Rodney Pierce is a seventh-grade teacher in North Carolina. He writes here on the Public Voices, Public Schools site sponsored by the Network for Public Education.
He writes:
“These are all our children. We will profit by, or pay for, whatever they become.”
Though made over 30 years ago by African American writer and social critic James Baldwin, this statement still emphasizes the choice that sits before us as a nation.
The choice of whether or not we make the investment in our public schools to the benefit of our students.
While that investment can be presented as one of physical capital, i.e., real estate, equipment, inventory, etc., the more significant expenditure is that of human capital, which is namely teachers.
From student performance and achievement, their social and emotional well-being, or the development of non-cognitive skills, a wealth of research shows the impact of teachers on student outcomes.
And if, like Baldwin, we believe these are “all our children,” we should be deeply concerned about the status of Black boys.
Looking at my state of North Carolina, Black male students in 2019 ranked last or near the bottom in Reading and Mathematics scores among 4th, 8th and 12th graders (NAEP). They made up the lowest percentage of students identified as Academically and Intellectually Gifted (AIG) despite making up a higher percentage of male students overall (13 percent) than American Indian, Hispanic and Asian males combined. Black males had the highest rate of short-term and long-term suspensions, the fourth highest dropout rate and were placed more frequently in ALP (Alternative Learning Programs) than any other student groups. Black students as a whole are much more likely than their White counterparts to be arrested as they made up 49 percent of juvenile complaints at school.
These dismal educational scenarios lead to even more somber results in their lives, as Black males in North Carolina have one of the highest unemployment rates, one of the lowest life expectancies and the highest incarceration rate (49 percent of all state inmates as of December 2021).
Despite these grim statistics, the plight of Black male P-12 students can be alleviated by making the aforementioned investment in the recruitment AND retention of Black male teachers.
Research indicates Black male students having Black male teachers leads to lower dropout rates, fewer disciplinary issues, more positive views of schooling, better test scores and increased college aspirations. Our very presence undermines Black male stereotypes and we are more likely to be familiar with the cultural needs of our Black male students, as we were once these students ourselves. These students identify with us, and are able to see themselves working later in life as educated professionals. Black students taught by Black teachers are three times more likely to be assigned to AIG services than those taught by non-Black teachers and are more likely to take AP (Advanced Placement) courses taught by Black teachers.
Students of all races benefit in that they not only have lower likelihoods of discipline when taught by a Black male teacher, but the social and emotional impact of our presence lessens the possibility of those students developing implicit bias as adults. Simply put, seeing Black men in positions of authority helps all students develop dispositions for not only civic life but the workforce. In several models controlling for student, teacher and school conditions, researchers have continuously found students expressed more favorable perceptions of Black male teachers than non-Black ones.
But there’s an impediment to these benefits of having Black men in P-12 classrooms.
In North Carolina, Black male teachers made up only 3% of teachers in 2017-18. We make up only 2% nationwide.
How do we solve this?
By making that investment.
The model is already available from groups and organizations like Call Me MISTER (South Carolina), the He Is Me Institute, Profound Gentlemen (Charlotte, NC), the BOND Project, the Center for Black Educator Development, the Boston Public Schools Male Educators of Color Program, etc.
If you want to recruit, develop, retain and ultimately, empower Black male teachers, you need to listen to the Black men who run these entities. Unfortunately, our country doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to that.
But if we don’t make the investment now, we will be making the investment later when it comes to Black male outlooks in unemployment, incarceration and health (life expectancies).
“These are all our children. We will profit by, or pay for, whatever they become.” Let’s ensure that we profit.
Rodney D. Pierce is a seventh-year middle school Social Studies teacher in eastern North Carolina. He was the 2019 North Carolina Council for the Social Studies Teacher of the Year and the inaugural Teacher Fellow for the NC Equity Fellowship through the Center for Racial Equity in Education (CREED). He is a Fellow of Carolina Public Humanities, the UNC-Chapel Hill Southern Oral History Program, and the NC Public School Forum’s Education Policy Fellowship.
