Three Places Obama Could Teach
No doubt, Columbia would offer him a king’s ransom and every other academic perk imaginable. But, for me, to find the first black President—a former community organizer who has ventured more daringly outside the Oval Office (with a stop at a prison, a speech at a mosque, an impending visit to Cuba) than any other modern President—teaching at Columbia (or any school like it) would be a disappointment. To put it bluntly, rich white kids at rich white schools don’t need him. But there are places, and students, that do. I’d like to suggest three.
..Obama could teach at a historically black college/university, or H.B.C.U., as the common parlance has it. Some of the most illustrious names of the past American century, from Martin Luther King, Jr., to Thurgood Marshall to Toni Morrison, were educated at these schools.
.. Yet another place that could make great use of Obama’s talent and prestige would be any one of the nation’s eleven hundred community colleges.
.. The third place Obama could teach is perhaps the most improbable, but the one I hope he most strongly considers. I think Obama should teach, for one year, for even just part of the time, in an inner-city K-12 public school. A single course in U.S. government for high-school seniors would suit him well.
.. In 2013, less than two per cent of public-school teachers were black men, which tells us that the overwhelming majority of kids, both black and white, have little direct exposure to professional black men in their daily lives. This has had a disastrous effect on the development of black students, and especially black boys, contributing to their staggering levels of behavioral issues, suspensions, and, ultimately, dropouts.
.. A recent study by the Department of Education found that black boys receive more than two-thirds of all public-school suspensions. Another study showed that black students are less likely to be recommended for gifted programs when they are taught by non-black teachers.