The kids have more sense than the protesters.

Is African MATH different?
That protest was ridiculous.
Gene

Why are my posts coming out with the wrong time?

While this may be true...where is it in their proposal to get more QUALIFIED black teachers?

Some people just need something to protest or they don't feel useful.
My solution....if you want to have more black teachers, and you care SO much about this issue...get certified, propose a solution, not just a problem.

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gene, this site is all screwed up. and to top it all off we keep agreeing!!
i feel like i'm in the twilight zone.

I actually took Multicultural Mathematics at SJU last semester simply to fill a requirement. There certainly is African math. There are finger methods, different systems of denoting values, etc.

An unbelievable protest. What is worse than the words coming out of this protest is the fact that some of these people are teachers!

Philadelphia's problem is not that it does not hire enough black teachers, it is that it hires far too many UNCERTIFIED teachers. Additionally a new study just demonstrated that far too often black students are taught by uncertified teachers. Now I have no concrete evidence to demonstrate what the ethnic origin is of the uncertified teachers.

First one needs to realize that a person who wants to teach needs a college degree in education with at least a 3.0 college GPA to teach in PA. Secondly because most of the states African-American high school students attend failing schools that do not properly prepare them for college, a smaller percentage of african-American students will even be able to pursue a college degree. I believe nationwide only 8% of college freshmen are African-American (which is smaller than the 12% figure that African-Americans represent nationwide). Additionally African-American college graduation rates are the lowest of any ethnic group at about 40% (due in part to financial aid problems and academic preparation issues), which further reduces the chances of African-Americans obtaining degrees in education.

So the school district has a large challenge just trying to have the percentage of certified teachers who are African-American reach even 8% let alone 40 or 50 percent. The district needs to do a better job recruiting certified teachers of all ethnic orgins from the entire country, something similar to what New York City did a few years back. It would be great to see them recruit from state universities in CA, TX, MI, IL, NY and all over instead of hiring uncertified teachers who happen to know someone on the school board.

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"If you have the courage to begin, you have the courage to succeed." -- David Viscott

My fiance is one of the white teachers teaching in an inner city school that's almost entirely african-american. These teachers should get medals for what they go through. All the administrators are african-american and they do jack while the mostly white teachers toil in the trenches getting maligned and physically pummelled by the little hellions. The principals in Philly School District elementary schools start at $140k/year and I know at least one of them doesn't deserve even half of that.

So is the system racist or are the administrators just using the race excuse?

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Steve Johnston
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Ok so that's why I didn't become a doctor? Because most of my teachers were white men? They certainly didn't "look" like me. What an idiot.