Philly’s Black teacher pool is drying up

The already shallow pool of Black teachers in Philadelphia schools is evaporating at an alarming rate. District officials, who understand that increasing the number of African Americans in the classroom is one – perhaps the only – surefire method of closing the achievement gap between Black and White students, are scrambling for solutions. When school began this year, The Philadelphia Daily News reports, the percentage of Black teachers in the city was the lowest it has been in decades. And some argue that the dearth of African American teachers has put the district in violation of an agreement it made with the federal Office of Civil Rights three decades ago to achieve a racially balanced teaching force, the News reports. In 1978, more than a third (36 percent) of the teachers were Black. Fast-forward to now, and the number has dropped to 29 percent. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that the Black student body has remained 60 percent. While other school districts nationwide also have a paucity of Black teachers, Philly’s Black-teacher pool has shrunk by 739 over the past half-decade; the percentage of White teachers has grown from 62.5 percent to 65.4 percent over the same period. “Clearly, more must be done to recruit and retain African-American teachers,” said Jerry Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers (PFT), told the News. Reg Weaver, who heads the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teacher union, with about 3 million members, said that, “While race doesn’t determine anyone’s ability to master and teach a subject, research does show that teachers of color have higher performance expectations for minority kids, which in turn can impact student achievement.”

Racists terrorize a girl in Idaho. Federal investigators want to know what would motivate two grown men would go through lengths to terrorize a Black girl in the Idaho town of Post Falls. On Monday, 15-year-old Rai Franklin said she woke up to dogs barking outside her family home. They had been aroused by two White men who allegedly threw eggs at her parents’ car and left fliers in the neighborhood telling Black people that they didn’t belong in the neighborhood. Rai said that one of the men grabbed her, punched her in the face and fled while yelling racial slurs. Post Falls is apparently a short distance from Hayden Lake, the home of a compound where members of the Aryan Nations, a violent militant White supremacist organization, used to meet. FBI officials say that if the me are caught, they could face federal hate-crime charges.

Texas university isn’t cheering this student on. It doesn’t matter that Jamie Burns has let the campus off the hook, that her doctors have cleared her medically, and that her mom has said to let her daughter do what she was recruited for, officials at Southern Methodist University say that she won’t be cheerleading. Find out why at BET.com/News.

It isn’t the first racial slur directed at Barack and Michelle

Sen. Barack Obama has weathered his share of racially insensitive remarks over the past several months, but when a Georgia congressman referred to him and his wife as “uppity” last week it was a throwback to whole different era. Find out exactly what Rep. Lynn Whitmore said about Michelle and Barack Obama at BET.com/News.

Here’s this week’s photos of Black and Brown faces in the news worldwide.
World Lens: The Olympic opening ceremony is spectacular; U.S. basketball players soar in China; and fighting leads to destruction in Georgia. See these pictures and more here.

Southern African Countries Form Free Trade Zone. Fourteen Southern African countries will formally launch a free trade zone at a summit on Saturday, South Africa said on Tuesday. The hope is that they can boost the region’s trade and economic growth. The Free Trade Area (FTA) will exempt 85 percent of trade from tariffs, with full implementation expected by the year 2012. South African Trade and Industry Minister Mandisi Mpahlwa said while that was a realistic target, greater efforts were needed to develop and integrate the region. “The launch of the FTA is not an end in itself but a beginning of a process we need to embark on to build both productive and trade capacity, improve competitiveness of our industries…,” Mpahlwa said in a statement.The 14-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) needed to focus more on strengthening its agricultural industries and improving infrastructure.

Russian troops have started leaving Georgia. Almost a week after their troops advanced deeper into Georgia’s South Ossetia region, Russia has started pulling back its forces from the city of Gori, according to Georgia’s Interior Ministry. This move allows for Georgian police to return to the city and attempt to regain control, reports CNN. Georgian police, and most of the citizens, left the city a few days after being heavily attacked by Russian troops. Russia says they entered into the area to guard abandoned military hardware. The fighting began last week when Georgian forces moved into the South Ossetia region (a region where many people support becoming a part of Russia) to attack rebels. Russia responded quickly, sending in tanks to the region. Russia’s latest move comes after negotiations with Georgia on Wednesday. When the police presence is fully established, all of the Russian troops with leave the city.