For decades now, I have been hearing the argument for appropriate gender and race staff ratios in the public schools. Apparently, we need more black teachers and more males in some of our schools. Apparently, the argument still exists, as supposedly there are too many white people and too many women.
A couple of months ago at the Equity and Excellence forum at Thomas Viaduct Middle School, an active parent in the PTA suggested that the principal, Shiney Ann John, should have hired more African American teachers. Ms. John’s response was that she tried to make the teacher community as diverse as possible, but she opted for the most qualified among the applicants.
Thomas Viaduct is a fairly new school, so Ms. John had the unique opportunity to craft the school as she best saw fit as the school’s inaugural principal. One of her many tasks included hiring new staff.
While I fully respect the desire of the parent, who is black, to have role models in front of her children who have the same racial and gender identity, I agree with Ms. John, that skills trump race and gender.
In a perfect situation, our children would receive a grade A education and there would be a representative staff mix that mimics the composition of the student population. This rarely happens. There are too many factors at play. If indeed there are enough minority teachers state-wide to have a good mix, that does not mean that one school system can get the mix right. And then, of course, you elementary teachers in elementary school, and middle school teachers in middle school, etc. There might be more males willing to teach at the high school level, but not at the elementary school level. Some African American teachers may lean towards working in districts with more need or with predominantly black student populations.
There are simply too many possible factors to enumerate. Of course, where we can hold the school system liable is in the case of outright discrimination. If hiring data suggests that among qualified applicants minority teachers are being eliminated from consideration, then, of course, there is a cause to be fought.
And while all of this data is being sorted, what do we do? First of all, I think that we should not lay all of the responsibility at the doorstep of school. At home, we can promote to our children the idea of education as something important and at the same time, encourage self-confidence. We can also become the primary teacher of our children, using the hired teachers and tutors as an extension of what we do with our own kids.
We should ensure that our children are studying and completing homework assignments, regardless of our work schedules. We should also consider ourselves the primary role models for our children. And if for some reason, the parental role model is not enough, we should also find religious and civic groups that mimic that racial, gender, professional, and social balance on which we want our children to focus.
Also, at many schools, there are minority liaisons on staff who are experts at helping students to connect. At TVMS Jose de la Mar and Vincent K. James are two such persons. Respectively, they work with Hispanic and Black students to encourage academic achievement as a primary objective.
Get PERKS and Support Community Journalism | SUBSCRIBE