Pierce has appeared on MSNBC’s The Reidout and the Tamron Hall Show on ABC to speak about the teaching of American history in public schools. An avid historian, his research on re-segregation in his native Halifax County was featured in the Washington Post.
He serves on the Governor’s Teacher Advisory Committee.
Representation matters. All students benefit when they see diverse competent leadership in a school. As a nation we need to work harder to help Black boys become responsible citizens. Incarceration rates remain high for Black men in our country, although numbers have started to decline somewhat. College education rates among Black males remain low as well. School districts have a difficult time attracting good Black male teachers to their schools. Since teaching is such a low wage, low status profession these days, it is difficult to attract any college students to education these days.
Absolutely – who could disagree.
However – like the rest of us – is it realistic to think that droves of talented black males want to go into what is our current state of public education? – given all that we discuss on this site. Rather than say . . . . . . . go to law school, become an engineer…. programer……. fill in the blanks.
Thanks to the Network for Public Education – true representation is critical for a nation advanced by diversity.
Melinda Gates could turn her Foundation toward enhancing the path of Black educators. Her money, currently spent on people of color (also whites) who implement and promote the taking of community assets (local public schools) for the benefit of Wall St. and tech moguls, should be redirected.
In publicly funded and philanthropic organizations, the hiring of Black and White ivy leaguers should be limited to match their percentage of the total university grad population.
If wealthy individuals wanted to promote equity in education, they could offer scholarships to Black students that agree to teach in urban schools for at least five years or some other such incentive that would attract Black men to teaching. Unless some type of incentive can attract Black and brown students, the numbers will remain low.
In my district we had a “Future Teachers of America” club in the high school. The union promoted this club, and teachers contributed each year to a scholarship that would be available to a graduating senior that intended to pursue education as a career. If we need a diverse workforce in education, we need to incentivize education as a career path for young people.
New York City funds “Men in Education Teach,” freshman and sophomore in the 4-year City University (CUNY) are recruited to enter a teacher preparation program, a steady pipeline into schools
It’s difficult to talk about the shortage of black men in teaching without also talking about the abysmal and still-growing gap between boys (especially including black boys) and girls in academic outcomes. How can we help our boys?
More active and play-based, nature-based learning in the early grades and throughout K-12 – setting more boys up for a sense of belonging and success from the start. More hands on connected learning while slowly integrating academic content and skills.
Catching childhood trauma early and supporting nurturing parenting practices that go hand and hand with strong education programs.
Less emphasis and focus on spending $$ to provide bits of data to support tech and edu companies. Shift resources to support engaging and connected programs, apprenticeships . . . .
That’s a start.
Ask them …. and give thought to their responses
How can we help black boys grow up to become black teachers?
Restoring a stable, two-parent family unit would be a logical start.
The fact that over 75% of poor black children are growing up in fatherless homes is a major obstacle for black boys in particular.
Despite what many may argue, voicing serious concern about the disproportionate percentage of poor, black, single mother families is neither racist nor is it sexist. Those who choose to deny the debilitating effects of this problem will have a lot of trouble answering the question, “How are the children from poor, black, single mother families doing?”
Some will argue that it’s the poverty. But has poverty caused the breakdown of the two-parent family? – or is the breakdown of the two-parent family one of the root causes of poverty? Logic dictates that it’s the latter.
A fascinating historical perspective on this topic:
https://www.city-journal.org/html/black-family-40-years-lies-12872.html
An excerpt:
More than most social scientists, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, steeped in history and anthropology, understood what families do. They “shape their children’s character and ability,” he wrote. “By and large, adult conduct in society is learned as a child.” What children learned in the “disorganized home[s]” of the ghetto, as he described through his forest of graphs, was that adults do not finish school, get jobs, or, in the case of men, take care of their children or obey the law. Marriage, on the other hand, provides a “stable home” for children to learn common virtues. Implicit in Moynihan’s analysis was that marriage orients men and women toward the future, asking them not just to commit to each other but to plan, to earn, to save, and to devote themselves to advancing their children’s prospects. Single mothers in the ghetto, on the other hand, tended to drift into pregnancy, often more than once and by more than one man, and to float through the chaos around them. Such mothers are unlikely to “shape their children’s character and ability” in ways that lead to upward mobility. Separate and unequal families, in other words, meant that blacks would have their liberty, but that they would be strangers to equality. Hence Moynihan’s conclusion: “a national effort towards the problems of Negro Americans must be directed towards the question of family structure.”
