Black in Arizona: Education

- The facts are not wanting to be discussed.

If we're not wanting to talk about what really happened, then what's the point?

- Data shows us that students who spend at least five years in desegregated schools had increased attendance rates, had improved academic achievement, and also had improved graduation rates.

- A knowledge of the past gives you a fundamental understanding and brings significance to things that have happened previously.

(soft music) - Growing up in Flagstaff, as I can recall, was a very happy time in my life.

Most of the people in our neighborhood at that time was African Americans.

It was a defined community.

Going north, you didn't go past the tracks.

And so we don't have that defined community as a Black community any longer.

The churches are there still in the area, but the people are gone.

- There have been people that came from the South that said that Arizona was as segregated and as bad as any place that they had ever been in the South.

But we just knew they didn't have the white and the colored signs and the water fountains like that, but we knew where we could not go.

We lived in central Phoenix at a time when housing was segregated.

You could not live in suburbs.

You could be a student at Arizona State, but you could not live in Tempe.

You couldn't even rent an apartment in Tempe.

You couldn't eat on the campus.

You couldn't stay in the dorms at Arizona State.

But that changed in their early '60s.

I went to Booker T. Washington Elementary.

Going to a segregated school, all the kids were Black at my elementary school.

- So growing up here in the valley in Arizona was quite interesting.

But I was a part of the Black community by way of the church.

So my family was very involved in the church.

That was really important.

So anything that had to do with Black history, knowing what was going on in the area, in our city, like the Martin Luther King march or Juneteenth or Black History Month, that was really my church and my family.

But growing up going to school, I was always one of maybe two Black students in my grade, sometimes multiple grades.

I embraced my Blackness, I guess you would say, but school always made me feel a little out of place.

- Black students' in Arizona experience in education, very similar to those students, those Black students in the South.

They had a very separate and very unequal educational experience.

Many Black schools were placed in areas that could not benefit from the community wealth that other schools were placed in, which means that the school in which Black students attended were not of the same caliber as some of those schools that were in high-poverty areas.

Black students also experienced overcrowding in a lot of their schools during the segregation period, which means that there was most likely one school that serviced Black students in a variety of areas.

And Booker T. Washington in Mesa is an example of that.

That school serviced students in both Mesa, Chandler, and Gilbert.

- The reason it was difficult is because we could not understand how we would be segregated from the 1st grade until junior high and you would go to junior high to an integrated school.

The schools were segregated through the primary grades, from 1st grade to 6th grade, and then you would go to junior high school.

We loved our school, we loved our teachers, we loved everything about our school.

And the question was how do you decide to close our school?

Why is Dunbar School chosen to be closed?

And so when we integrated, we were given a choice of which elementary schools we wanted to attend in Flagstaff.

It was a difference because I had no Black teachers at that time.

There was no administrators there.

So I went from an all-Black school to an integrated school, and I did not feel that those teachers understood us, like where we were coming from.

But as I got older, I really wondered about was it better or not?

(soft dramatic music) - Integrating schools was a profoundly good idea.

I have a five year old who will be entering kindergarten amongst students that both look like him, who serve as mirrors, and that don't look like him, who serve as windows.

Integration allowed for this to happen.

Studies and data and research, longitudinal research shows us that students need to be in, children need to be in diverse atmospheres in order to truly grow and thrive and reach their full potential.

This means that they need the opportunity to speak to someone that's of the same race with them and make that connection and feel like they're at home at school, but they also need the opportunity to learn from someone who's different from them and be able to enrich their thinking and maybe break down some biases that they may have.

- Being the only Black student in my class, most of my elementary years was uncomfortable 'cause I felt like I had to represent all-Black people.

And so in the classroom, for example, if we were talking about history, and which Black history was only slavery that was taught, and so I was always asked, you know, what I felt or what I thought, or I felt like all eyes were on me so I would always have to defend, I think, my people.

At least I felt that way as a young child.

I think I probably would have seen more representation if I were at an all-Black school or a school with more Black and brown students.

