Calling Black Men To The Blackboard
Our guest author today is Travis Bristol, former high school English teacher in New York City public schools, who is currently a clinical teacher educator with the Boston Teacher Residency program, as well as a fifth-year Ph.D. candidate at Teachers College, Columbia University. His research interests focus on the intersection of gender and race in organizations. Travis is a 2013 National Academy of Education/Spencer Dissertation Fellow.
W.E.B. Du Bois, the preeminent American scholar, suggested that the problem of the twentieth-century is the problem of the color-line. Without question, the problem of the 21st century continues to be the “color-line,” which is to say race. And so it is understandable why Cabinet members in the Obama administration continue to address the race question head-on, through policies that attempt to decrease systemic disparities between Latino and Black Americans when compared to White Americans.
Most recently, in August 2013, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced the Justice Department’s decision toreduce federal mandatory drug sentencing regulations. Holder called “shameful” the fact that “black male offenders have received sentences nearly 20 percent longer than those imposed on white males convicted of similar crimes.” Attempts, such as Holder’s, to reform the criminal justice system appear to be an acknowledgment that institutionalized racism influences how Blacks and Whites are sentenced.
The parallels between prisons and schools are well-documented. The term “school-to-prison pipeline” refers to the fact that many school systems are unable to provide struggling students with enough skills and support, thereby increasing their likelihood of entering correctional facilities. Those students most trapped in this pipeline are Black males. Given this reality, like Attorney General Holder, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan described a policy initiative aimed at improving the in- and out-of-school outcomes for Black boys: increase the number Black male teachers in U.S. public schools.
At a college commencement in December, 2011, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan noted that this shortage is endemic to the nation: “less than 15 percent of our teachers are black or Latino. It is especially troubling that less