In the last installment of the series “Closing the Education Gap,” Another View’s Barbara Hamm Lee and guests continued to explore causes of the achievement gap between Black and White students. For this recent conversation on the topic, she welcomed guests Liz and Tony Huntley, a husband and wife who have both worked as advocates in the field of education. Liz is an attorney and author of More Than a Bird. Tony is a retired public school teacher who taught history for 15 years.

Previous episodes, as well as a town hall event, explored the role of parents in helping their children succeed. This week’s conversation focused on two other critical areas: the importance of a high-quality early childhood education and the importance of students learning from male Black teachers.

Liz has worked as an advocate in her home state of Alabama to increase families’ access to quality preschool education because she knows the benefits of it firsthand.

The Importance of Early Childhood Education

“It's personal for me because I was a child who was born into a situation where my parents were drug dealers,” Liz explained. “My mom ended up becoming a drug addict. My dad went to prison. She committed suicide, so the five of us with four different daddies were scattered amongst family members within my state.”

Liz said she faced such turmoil at home — food insecurity, sexual abuse, domestic violence — that attending a preschool program in her community became the safe place she looked forward to each day. The educational activities helped prepare her for school, and the encouragement she received from teachers helped her build resilience.

“Now all of a sudden, I'm hearing people say, 'Elizabeth, great job.' And they're calling my name in such a positive way. And they're having high expectations about our ability to learn. And I responded to it,” Liz said. “I needed it so bad, because I was such a fragile child at that time, with everything that was happening to me, that I responded to it. I learned real quick if you do really smart stuff, they'll really love on you.”

She worked hard to excel in the classroom and finished Kindergarten at the top of her class. She credits her early educational experiences as what got her ready to succeed in school. Many students today, she said, are starting Kindergarten with skills that fall behind those of students who attended a preschool program.

“The schools have an expectation, and the learning for kindergartners starts from a baseline,” she explained. “So many times, and particularly kids in our community, they start below that baseline.”

For instance, a student who enters school and has not yet learned colors, will be starting farther behind students who learned colors in preschool or at home. Teachers will need to find a way to bring that student’s knowledge up to where everyone else is starting, a difficult task.

“Those gaps will stay with a child as they traject through school, if you don't close them on the front end,” Liz said.

The Importance of Male Black Role Models

According to research from the Stanford Graduate School of Education, only 2 percent of America's teachers are black men. Tony, who taught 8th graders, said this was his experience.

“At the middle school where I was at, I was the first black core teacher that these kids encountered, ever since they came to school,” he said. “I mean, there were other black teachers, maybe teaching PE, but no core classes.”

It is important for Black children to see Black men teaching core subject for several reasons, Tony said. The first is to be able to relate to someone who understands where they come from and who has things in common with them. Additionally, it serves as an inspiration to Black young men that they too could one day become a teacher.

The couple has noticed with their own 7-year-old, who is in first grade, that he seeks out people who look like him. As the only Black child in his first school, Liz said he would color people’s skin black on coloring pages and talked about wanting to see other Black people.

“As he transitioned schools, he asked about whether or not there would be ‘people that look like me,’” Liz said. “So, he has really opened our eyes to how kids are looking for that and they yearn for it.”

Unfortunately, the numbers of Black men choosing to go into teaching as a profession is low.

“It's needed. The more we can have influence in these kids, the better,” Tony said. “The more they get to see people of color leading the charge, I think that's a 100 percent positive gain.”

Listen to the full conversation from Another View.

Watch a recording of the town hall event.


About Beneath the Surface:

Beneath the Surface is a collaboration between Virginia Humanities and the Hampton Roads Community Foundation exploring the many ways that race has shaped and continues to shape this region and its communities.

Throughout the year producers from Another View and reporters from the WHRO Newsroom have been exploring unequal access to basic public services—like education—for certain demographics, and how it affects the local community. Read and listen to our ongoing coverage of this topic in our multiplatform series Beneath the Surface.

Explore more reporting that has been done as a part of this initiative.


This program has been made possible, in part, by the Hampton Roads Community Foundation and Virginia Humanities.

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