There is also a soaring rate of one-parent families among whites.
I don’t know of a government policy that can compel people to marry and not get divorced.
This is a favorite theme among right-wingers, but they offer no solutions.
Do you have one?
Thank you Dr. Ravitch for that response. While I partially understand the notion, I think it’s a very presumptive to say that the solution is a two parent family. As you noted, there is an increase in single family homes in White families as well. The solution should be in providing support tp all families. And while I do not want to take this post in an extreme about abortion, I always find it fascinating that the similar groups that may be pro-life (in insisiting that babies are born) are often the same groups that want to take away support for those single-parent families. You cannot have it both ways
Former Secretary of Education William Bennett used to have a radio show. He proposed on air that the solution to crime was to abort black babies. This caused a huge reaction and he was roundly condemned for making a racist statement. He was taken off the air. It was later revealed that he had a serious gambling addiction. He lost millions at the gaming tables. He is also loudly anti-abortion. Lots of hypocrisy there.
Thank you Diane. The issue is not marriage. It’s parenting – which can be done in a nurturing and healthy manner in many different arrangements. Is it typically easier when there are 2 nurturing, well prepared adults supporting the children and each other – absolutely. The emphasis should be on how we support nurturing parenting practices and healthy development in early childhood from birth. And how to embed healthy family planning decision making within society.
My comment was in response to this post regarding the dearth of black male teachers, so the “soaring rate of white children in single parent homes” is not relevant. And despite the “soaring” rates of single parenting among whites, the problem of fatherless, black single-mother families remains highly disproportionate.
Wanting more black male teachers so that they can act as positive role models for young black male students is supported by research, common sense, and even left leaning progressives. Why then would any left leaning progressive possibly think that the absence of black fathers as role models for their own children is unimportant or a problem to ignore or even deny?
It is impossible to legislate fatherhood or marriage, yet to deny the importance of a two-parent nuclear families in the lives of all children, especially young black males growing up in poverty is simply irresponsible and counter-productive.
Here’s an idea from our former (apparently right-wing) president that proposes some practical solutions:
Obama announces fatherhood initiative | TheHill
I’m no right-winger, but my father and I spent a combined 74 years teaching poor children of color. We got to see the negative impacts of the disintegrating black family up close and personal on a daily basis.
Here’s the link:
https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/104421-obama-announces-fatherhood-initiative-
And what came of that?
What has come from ignoring or denying the problem?
My solution would be to reverse the debilitating progressive welfare policies that may have been well intentioned but instead actively encouraged the disintegration of the two-parent black family unit.
Legislation that financially promotes marriage instead of incentivizing the opposite is the best solution I can think of.
Rage…how would we legislate promoting marriage. AND if we did that, would that mean that anyone who would get a divorce would then be penalized as well? And then if you are remarried you then would get incentives. Encouraging marriage is one thing – encouraging people to remain in marriages that may be unhealthy (or to get married as a financial incentive) is NOT the way to go. I understand your perspective – I have seen young mothers have children and then those children struggle, and then the cycle of poverty continues. That being said, I don’t believe that our country should go so far as legislating marriage. States are already trying to legislate that women must be forced to have children if they are at least 9 weeks (or even 15 weeks pregnant). And yet we are not wililing to provide legislation for those single mothers to be able to adequately support their child? And if you say they can place those children up for adoption…RIGHT…I don’t see a long line for children in foster homes waiting to be adopted.
Diane: tax credits.
Wait – Tax credits if you are married? So again, if you get divorced you would lose those tax credits? I also wonder – how many would get married for those tax credits?
Low income married couples may not benefit from tax credits???
Providing UBI would be a great incentive.
