Ken Picard of Seven Days published an article about the lack of teacher diversity in Vermont [“The Diversity Test," August 25].
That article stimulated Reuben Jackson of Washington, DC. to offer the following response, published as a letter to the editor in the September 15, 2010 issue of Seven Days.
Provincial or Racist?
I am one of those African Americans who was willing to brave the cold in order to teach in the Vermont public schools — I’m bald, so I didn’t need to worry about getting my hair fixed [“The Diversity Test,” August 25]. I met a lot of nice, committed educators during the two and a half years I sought employment, but I also bumped heads with some of the most overtly patronizing and unabashedly — let’s call them provincial — administrators this side of Little Rock, Ark. Like the principal who, during the course of an interview, told me I had an “odd skill set” (I work as a music critic, NPR commentator and teacher, and was a Smithsonian curator for 21 years). Or the principal who thought I had a “limited education.”
I often ended up wondering why I was selected for an interview in the first place.
While I do think there is some serious racial stonewalling going on in the Green Mountain State, I am also beginning to believe that some of the problem is due to the aforementioned provincialism. (The shabby treatment hurts either way.) I wish Vermont well in its struggle to come to grips with the demographic changes that challenge the entire nation. Still, I think it is important for me to say that it was easier getting a job as a curator at the Smithsonian Institution than it was to land a classroom position in Vermont.
Reuben Jackson
Washington, D.C.
Provincial is to kind a term. Let's call it what it is. The district has been talking diversity hiring for over twenty-five years now. Let's not forget before there was VTDSP there was the Coming Home Program.
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