Bill Cala is former superintendent of the Fairport school district and served as interim superintendent of the Rochester district.
Regarding CITY’s September 30 article on activists’ push for more minority teachers: I strongly support concerned community members seeking the hiring of more teachers of color in the Rochester City School District. When I was interim superintendent in 2007, school board member Cynthia Elliot made this an issue. I publicly supported her position in the media, for which I received notable pushback from a number of sources.
Context is integral to teaching and learning. Where a child comes from, his or her culture, her neighborhood, her family, and her overall history is a context essential to the relationship that must be created between teacher and student in order to promote healthy academic engagement.
A diverse teaching staff brings that context to life with teachers that are from the same cloth as their students. That is not to say that a white teacher cannot care, nurture, and relate to students of color. Nonetheless, the importance of role models who have walked the very personal walk of their students should not be understated.
Encouraging the hiring of teachers of color should not be a slam on the current teaching staff, however. Teaching in the city is a difficult and noble job that should be honored, not deprecated, irrespective of the color of the teacher in the classroom. Rochester city teachers are a remarkable group of dedicated, caring, and compassionate individuals working against very formidable odds.
Barbara Deane-Williams rightfully deserves credit for hiring a diverse senior administration. This should logically be the first important step in hiring a diverse teaching staff. Who better to screen candidates of color than administrators of color who have been through very similar life experiences? It is the administration’s job to hire and the board’s job to set the policy. If the Rochester Board of Education has made hiring a diverse staff a priority, then it should give the superintendent that charge, hold her to it, and let her do her job.
The board’s screening of candidates in executive session is crossing a policy line into the worst kind of micro-managing. The board is not an administrative body but rather one of policy. Actions such as these are counterproductive and more than subtly send a message of lack of confidence and mistrust.
The board gets the final word, however. Its members can either accept the recommendation of the superintendent or reject it. They have every right to scrutinize the entire package presented to them, but they should not be acting in lieu of the superintendent.
I am not suggesting minimizing the role of the board. In fact, legislation unique to Rochester was passed in the 90’s that gave the superintendent the power to hire his or her cabinet without board approval. I was opposed to this usurping of the board’s authority then and remain adamantly against it today. The board should be the final say when it comes to matters of hiring professional staff.
But where are teachers of any race coming from? It doesn’t make a difference if those going into the profession are black, brown, Asian, or white, the numbers of college students going into teaching are at an all-time low. Teacher preparation programs from coast to coast have shrunk dramatically. California’s programs are down 53 percent, while New York and Texas are right behind them.
The bottom line is that finding a diverse staff in 2017 and beyond will be more difficult than ever as the percentage of candidates of color remains constant in an ever-shrinking anemic pool.
While the effort to hire teachers of color should be an important mission of the school district, we must not forget the other important factors that impede learning in cities. One has to look no further than the annual reports by the Children’s Agenda. If we look at kindergarten readiness, pre-natal care for mothers, and a host of other health and safety issues for city kids, we get a more complete picture of the gestalt that makes up school success and failure.
The research on brain development is strong and convincing. As the Children’s Agenda’s 2016 annual report notes: “75% of brain growth and 85% of intellect and personality are formed before children attend their first day of kindergarten.”
We may also wish to question segregated schools in both the city and the suburbs. Should any school district be 90 percent white? Should any district be 90 percent black? Where is the political will to change that? Talk of schools like those in Raleigh and votes supporting such integration efforts are meaningless without action. We have heard this kind of talk for decades. In fact, we are more segregated in 2017 than we were during the riots of the 60’s.
Hiring a diverse teaching staff is critically important, as is addressing the socio-economic needs of city children and families. Action, not talk, on ALL fronts is crucial if we expect our kids to succeed.
This article appears in Sep 13-19, 2017.
Mr. Cala is a thoughtful educator and has walked the walk. With that said, I have to take issue with the subtext of what he accomplishes here in his essay.
I agree with Mr.Cala for the first 5 paragraphs.