@beachteach I concur – no one would disagree with this statement. However, the question is HOW do we make it happen. I’m going to take a small sample – secondary math teachers. In many states, one must have a math degree (or take higher level math classes) to earn certificaton. When I worked in teacher ed, we have very few Black teachers in our program. Perhaps one or two. And those that were in the program often struggled with the higher level math. Or they had to take many more courses. Why? Perhaps because Black students are often not provided access to higher level math in high school. I’ll add one more thing – teaching needs to be considered as valuable as other professions – and right now it’s not. Finally, let’s consider some non-traditional pathways. I recently got together with a former HS student of mine – he has been working as a special education paraprofessional but found an online teacher prepartion program he could afford to help him earn his certificaiton. We need to be more creative in our solutions.
You’re the same broken record that Gates is.
Math is deliberately set up as the entry gate because the qualification skews demographically.
Identify the number of American jobs that require various levels of math. Stop pretending calculus is mandatory for economic success in the U.S. or necessary for jobs.
Linda – we are talking about HS math teachers who could in theory teach Calculus. While I do think that some college level classes such as abstract Algebra may not be needed for teaching HS math i do think calculus should be a course all HS math teachers take.
Linda, such an astute observation. Thank you.
You might be interested in this article:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/to-keep-students-in-stem-fields-lets-weed-out-the-weed-out-math-classes/
I believe both you and Linda are confusing any points here. So I’ll clarify again. The article (which I’ve read and I do agree with, to a degree) says we should not use specific courses to weed out StEM fields. Okay. Sure. We are talking about general STEM. AND I also concur that districts should reconsider what college level math classes are required for HS math teachers. That said I’ll counter you supposed point with this question: what level math classes do you (or Linds) believe a high school math teacher should take to be qualified to teach HS math? And let’s take it out of math for a moment. Would you say it would be okay for a HS English teacher to have never read Shakespeare or some of the classics but then teach HS English? Or that a HS history teacher has never taken American or World History? My point in the math pathway discussion for Black and Brown students is that math is often an area where students of color may have the potential to succeed in upper level math classes but aren’t given the chance due to one factor or another. Thus even if they wanted to be teachers they already are stating behind and struggle to complete even the basic requirements to be a teacher. This scenario sets up situations where even those who want to teach find it challenging to do so.
Interesting discussion of the math problem in teaching. My story may be of some use.
I taught math for 29 years in a small rural high school. My degree was in history, but until math teachers began to desire to be in our school, I was all we had to offer. My math background was very sketchy, I had the requisite hours, but I always struggled and was never the best math student. In my career, teaching math was job security. I was, after taking enough math, largely self-taught both in math and in methods.
All that said, I was very successful for all those years. At one time half our math department was my old students. I have helped to produce my share of engineers over those 29 years.
The thing is, we need people of a community to teach children who will come back to the community and slowly raise its status. We do not need to be great mathematically. We need to produce children who grow up and yell their children that math is a thing that inspires and delights.
For this we need everybody, for everybody deserves to have role models.
Roy while your story is quite interesting I have one point and one question: The point – I hope you would agree (perhaps not) that one case of a small rural school, while interesting, cannot necessarily be extrapolated to other scenarios. My question: while you say you were quite successful (and use evidence of those coming back to teach and some engineers), I’m honestly looking back are there moments when your lack of a math background may have inadvertently hindered students? When you didn’t know something you should have? I’m guessing from
your stories here that if had questions on something you’d find out about it. But the fact is many teachers I’ve worked with don’t do they or won’t do that. I’ve seen many teachers give students incorrect math information or teach math poorly due to a lack of content knowledge.
Roy – one other thought here. You say we need people to inspire snd be role models (that I 100% agree with!) But to say that a math teacher doesn’t need to be strong mathematically – this to me goes to the main purpose of school – isn’t it to pass knowledge? I’ve seen too many examples of teachers who want to be the well liked teacher, who administrators will say how great this teacher is with students, but then in the end the students do poorly because well they never really learned the math. How is that a good thing? You need both components!