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Youngstown workshop urges educators to develop racial, cultural competency
By SARAH LEHR
YOUNGSTOWN
Nearly 89 percent of teachers working in the Youngstown City School District are white. Yet, roughly 64 percent of the students are black.
Less than 2 percent of teachers and 14 percent of students are Hispanic.
A workshop Monday night titled “Relationships, Respect & Race: Why Cultural Relevance Matters in Our Schools” took a look at those numbers and sought to bridge racial and cultural gaps between teachers and their students.
Nationwide, teachers are overwhelmingly white, despite the fact that minority populations are on pace to become a majority. Over 80 percent of U.S. public-school teachers are white and female, according to data from the National Center for Education Statistics. In Ohio, that number is close to 90 percent.
About 50 people, some teachers, attended the workshop, which the district hosted at Choffin Career and Technical Center on East Wood Street.
Dr. Rhonda Talford Knight, an assistant professor of education at Muskingum University in New Concord, Ohio, drew on her experience as a former teacher and argued that students perform better when their teachers exhibit what she labeled “cultural competency.”
“When I walked into this room, I had stereotypes,” she said. “You had stereotypes. We all had stereotypes. We’re all human. It’s what we do with those stereotypes afterward that makes a difference.”
Knight, who is black, said she’s taught in a predominately black inner-city school district and in a predominately rural district. In both environments, she said, there were times when she felt like an outsider, with little idea of accepted norms.
“When I first started teaching, you bet I lacked cultural competency,” she said.
Knight said she overcame that lack by listening to her students. She pointed to research, including a 2007 study published in the Journal of Educational Psychology, that indicates teachers have lower expectations for black and Latino students. Above all, Knight cautioned against underestimating students.
“You may have a student who’s 5 years old and can’t write his or her name yet,” she said. “But that same 5-year-old maybe makes a meal for himself every day and for his sister and his cousin, and maybe that 5-year-old knows how to change a diaper.”
Dr. Michael Corso, chief academic officer of the Quaglia Institute for Academic Aspirations, also spoke. The Quaglia Institute, an independent, nonprofit organization, has been working with Youngstown schools since 2012. This June, the school board approved a $195,470 contract with the institute.
The organization is expected to continue working regularly with the district through the 2016-17 school year. Some school board members, however, have stated that the institute has failed to produce adequate results.
Corso took an optimistic tack and cited instances of slight improvement in district scores. Proficiency in math, for instance, went up 5 percentage points from 60 percent to 65 percent, Corso said.