Educational inequity is the result of an outdated education system that pays teachers based on seniority rather than merit, Delano Brissett '05, a Teach for America alumnus, told students gathered in Cutter-Shabaz Hall on Monday night for a speech and discussion about education. During the event, titled "Race and the Achievement Gap," Brissett argued that students from low-income neighborhoods are less likely than their higher-income peers to have access to quality education.
Brissett explained how socioeconomic status and race influence the quality of students' education in the United States. Of the 13 million American children who live in poverty, half do not graduate high school, and those that do graduate perform on average at an eighth-grade level. Black and Hispanic children are three times as likely as their Caucasian peers to grow up in low-income areas, he added.
"If a child is born in zip code X versus zip code Y, the right thing to do is make sure that one child is not arbitrarily disadvantaged while one is arbitrarily advantaged," he said.
Brissett stressed that educational inequity is a "systemic" problem with "drastic" implications at the national level.
"In a couple of decades, a majority of the nation will be of color," he said. "If we're not doing a great job educating the majority of our country, what will it mean for our standard of living and our sustainability?"
Effective teaching is the best way to improve the standard of education for low-income students, Brissett said.
Brissett agreed with students at the event who suggested that a performance-based pay structure should be used to motivate teachers. He added that the United States' current use of a seniority-based pay system reflects an old set of values rather than modern beliefs and makes it difficult to respond to ineffective teachers. This is the primary cause of educational inequity, he said.
"We've changed as a country in terms of now believing in equal education, but our [pay] structures that govern the education system haven't changed at all," he said.
Brissett also emphasized the importance of recruiting new and younger talent to the education profession. He said young people with strong leadership skills who come from a variety of backgrounds could bring their diverse perspectives into the classroom to help motivate students.
"We are at a pivotal moment," he said. "I believe that our generation can solve this problem [of educational inequity] unequivocally."
Several programs work to bring young educators into low-income schools, including national organizations such as Teach for America and the New Teacher Project, as well as regional groups such as Teach NOLA in New Orleans and Teach Kentucky, Brissett said.
Drawing on his experience working in a New York City public school with Teach for America, he described the power of such programs to improve student achievement. By the end of his two-year job, 90 percent of his students that had originally performed two to three years below grade level had met standards for their age group, he said.
"[My students] got somebody standing in front of them every day holding high expectations and working hard to make sure they got the best education possible," he said.
During an open discussion following Brissett's presentation, students agreed with Brissett about the importance of introducing better teachers into low-income school districts and raised their own concerns about educational inequity.
"I agree that Teach for America does great work in taking students of top academic institutions and harnessing them to help locally rather than sending them abroad," Stewart Gray '11, who participated in the discussion, told The Dartmouth. "There definitely is good work to be done here."
Aimee Le '12, another student participant, argued that new teacher programs, such as Teach for America, are valuable, but often do not recruit candidates who want to make teaching their career, making more long-term solutions necessary.
"Instead of having transient people coming into schools for a year, it would be interesting to have people who could stay for a career as a way of life," Le told The Dartmouth.
The program was co-hosted by La Alianza Latina and the Pan Asian Council in Cutter-Shabazz Hall.
