals were female.
But almost all of us had Daddy at home, and Uncles and Grandpas and maybe even Granduncles just down the road or sometimes also living in our home.
And they all loved us, but they also all knew how to make sure we behaved ourselves.
Dr NO
January 31st, 2011
7:24 am
“Arne Duncan on Monday: We need more black men in classrooms”
Well then I guess Mr Duncan is a bigot or would seem the case. Where the same statement made with the substitution of white or oriental or indian for black then all the world would be in a turmoil.
There would be a verbal pandemonium, a tsunami of havoc would crash upon the shores logic.
NO…more black men is not the answer…so sorry “Uncle Arne”, try again.
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Dr NO
January 31st, 2011
10:20 am
That little kid is thinking to himself…”Who is this Duncan man? He keep saying 1 + 1 = 11 but I think it = 2.”
EducationCEO
January 31st, 2011
11:47 am
*coughs* Didn’t we hear this last year? Just checking….
Burroughston Broch
January 31st, 2011
12:32 pm
Mr. Duncan is as full of impossible aspirations and plentiful excuses as his boss, President Obama.
What we first need is more discipline and respect in the classroom, regardless of race. I graduated from a Georgia HS as a member of the last lily-white class. The next year the colored schools (the name then) were closed and their students absorbed into the former lily-white schools. I substituted in these schools five years later after graduating university and saw a tremendous change – discipline had gone to hell in a handbasket. A few classes taught me that I didn’t want to substitute any more. All of the problems I experienced were from black kids, and it sounds as if the problem has become endemic to all races now.
Until we are ready to bite the bullet and get rid of the troublemakers, we will continue to have this problem, regardless of the sex and race of the teacher.
Ivan Cohen
January 31st, 2011
1:33 pm
Why are more black men needed in the classrooms? Because communities inhabited by blacks don’t have enough males or none at all. Prison scooped up some because of bad choices. From Monday to Friday where school hours can range from 7:30am to 3:00pm or 8:00am to 2:30pm, the influence of these black men in the classroom will have limitations and frustrations. They cannot take the black male students home with them and the students will not have the presence of black male teachers on the weekends. Diversification in the occupations is needed. For those males who choose the teaching profession, may they be blessed however this society does black males as a whole an injustice by shoe horning them into one profession because there is a void in the lives of black male students. We need more black men in the Chambers of Commerce in every nook and cranny of Georgia. We need more black men on the boards of directors. The color of their skin is important. Black men are not just needed in the classrooms…they are needed in the principal’s office.
Jeff Artis
January 31st, 2011
2:58 pm
Why don’t Black men become teachers? Three reasons. 1) Black men can make more money doing other things in other fields. 2) We say we want strong Black men in the classroom. But we turn around and complain when those strong Black male teachers demand academic excellence by making students come to class on time, making students do the work and making student act right while in school. 3) Black teachers, in general, always seem to get the so-called “problem” students that White teachers don’t get leading to burnout. I am a Black male teacher. I love my job. I look forward to going to work everyday. But, I also understand why Black men say, “No thank you,” when it comes to getting a job in education. I had a dollar for everytime someone said I was too hard or too demanding, I could retire. You can’t have it both ways.
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Terrence Cole
January 31st, 2011
8:14 pm
I feel as a black educated black man that if we as black men were closer to our young to guild them through this part of there lives that we would have a better out come with our children when the become teens, as well as into adulthood! you cant be something you dont know how to be.
@BlackWebSeries
January 31st, 2011
9:56 pm
So what do the HBCUs have to say about this?
Kalonji
February 1st, 2011
1:29 am
We certainly do need more African American men in the classroom! I’ve supported Philadelphia’s system for nine years and quite often not only are you disrespected by students and families but administration is insensitive as well. With the rise of the internet I suggest every parent play a proactive role! Don’t expect the system alone to educate your child. A plethora of information is available here and once you embrace the process of education you should be able to supplement your child’s education regardless! But that requires a parent who’s involved from conception with their child and most times that is lacking in the urban setting. During my early years in between general housewife responsibilities, Mom provided me the basics of reading and writing before I entered the system and I think that initial boost had a tremendous impact on me and that most children will benefit from that. READING IS FUNDAMENTAL!
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