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White Teachers Thought They Were the Solution
FrontPage Mag
Colin Flaherty
3/24/2014
Excerpt:
Nobody works harder or spends more money to elect liberals than teachers and their labor unions.
But these same elected officials are now asking the one question that teachers never thought they would hear: “Why are you so racist?”
The question was posed last week following a Department of Education study about the educational and disciplinary differences between white and black students. “This critical report shows that racial disparities in school discipline policies are not only well-documented among older students, but actually begin during preschool,” said Attorney General Eric Holder. “This Administration is moving aggressively to disrupt the school-to-prison pipeline in order to ensure that all of our young people have equal educational opportunities.”
The Department of Education has held since 2009 that any disparity in discipline or education achievement between white and black students is the result of racial discrimination. The President often refers to this racial disparity.
But here’s the catch: Most teachers are white, female, liberal and supporters of President Obama. They thought they were the solution. Turns out they were the problem.
Glenn Singleton is one of the people in charge of solving the problem of racial disparity. In hundreds of school districts around the country, his company has been hired to show this cohort of young, white, liberal and female teachers how they are racist; how their racism is responsible for the achievement gap; and how they have to admit their own racism in a series of “Courageous Conversations” if they ever want to be successful educating black students.
Or if they want to keep their jobs.
To his credit, Singleton is not shy about identifying the problems or solutions: “Racism” plays a primary role in the struggle of black students to achieve at higher levels, he says.
And for all the well-meaning folks who insist on explaining racial differences in education with all the usual socio-economic factors — such as income, family structure, school finance, class size, black culture and on and on and on — Singleton has a message: Get real.
“We have found this kind of blaming to be insufficient at best and destructive at worst when trying to address racial achievement disparity,” he said in his best-selling book Courageous Conversations. “The racial achievement gap exists and persists because fundamentally, schools are not designed to educate people of color.”
There are 300 more pages of that. And dozens of others who write similar books about similar ways to eliminate white racism as the cause of black disparity. These books act as manuals for consultants in hundreds of school districts across the country.
In Washington, D.C. in December, an official of a teachers union tried to explain to a national gathering of black elected officials why white teachers are so problematic for black students:
“We can’t just give them six weeks of training and think they are able to educate our children,” said Marietta English, president of the Baltimore teachers union and vice president of the American Federation of Teachers. “There’s a lot of cultural differences that they don’t understand. If you don’t grow up in the neighborhood, you don’t understand it when we say ‘WASSUP.’ They don’t understand that.”
Singleton says that white teachers have a hard time reaching black students because black people talk about “racial matters daily, if only among themselves.” But white people “are conditioned not to do that.”
When Eric Holder became Attorney General in 2009, he famously said that Americans were cowards about race. Many people did not really know what he meant. But Glenn Singleton did: White people have to be courageous enough to admit how much their racism has ruined black people by giving them an inferior education.
Some white teachers have a different point of view: They see black school officials ignoring black violence and lawlessness in schools because they do not want to “criminalize” students. Trayvon Martin is the most famous example of that.
Trayvon was caught with stolen goods and burglary tools but was never arrested because of that policy. In South Philadelphia High School, black students harassed, assaulted and tortured Asian students every day for years. The black principal said they did not alert police because they did not want to criminalize the students.
For all the talk about the so-called disparity in punishment black students receive in school, no one was talking about the victims. The students who could not learn. The students who suffered the assaults. And the teachers from schools all over the country who every day try to create order out of constant chaos. Sometimes at risk to their own safety.
.......................................
View the complete article at:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/col...-the-solution/
FrontPage Mag
Colin Flaherty
3/24/2014
Excerpt:
Nobody works harder or spends more money to elect liberals than teachers and their labor unions.
But these same elected officials are now asking the one question that teachers never thought they would hear: “Why are you so racist?”
The question was posed last week following a Department of Education study about the educational and disciplinary differences between white and black students. “This critical report shows that racial disparities in school discipline policies are not only well-documented among older students, but actually begin during preschool,” said Attorney General Eric Holder. “This Administration is moving aggressively to disrupt the school-to-prison pipeline in order to ensure that all of our young people have equal educational opportunities.”
The Department of Education has held since 2009 that any disparity in discipline or education achievement between white and black students is the result of racial discrimination. The President often refers to this racial disparity.
But here’s the catch: Most teachers are white, female, liberal and supporters of President Obama. They thought they were the solution. Turns out they were the problem.
Glenn Singleton is one of the people in charge of solving the problem of racial disparity. In hundreds of school districts around the country, his company has been hired to show this cohort of young, white, liberal and female teachers how they are racist; how their racism is responsible for the achievement gap; and how they have to admit their own racism in a series of “Courageous Conversations” if they ever want to be successful educating black students.
Or if they want to keep their jobs.
To his credit, Singleton is not shy about identifying the problems or solutions: “Racism” plays a primary role in the struggle of black students to achieve at higher levels, he says.
And for all the well-meaning folks who insist on explaining racial differences in education with all the usual socio-economic factors — such as income, family structure, school finance, class size, black culture and on and on and on — Singleton has a message: Get real.
“We have found this kind of blaming to be insufficient at best and destructive at worst when trying to address racial achievement disparity,” he said in his best-selling book Courageous Conversations. “The racial achievement gap exists and persists because fundamentally, schools are not designed to educate people of color.”
There are 300 more pages of that. And dozens of others who write similar books about similar ways to eliminate white racism as the cause of black disparity. These books act as manuals for consultants in hundreds of school districts across the country.
In Washington, D.C. in December, an official of a teachers union tried to explain to a national gathering of black elected officials why white teachers are so problematic for black students:
“We can’t just give them six weeks of training and think they are able to educate our children,” said Marietta English, president of the Baltimore teachers union and vice president of the American Federation of Teachers. “There’s a lot of cultural differences that they don’t understand. If you don’t grow up in the neighborhood, you don’t understand it when we say ‘WASSUP.’ They don’t understand that.”
Singleton says that white teachers have a hard time reaching black students because black people talk about “racial matters daily, if only among themselves.” But white people “are conditioned not to do that.”
When Eric Holder became Attorney General in 2009, he famously said that Americans were cowards about race. Many people did not really know what he meant. But Glenn Singleton did: White people have to be courageous enough to admit how much their racism has ruined black people by giving them an inferior education.
Some white teachers have a different point of view: They see black school officials ignoring black violence and lawlessness in schools because they do not want to “criminalize” students. Trayvon Martin is the most famous example of that.
Trayvon was caught with stolen goods and burglary tools but was never arrested because of that policy. In South Philadelphia High School, black students harassed, assaulted and tortured Asian students every day for years. The black principal said they did not alert police because they did not want to criminalize the students.
For all the talk about the so-called disparity in punishment black students receive in school, no one was talking about the victims. The students who could not learn. The students who suffered the assaults. And the teachers from schools all over the country who every day try to create order out of constant chaos. Sometimes at risk to their own safety.
.......................................
View the complete article at:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/col...-the-solution/