DOES A LACK OF MINORTY TEACHERS REALLY EXPLAIN THE DISPARITY IN TEST RESULTS?
The statistics elsewhere say no.
In Progressive Montgomery County Maryland just outside of DC, the diversity levels of teachers reflecting the students is one of the best on the east coast. All of the Federal Workers and their generous salaries keep the schools flush with money, yet they have the same issues. In one highly gifted course whites and asians secured 81% of the slots while blacks scored only 8%, despite the fact that there are significant African American Teachers and Administrators in the system and have been there for decades. The proposed solution was to do more outreach to minority parents to try and motivate them to enroll their children. They have seen improvment. This unspoken belief that perhaps the problem is not with diversifed teachers, but weak parenting makes sense. Perhaps part of the problem in the Charlottesville Albemarle area can be traced to the inherent lack of respect and suspicion shown to whites and authority in general by many blacks, especially those who support the likes of Wes Bellamy and Nikuyah Walker, who both have initiated full frontal attacks on an imagined white privilege agenda. To believe that we need to hire more black teachers instead of simply teaching equality to our children is the real racism that exists. Many Affirmative action programs have hurt minorites, by placing people in jobs they were not prepared for, with rules that made it impossible to demote or fire them when they failed, it has been more injurious to the hard working, educated blacks who DID do their jobs well, as they were falsely painted with the same brush. Good intentions aside. Realities need to be examined so we don’t repeat the past.
Perhaps both school systems should look at the successful black students for a common thread, and compare their home lives, background, and upbringing to those who fail to succeed. Is it poverty? Is it politics? Is it the damage done by teaching four year olds that whites are the enemy? Could it be the cultural choices they witness at home from their often single, and barely of age mothers? At some point if we really wish to help all children, we need to be honest about a lot of things, one of which that victimhood is taught, and that children who are taught to not succumb to a victimhood mentality succeed. The evidence is overwhelming. There are MORE Black Doctors Lawyers, Real Estate magnates, Stock brokers. IT people, and millionaires than ever before. It is important to note that sports figures, performers and Hollywood actors and actresses are not in that group for the purposes of this editorial. While they earned and fully deserve their wealth, we need to teach kids to put down a basketball or a boom box, and pick up a book.The odds of a major league contract or Hollywood break are limited. There are shortages of Doctors and IT people. The way out is Education, Education, Education, and this has been tried and true for centuries. It is too bad the race baiting cohorts in and around Charlottesville politics don’t understand that their ancestors were in a 250 year WAR to free themselves from not just chains, but from dependence on others for their well being. Slaves were mostly prohibited from educational opportunities, and when the chains were finally removed, the opportunites were still stifled. You can seek retribution or you can enjoy the freedom to advance yourself to a better place in life. This does not mean we forget, or even let go of the past. Tt means we work to educate the children to be more educated, more tolerant and less angry than their parents. It means we give them hope that the trajectory towards equality will be there if they participate by embracing the Constituion and what it stands for. Reject the militants in this town who cry racism at every turn. The statistics proved that the stop and frisk policy is not inherently racist, and the public deserves 100% transparency, but it is too late for most blacks who have heard a false prophet making outlandish allegations. Too many blacks were taught to believe anything that keeps them a victim. More black teachers in the school would be fine, but it is not the answer for the miseducated and brainwashed parents who are hurting instead of helping and don’t even know it.
The time has come to reexamine parents role in education and to hold them accountable for the young minds they send to school. This also means some whites need to lose their ignorant assumptions too. The system is broken, and our current leaders are lost balls in high weeds. (or worse)
