Effective teachers can change and save lives, but being a great teacher is hard.
The challenge is especially acute in our high-poverty, under-resourced public schools where teacher tenure is lowest. Black and brown students are twice as likely to attend one of these schools than their white peers. As nearly 80 percent of teachers are white, our newest educators often find themselves in a very different cultural context for the first time.
The result is often a gross underestimation of Black and Brown students’ academic abilities, misunderstanding and an inability to cope with what teachers perceive as “problem behavior”. This “culture shock” and racial bias drives many teachers out of schools educating Black and brown children as they escape to lower-poverty, whiter schools.
Many white teachers are clearly not adequately prepared to teach Black and Brown students. Our students are paying the price for the failures of our teacher-preparation programs. Changes to these programs that result in better education for Black and brown students are long overdue.
The solution is threefold. Our teacher preparation programs must engender cultural fluency; equip teachers with the skills to actually teach Black and CONTINUE READING: What's "Woke" And What's "Whack" About How Teachers Are Being Prepared? - Philly's 7th Ward