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right, I get it, but it still comes down to numbers.
Again, I don’t think it is coming down to an even amount or even in line with state public school enrollment, but more in terms of an increase. For instance, I know Syracuse City SD has been looking in recent years to increase cultural diversity in terms of its teaching ranks, as roughly about 89% of the teacher were/are white, yet only about 20-25% of the students are. I don’t think it is a matter of flipping the percentages, but again more in line with increasing numbers or at least purposely recruiting a wider net of candidates.
This also will depend on the district, which can’t be stressed enough, as there are so many in the state and the demographics vary so much between them.
This doesn’t even get into the aspect of interest, availability, requirements, etc. This is regardless of the background of the teacher.
Math doesn’t lie. You just don’t have the numbers for widespread diversity.
Numbers dictate majority vs minority.
There are just way too many white folk to have “diversity”.
It’s all identity politics. They use race and “diversity” as a marketing scheme to get votes.
I just don’t understand why people can’t grasp that concept. We are all being played.
If these jerks would stop with this crap and just let people be people and not pit us against each other, we might just exist a little better, but that would be a bad business model for the politicians.
If it was 50/50 they would say we're divided. There are just way to many "journalists" that enjoy spreading dissention rather than facts. Yes, we are being played. They don't want us to get along
This isn't a gap that will/can be solved over night. In an ideal world, racial demographics would be as irrelevant as how many Irish or German-American teachers there are or how many Catholic or Methodist teachers there are. But, obviously in the real world racial identities are still fairly important. Most families, friendships, neighborhoods are still pretty racial segregated. While I don't like the idea that you can only identify with people who "look like you", I can see problems with students never having a teacher of their own racial background or alternately, only having teachers of their own racial background.
So given that reality, I think some efforts to ensure a "diverse" teacher corps is something that is worth striving for.
I think there are basically two driving factors diving the racial divergence between students and teachers: 1) A long term class factor about who goes into teaching. Teaching tends to be a middle-class profession that is mostly composed of people from middle class backgrounds. Given the racial socioeconomic gaps, this tends to create an obvious gap between white and other races. It also likely creates a less obvious "class gap" among whites where we would probably see stats like "20% of students are poor whites" while only "10% of teachers are from poor white families". 2) A more recent trend toward a less white student body. This long standing gap explains a lot of the black-white teacher-student gap. This has been magnified in recent years by an acceleration in shifting demographics. Teaching tends to turn over slowly, while student populations can change rapidly given differences in birth rates, migration flows, etc. Over time, these trends may even out a little, but there will be a significant lag before it narrows.
I think a solution would look something like: 1) Financial assistance to encourage people from lower income backgrounds to train to be teachers. It's not just tuition, but also student-teaching requires cars, professional attire, etc. Maybe make student-teaching "work study" type programs that pay a stipend to lower income students. 2) Recruitment and mentoring programs to encourage students from "under-represented backgrounds." These should start early and reach out to potential candidates in HS. 3) Targeted assistance programs to encourage students to teach in the districts they attended. This would help districts better reflect their communities. 4) Transparent hiring practices. Whether we admit to it or not, most of us have a tendency to favor people that we find relatable, be it ethnic background, alma mater, personality type, etc. We should make sure our hiring process is as fair and transparent as possible. We should try to evaluate who gets hired and if there are signs of bias.
None of these are a silver bullet and this can't realistically be fixed over night. As demographics continue to shift we can't just randomly fire teachers of Race B to bring in teachers of Race A. Politically, legally, and even (depending on your prospective) ethically we also can't just adopts overt racial quotas/preference on hiring. But, with a mix of strategies outlined above I think we can help even out the issues a bit.
^Great points and just to add to #2, recruiting from institutions where you could likely get teachers of particular backgrounds would help. Some examples of programs I thought of: https://education.howard.edu/
This isn't a gap that will/can be solved over night. In an ideal world, racial demographics would be as irrelevant as how many Irish or German-American teachers there are or how many Catholic or Methodist teachers there are. But, obviously in the real world racial identities are still fairly important. Most families, friendships, neighborhoods are still pretty racial segregated. While I don't like the idea that you can only identify with people who "look like you", I can see problems with students never having a teacher of their own racial background or alternately, only having teachers of their own racial background.
So given that reality, I think some efforts to ensure a "diverse" teacher corps is something that is worth striving for.
I think there are basically two driving factors diving the racial divergence between students and teachers: 1) A long term class factor about who goes into teaching. Teaching tends to be a middle-class profession that is mostly composed of people from middle class backgrounds. Given the racial socioeconomic gaps, this tends to create an obvious gap between white and other races. It also likely creates a less obvious "class gap" among whites where we would probably see stats like "20% of students are poor whites" while only "10% of teachers are from poor white families". 2) A more recent trend toward a less white student body. This long standing gap explains a lot of the black-white teacher-student gap. This has been magnified in recent years by an acceleration in shifting demographics. Teaching tends to turn over slowly, while student populations can change rapidly given differences in birth rates, migration flows, etc. Over time, these trends may even out a little, but there will be a significant lag before it narrows.
I think a solution would look something like: 1) Financial assistance to encourage people from lower income backgrounds to train to be teachers. It's not just tuition, but also student-teaching requires cars, professional attire, etc. Maybe make student-teaching "work study" type programs that pay a stipend to lower income students. 2) Recruitment and mentoring programs to encourage students from "under-represented backgrounds." These should start early and reach out to potential candidates in HS. 3) Targeted assistance programs to encourage students to teach in the districts they attended. This would help districts better reflect their communities. 4) Transparent hiring practices. Whether we admit to it or not, most of us have a tendency to favor people that we find relatable, be it ethnic background, alma mater, personality type, etc. We should make sure our hiring process is as fair and transparent as possible. We should try to evaluate who gets hired and if there are signs of bias.
None of these are a silver bullet and this can't realistically be fixed over night. As demographics continue to shift we can't just randomly fire teachers of Race B to bring in teachers of Race A. Politically, legally, and even (depending on your prospective) ethically we also can't just adopts overt racial quotas/preference on hiring. But, with a mix of strategies outlined above I think we can help even out the issues a bit.
Did you consider what the teachers union would have to say about this?
I was a teacher for years in Los Angeles and Houston. The truth is,black college graduates have many more opportunities to rise quickly in the ranks with much better pay and working conditions in other fields than to consider teaching as a career. I think this is a bigger issue than many realize.
I agree. I think the bigger imbalance is in some other urban and selective suburban school districts. As you mention, some districts are more in line than others.
I was a teacher for years in Los Angeles and Houston. The truth is,black college graduates have many more opportunities to rise quickly in the ranks with much better pay and working conditions in other fields than to consider teaching as a career. I think this is a bigger issue than many realize.
Good point. I think that plays a part in this, as some just go for other industries. I do believe some of this is due to the "teachers don't get paid much" talk that would go around at times, but looking at the pay of teachers in NY, that isn't true.
Again, I really think it comes down to where certain districts look to recruit teachers from and how/if they can get them into their district.
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