State-Of-Black-Oregon-2015

CASE STUDY 4TRAILBLAZING A PATHWAY TODIVERSITY & EDUCATIONAs a child growing up in Houston,Donald Easton-Brooks strove tochange his community. He wassurrounded by crime and violence, buthis mother showed him a different path. Donaldsays, “To be a Black woman in the ’60s in Texasand get a college degree was pretty huge.”Donald is now the dean of Eastern OregonUniversity’s College of Business and Education.He used a football scholarship to get adoctorate and become a professor. Over thecourse of his career, he’s worked in places likeConnecticut, Rhode Island, Seattle, Minnesotaand his native Texas.This is his first year in Oregon. In Houston,almost all of his teachers were Black. Accordingto the 2014 Oregon Minority Teacher Act StatusReport, a third of Oregon students are ethnicminorities, while 91.7 percent of the teachersare White.Donald notes that many minority teachersgo into the field specifically to change theircommunities. However, they’re leaving theprofession at higher rates than Whites. “We haveBlacks or other minorities going into educationfor one reason and Whites going into it for adifferent one. So when they come together andtry to educate a group of people, they’re not onthe same page. If there are five against one, it’seasy to feel beaten down so much you feel likeyou can’t do this. You just move on.”However, Donald says that Oregon provides moreopportunities for Blacks to gain wealth thanmany other states, so education is even moreimportant here. He’s exploring ways to increasethe numbers of Black teachers in Oregon. Whilerecognizing that the Black population is relativelysmall, he says that it’s a matter of continuing tobe a significant part of the political, educationaland economic landscape.Recently, he instituted a diversity scorecardto track how well school systems recruit andretain minority teachers. The data will be publicknowledge. He hopes it will encourage schoolsthat have institutionally shut out minorityteachers to change their ways.Teaching also has to compete with otherindustries that are looking to diversify theirworkforce. Part of Donald’s effort to addressthis is the Oregon Teacher Pathway program. Itreaches out to students, starting in 11th grade,with opportunities to get college credits andinteract with the profession.“Here in Oregon, we have to make educationmore attractive. We have to help peopleunderstand the value of the teaching profession—what that means and what that’s all about.”42