I think, in my entire K-12 education, I had two Black teachers.

And so I know, if I were at a predominant Black school, I probably would've seen Black teachers, Black principals, and the representation would've been there.

(soft introspective music) - And I remember my 6th grade teacher.

I decided I wanted to play a musical instrument, so I chose the trumpet.

And there was musical notes and different things like that, and she said to me, "I don't think your mother would appreciate you wasting money on that instrument and you're not doing that well in math."

And she said that before the whole class.

And there was some other comments that she made.

I did not hold that against her because she was a really good teacher.

She would play softball with us.

She would be the pitcher.

And so she interacted with us a lot that way, although there was some certain sole things that I could pick up that was prejudiced about that.

So that was the most difficult time, moving from this location to an integrated school.

- Because most of their teachers don't look like them, I believe that there are a lot of implicit biases that come with that, microaggressions, things that are said in class that maybe aren't directly discriminating but it makes the child feel some kind of way or it kind of deflates their bubble for the day.

Once they are at school and they feel deflated and feel like they can't succeed, I think that their motivation is kind of drained.

They don't feel like school's relevant.

They don't feel like there's anyone that's gonna fight for them or help them be successful.

So I think that's one reason why the dropout rate is higher for us.

- I moved to Arizona in 2012.

I was called to be a part of an organization called Teach For America, and Teach For America has highlighted or identified several different regions in which high-quality educators were needed to come and help close the achievement gap.

Phoenix was one of those locations.

My calling and my purpose back then still rings true today, and that's to do my part to help close the education inequity gap for our students, especially students of color.

The truth is we're still seeing a large achievement gap with Black students compared to their white counterparts.

And I think that's largely because, although schools are desegregated, they're kind of still segregated if we think about the truth behind redlining in the areas in which students live.

And then also there are disparities in terms of suspensions.

Black students, in particular Black boys, are being suspended at much higher rates than their white counterparts or non-minority counterparts.

Why is that still happening?

I think we still have a lot of work to do in terms of teacher preparation, in terms of making sure that we have teachers in the classroom building those enduring relationships with students.

(soft introspective music fades) - I went back into education because I knew that I was good with children.

I knew instinctively that being a teacher was my calling.

I think I just didn't wanna answer it right away.

It's kind of overwhelming sometimes because every school that I have taught at, I'm either 1, 2, 3 of the Black teachers at the entire school.

You want to help all of the students that look like you, and it's impossible being one teacher.

And so you end up getting the students that are labeled behavior problems because they think you're a good teacher and you can handle it.

So it just kind of becomes a little overwhelming 'cause you can't help everybody, you know?

- I think we need more Black teachers.

I think we need more Asian teachers.

I think we need more Hispanic teachers.

I think we need more Indian teachers.

I think we do need a more diverse pool of teachers so that students have the opportunity to, again, see themselves through someone and also have a different experience by having a window opportunity to experience a different culture.

It's hard to have a solution for a big, gigantic, complex puzzle.

It has to be broken apart and it has to be remedied bit by bit.

And I think it can be done.

We've come a long way, but we do have quite a ways to go in terms of closing the achievement gap, lessening the educational disparities that our students face, and overall, brightening the world.

- There may be a bunch of us teachers reviewing curriculums, and I may be the only one that is speaking up for the diversity or the lack of diversity in the curriculum.

No one else sees it so I feel like I have to speak up for our children so that they see themselves when they're learning.

In 20 years, I'm hopeful that we'll have come to a place where we can talk about race openly, we can discuss biases, we can discuss the uncomfortable topics so that we can all learn and that we can all open up and have better understanding.

It's not to make any particular group look bad, but I think, if we can be more honest and open, I think our students, the young people today will appreciate it and it will help them to have better relationships and help them to understand one another.

I'm hopeful that that is the direction we're going in, but looking at today and from 20 years ago, I don't see as much progress as I thought I would've seen.

I'm hopeful that, in 20 more years, we will have made a lot more progress as far as equality, I guess, in education.

(soft uplifting music)