A Shortage of Black Educators

Yesterday I called into the WVON, the Cliff Kelley show to talk about the incredible need for our communities to wake of to the reality of losing 12,000 professional teaching jobs and how that impacts the economy in our communities. In the late 90's and while Jackie Vaughn was president of the Chicago Teachers union, Jackie fought for all union teachers and SECURED the positions of Black teachers who previously had been denied access to tenure and job security. Reports indicate that the number of African American teachers were from 54% to 49% during her tenure. That means that of African American students to teachers were virtually equal since over 54% of the students at that time were African American. That meant that anyone in your family, mothers, sisters, fathers brothers would have equal access to a professional job within your community. These jobs would help sustain the economical system and add to the quality of life in our inner-city communities.

Since that period, the Black Teacher population may be as low as 12% this year. (THEY STOPPED REPORTING THE DROP IN AFRICAN AMERICAN TEACHERS) We can only guess that the last reports indicate a drop og 19% and with 50 school closings (95% in the AA community) and 6 turn-arounds, effecting the loss of over 3,000 teachers , our percentages may be as low as 12%. Meaning that over 12,000 jobs have been lost.

Most teachers that have lost jobs have moved on or took early retirement.
WE are NOT FIGHTING FOR Teachers to get their jobs back. That's the work of the union. C.A.U.S.E. Chicago Alliance of Urban School Educators supports all teachers , non-union and union. However, we are fighting to secure and demand that these jobs be given back to our community so that our young people will have an opportunity to work in their communities. We are tired of our children being used to support the lifestyle of others from other states , when these jobs are needed to stabilize the communities in which they live.

We cannot continue to out source all the jobs in our communities to support young people in other communities while our young college and High School graduates remained unemployed.

In addition, this is national agenda. New Orleans, Detroit, Cleveland and many other major districts when African Americans reside have been affected already or are in the process of being affected. There are approximately 180,000 teachers of African American descent terminated nation-wide and jobs in our communities have been taken from us and given to others. 


Please contact your elected officials, State Legislators , Alderman and Chicago Public Schools, Chicago Board of Educationor public school officials in districts effected by mass school closings to raise your voices about this injustice.


PLEASE join with , C.A.U.S.E. Chicago Alliance of Urban School Educators as we let our voices be heard that we demand these tax payer jobs be returned to our neighborhoods.