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