When he says the boards screening of candidates (teaching and staff candidates) in executive session is crossing a policy line into the worst kind of micro-managing I have to disagree. First of all worst is a pretty strong word. I can see that word being used if the board was trying to tell the superintendent what kind of tie to wear, or I even think it would be worse to try to tell the Superintendent what cabinet members they should have. That is actually worse than wanting to micromanage teacher hires. Because we should be scrutinizing teachers more so than high level managers on Broad St. After all the Principals of schools ARE not elected officials or democratically in any way chosen by the students or the parent population. Whereas the school board members are and actually have a residency requirement to live in the City of Rochester. Only 5% of the administrative staff (the principals of the schools) actually live in the City of Rochester. I am not saying that those Principals and Superintendent shouldnt have a say in what teachers get hired, but I really dont think it hurts to have an extra dozen eyes scrutinizing what teachers are hired, especially by people who actually LIVE in the city and were elected by the population that LIVES in the city.
Finally the school board is sinking their teeth into a REAL education issue, one they have control over, and you want to NOW say they are micromanaging! This is so ridiculous to me. I am just surprised it comes from a very, very, studied and thoughtful educator.
Then Mr. Cala totally cops out on probably the most important civil rights/education issue of our time; the hiring of teachers that actually racially and residentially represent the students they teach. He says, this is an important issue, BUTBut what, not BUTS.This IS the only issue right now that we need to deal with. BUT instead, Cala lists a whole bunch of other distractions; we must not forget the other important factors that impede learning, blah, blah
Imagine if Rosa Parks back in the day said, you know what I should probably just move to the back of the bus, because there are all these other societal and systematic oppressions and factors keeping us down, and what is the point of me just sitting at the front of the bus going to change.
What if Martin Luther King, Jr. instead of organizing a march on Selma, he was told by white handlers said, Well Martin, democracy is so complicated, are you sure the denial of voting is the only factor in your oppression? I mean shouldnt we be looking at things like having books to read in every black childs household and nutritious meals. I am not saying voting isnt important BUT, there are just so many factors that lead to the denial of democracy.
Cala accomplishes his goal of diminishing the immediacy of this moment in history, he attempts to dilute the importance of the work of this very dedicated group of activists that actually live in the city of Rochester and work there that have put this issue of hiring black teachers to teach their children super seriously. I want Mr. Cala to understand the message he is sending and take ownership of that. The black parents, the teachers, the activists and FINALLY the board involved are trying to take ownership over their education. If we are not going to join them, we would all do well by taking a back seat to that priority.
When Mr. Cala says a diverse teaching staff is critically important, as is addressing the socio-economic needs his use of the word as is actually undermines his first clause, because as soon as he puts it on the same level as the other factors harming urban education. And no one would disagree that there are not tons of factors, no one has ever disagreed with that sentiment.
But there is a group that is taking action right now on this one front, and it is the Take it Down, Faith Community Alliance, and the Movement for Anti-racist Ministry and Action. And the board appears to be responding. Why of all times, if Mr. Cala is serious about action, would he get in the way of this? Why would he put out there that there are all these other issues to attend to in education rather than joining this fight? Or at the very least not talking out of two-sides of his mouth about it.
When he says Action, not talk, on ALL fronts is crucial it seems disingenuous, because no real change ever takes place on all fronts, that is non-historical or logical. Real action, real movements start when a group of individuals address one issue on one front at a time, and when that is accomplished move on to others.
If we value good teachers, we need to pay them. It is impossible to fault someone footing the bill for four years of undergrad and two years of grad school for dismissing a job that pays $35k a year.
Kathryn, I,think you used the salary for Rochester, Mn, not NY. Refer to the link below. The starting salary is $45k, with a maximum of $133k. This for working 10 months a year, not 12. Teachers will not make,it to the top 5%, much less 1%, but then they do not have an education in the most challenging field either.
http://www.nctq.org/districtPolicy/contrac…
Kathryn, I’m quite sure that city teachers (even beginning ones) make well over $35,000 a year.
Maybe folks get to make six figures after many years of teaching. But seriously, if teachers were well paid, do you think it would be so hard to recruit them?
Engineering positions are all kinds of competitive.
And, sheesh, try raising a family on $45k a year in 2017. That was a plum salary in 1990. No longer.
Are we also going to have gay teachers and transgender teachers, etc? This is ridiculous. How are these people going to manage in the real world if they can’t manage through high school?
“And, sheesh, try raising a family on $45k a year in 2017.”
Unless you have rampant spending problems, that’s easy…. I bought a house while making $11/hr during a time where people throw around this term “living wage” and are demanding a $15/hr minimum wage.
Rajesh, if kids don’t start learning at home and have at least one involved parent. They won’t learn in school. School can’t and never will replace a lack of parenting. Parents are the first teachers a child ever has. Sadly, many kids now lack even that.