In Word in Black’s (WIB) final event of the year, WIB interim director Andrew Ramsammy, Elinor Tatum (editor, New Amsterdam News) and Aswad Walker (associate editor, Defender Network) discussed what it will take to get more Black and Latino teachers back in the classroom, a problem that was intensified by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The discussion was kicked off by Tatum, who interviewed David C. Banks, founder of the Eagle Academy Foundation and newly named head of New York Public Schools, the largest school district in the nation.
Following the interview, Ramsammy facilitated a discussion with Tatum amd Walker on the top education-related news stories of 2021 and what those stories mean for education moving foward into 2022 and beyond.
Word in Black is a groundbreaking collaborative of 10 of the nation’s leading Black news publishers in Detroit, Washington D.C., Baltimore, New York, Dallas, Atlanta, Seattle, Sacramento, St. Louis and Houston (Sonceria “Sonny” Messiah Jiles, Defender Network). The project is part of the Local Media Foundation and has received the backing of a number of funders: Chaz Zuckerberg Initiative, Google News Initiative, Walton Family Foundation, Facebook Journalism Project and Local Media Consortium.
Watch the event in full as participants discuss ways in which education leaders are tackling the challenge of making sure that teacher representation reflects the communities they serve in.
