I’ve been on assignment the last few days for a story about a project named “Call Me Mister.” Run out of Clemson University in South Carolina, for nearly 15 years now it’s been recruiting and placing black male teachers in elementary schools. They’re responding to the simple fact that there aren’t enough black men in the teaching profession.
According to the folks who run the program, fewer than one percent of elementary school teachers in South Carolina are African-American males. The national figures aren’t much better. Only two percent of the 4.8 million classroom teachers are black men, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Even in majority black districts, classroom teachers are predominantly white, and female.
The founders of “Call Me Mister” have shown that African-American boys respond to black male teachers and bond with them in special and profound ways. And from that bond, they believe, academic success will follow.