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Minority teachers
underrepresented in Ohio schools
CLEVELAND,
May 26, 2008 (AP): Few teachers in Ohio are like Malik Daniels,
a black man who teaches first graders in suburban Cleveland
Heights.
In fact, just 2 percent of the nation's elementary school
teachers are black men and that number gets even smaller if only
the black men who teach the earliest grades are counted.
A
study released last fall by the Center for Teaching Quality in
North Carolina found that small percentage of minority teachers
is not limited to elementary schools. In fact, minorities make
up only about 6 percent of Ohio's teaching force.
Even in the big-city districts that have the highest
concentration of minority teachers, representation usually is
nowhere close to student enrollment.
In Cleveland, two-thirds of students are black as are one-third
of the teachers. Latinos make up nearly 15 percent of the
student population, but less than 4 percent of the teaching
force.
Nationally, only about 7 percent of teachers are black or
Latino, and data show that minority teachers are retiring faster
than they are being replaced by new minority teachers.
``It's an absolute crisis,'' said Harold Brown of KnowledgeWorks,
a Cincinnati-based foundation that specializes in education
reform. ``It's really bleak.''
Minority children now make up 14 percent of Ohio's 2 million
public school students. They are overrepresented in special
education programs and receive a disproportionate share of
suspensions and expulsions. And they are underrepresented in
honors and advanced placement programs.
To get more minority teachers, education schools are trying to
find a way to increase the number of blacks and other minorities
interested in teaching. In this spring's graduating class at
Youngstown State University, for example, only three of the 200
graduating education seniors are black.
The University of Cincinnati, Miami University, Xavier
University and the public school systems in Cincinnati and
nearby Princeton have formed a program funded with a $340,000
state grant called the Southwest Ohio Secondary Teaching
Academy. It is designed to groom minority math teachers for the
future.
A
diverse group of youngsters was brought together for two weeks
last summer at Miami and the University of Cincinnati.
Instructors continued to work with the students on Saturdays
through the school year.
``As an African-American, a male and a math teacher, I almost
feel an obligation to get more people interested in teaching,''
said one instructor, James Stallworth, a doctoral student at the
University of Cincinnati and a former Cincinnati math teacher.
Before other opportunities began to arise, teaching was one of
the few careers open to college-educated blacks.
``I think we have to excite the masses of African-American men
and women about teaching,'' Daniels said. ``It's a great,
honorable and knowing profession.''
Information from: The Plain Dealer,
http://www.cleveland.com
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