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Home > Features > The View from Here: Part II
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The View from Here: Part II
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by Debra Ambush, Ph.D.
Watkins Mill High School
Maryland
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| | The following is part two in a series of three articles devoted to the need for professional development for minority teachers and the state of education in the United States for minority school children. Parts one and three of her article can be found below in "More."
Demanding Academic Rigor
When discussing the professional development needs of teachers of color, we must consider the complex and persistent problem of minority student underachievement, which calls for interventions that are tailored to the needs of students. Of every 100 white kindergarteners, 91 percent graduate from high school, 62 percent complete at least some college, and 30 percent obtain at least a bachelor's degree. Of every 100 African-American kindergarteners, 87 percent graduate from high school, 54 percent complete at least some college, and only 16 percent obtain at least a bachelor's degree.
Gary Orfield, in his report "Schools More Separate: Consequences of a Decade of Resegregation," suggests that minority students in segregated schools may be disadvantaged both in peer competitiveness and in level of instruction. Teachers are more likely to teach courses outside of their college course of study and have little experience. "This in turn means that there are not enough students ready for advanced and AP courses and that those opportunities are eliminated even for students who are ready because there are not sufficient students to fill a teacher's advanced classes," Orfield notes.
The "National Black Caucus of State Legislators Committee on Elementary and Secondary Education Report" (2001) documents disparities between AP courses offered in wealthier high schools and those offered in urban, underserved, and/or rural high schools. The number of African-American and low-income students enrolled in AP courses is significantly lower than white, middle and upper-middle income students. Of all AP test takers in 2001, 68.7 percent were white, 11.6 percent were Asian, 10.8 percent were Latino, and 5.0 percent were African-American.
This same report makes several recommendations. It suggests that incentives be implemented to recruit males and people of color into the teaching field, especially those who are skilled in content areas that are experiencing shortages. In addition, induction and retention initiatives are recommended for new teachers, as are mentorship programs and expanded access to AP courses in schools with high minority populations.
According to Michele Foster in her book Black Teachers on Teaching, historically black colleges prepare at least half of the African-American teachers that go into the teaching profession. Therefore, such institutions should welcome partnerships that enable their graduating teachers to leave with the necessary training in the Advanced Placement Program. New teachers would enter the work force with the knowledge and skills necessary to implement these programs. One example of such a program is the Honors College at Hampton University.
Tapping Grassroots Resources
At some deeper level within the ranks of minority teachers, a return to the concerns that galvanized our elders must become paramount to how we pursue professional development. We can assist in identifying grassroots organizations within our community that may be important resources for College Board initiatives that seek to include students of color. Other grassroots organizations, such as the National W.E.B. DuBois Honor Society out of Hampton University and the nonprofit group ASK (Achieving Success through Knowledge, Inc.), based in Baltimore, Maryland, are representative of a movement within the African-American community to create mentoring and educational support. ASK aims to rebuild the community through specialized educational support in the areas of mathematics, science, engineering, and technology.
There has never been a more critical time than now to recommit to the issues that face us. We know that underachievement of gifted minority students may be remedied through positive teacher-student relations, adequate time to understand the material, a supportive classroom climate, and motivation and interest in school. There are voices that hold solutions and offer innovation that we have yet to hear. Prosperity has conceivably distracted us from the energies that emboldened our ancestors to act to achieve mandated educational reform. The etiquette codes that enshroud African-Americans who choose education as a profession and result in what is essentially "a glass ceiling syndrome" have no place in preparing children of color to participate in a global workforce. Each person has to decide if this ideal of closing the gap can ever truly be achieved with partial quests for equality.
My heritage tells me I have some obligation to speak up and take action.
Debra Ambush has taught art for 22 years and AP Studio Art for six years. This summer she participated in her first AP Studio Art Reading. She has received many awards, including the Montgomery County Education Association Jaworkski Civil Rights Grant, the Maryland Art Association Educator of the Year Award, the Montgomery County Public Schools Women in the Arts Award, and the Getty Fellowship in Art Education. She has published several articles about teaching art, including "African American Aesthetics" in the National Art Education Association published proceedings of the 1998 USSEA conference, "Art Education in Ghana" in the Committee on Multiethnic Concerns' National Art Education Association Newsletter in 1995, and "Points of Intersection: The Convergence of Aesthetics and Race as a Phenomenon of Experience in the Lives of African-American Children" in the 1993 Visual Arts Research Journal.
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