McAuliffe calls for Virginia to 'diversify' teacher base, citing percentage of White teachers
Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe called for the Old Dominion state to “diversify” its teacher base, lamenting that the commonwealth has proportionately more White teachers and promising a program ostensibly aimed at attracting non-White teachers.
www.foxnews.com
So here's the conundrum: Leftists want more Black people teaching in public schools, especially schools where the majority of the students are - shall we say - People of Color. The theory is that if teachers can relate to the students because of similar demographic background, SOMETHING - nobody is sure what - will improve.
They can talk about recruitment and incentives and what have you, but the fact of the matter is that the only way to get more Blacks teaching in the classroom is to lower the standards. This has been demonstrated all over the country, but especially in California, where teacher testing (current teachers) many years ago turned into a fiasco for both Blacks and so-called "Hispanics," as it turned out that those demographics scored so poorly on the tests that the tests had to be re-published at a 10th grade level to get even a majority (>50%) of them "qualified."
The other factor is that such people who actually are bright, educated, and ambitious, have such plentiful opportunities in the Real World that teaching just doesn't appeal to them.
So a choice must be made. Do you want the most qualified people teaching, offering them attractive salaries, benefits, and working conditions (to the extent that working conditions can be controlled), or do you lower the standards to get demographic parity with the student population? Putting it another way, will the students benefit most from intelligent, knowledgeable teachers of high intelligence (white folks), or from marginal teachers who "look like them"? And secondarily, if you have a POC teacher who is superior, can you RESIST promoting her to an Administrative position - out of the classroom? How fair would it be to not promote her?
Parenthetically, one might note that the so-called "achievement gap" between standardized test scores of "whites" and POC's has remained relatively constant for the past 40 years despite perennial campaigns to reduce it or eliminate it, and a conspicuous tendency of urban school boards to hire Black superintendents, regardless of credentials.
Which is "better," demographic matching or striving for excellence. You can't have both.
