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The Race Gap Nobody Is Talking About Is in the Classroom
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The Race Gap Nobody Is Talking About Is in the Classroom
The Race Gap Nobody Is Talking About Is in the Classroom
Why you should care
For student performance — and well-being — the lack of nonwhite teachers is taking a toll.
By Carly Stern
The Daily DoseJAN 17 2019
John Alcox used to wait outside his kindergarten building before the bell rang. One morning, two older White students emerged from around the corner, yelling a slur at him. “We don’t want you here,” they said. He retorted before the boys slapped his lunch box out of his hand and pushed him to the ground. As the bell rang, the two ran off, and Alcox rose, brushing the dirt off his jacket.
For years, Alcox didn’t tell anyone about this encounter. In kindergarten, he didn’t see many people at school who looked like him: He was one of three Black students in the class at the predominantly White Park Circle Elementary in North Charleston, South Carolina. Ms. Amaker, in second grade, was the only Black teacher Alcox had between kindergarten and seventh grade.
And he noticed. “I became aware [of race] at an early age,” Alcox says, after a long pause. Would he have told his teacher if she were Black? He remains quiet for several moments. “I don’t know. I didn’t even tell my mother.” She would’ve been at school the next day if she’d known, he explains.
Alcox, now 52 and a teacher himself at Carrboro High School in North Carolina, wasn’t an anomaly in having few teachers of color during his early school years. Research suggests that as the student population grows increasingly diverse, the teacher workforce isn’t keeping pace.
Why you should care
For student performance — and well-being — the lack of nonwhite teachers is taking a toll.
By Carly Stern
The Daily DoseJAN 17 2019
John Alcox used to wait outside his kindergarten building before the bell rang. One morning, two older White students emerged from around the corner, yelling a slur at him. “We don’t want you here,” they said. He retorted before the boys slapped his lunch box out of his hand and pushed him to the ground. As the bell rang, the two ran off, and Alcox rose, brushing the dirt off his jacket.
For years, Alcox didn’t tell anyone about this encounter. In kindergarten, he didn’t see many people at school who looked like him: He was one of three Black students in the class at the predominantly White Park Circle Elementary in North Charleston, South Carolina. Ms. Amaker, in second grade, was the only Black teacher Alcox had between kindergarten and seventh grade.
And he noticed. “I became aware [of race] at an early age,” Alcox says, after a long pause. Would he have told his teacher if she were Black? He remains quiet for several moments. “I don’t know. I didn’t even tell my mother.” She would’ve been at school the next day if she’d known, he explains.
Alcox, now 52 and a teacher himself at Carrboro High School in North Carolina, wasn’t an anomaly in having few teachers of color during his early school years. Research suggests that as the student population grows increasingly diverse, the teacher workforce isn’t keeping pace.