The chart below looks at student in institutions and departments offering teacher education. It is subdivided into five blocks, one comparing actual numbers, the other four comparing percentages. The chart reads as follows:

First block: 108,200 White males and 310,624 White females were enrolled in teacher education programs.

Second block: White males comprised 79 percent of all the males enrolled in teacher education programs, and White females comprised 81 percent of all females enrolled.

Third block: Whites, male and female combined, comprised 80 percent of all those enrolled in teacher education programs.

Fourth block: White males comprised 20.7 percent of all persons enrolled in teacher education programs, and White females comprised 59.7 percent of all persons enrolled.

Fifth block: Males comprised 25.8 percent of all Whites enrolled in teacher education programs, and females comprised 74.2 percent of all Whites enrolled.

(- signifies less than .1 percent)

[TABULAR DATA OMITTED]

SALISBURY, N.C. - It's no secret that there's a woeful shortage of Black teachers in school systems around the country. But also disturbing is that Black male teachers are even more scarce.

In recent years, the education field has taken a big hit as more and more Black collegians choose to pursue other careers which offer higher income and more prestige. The end result has produced a drain on what was once a plentiful supply of Black teachers.

The effect of the Black-teacher shortage is haunting African American communities everywhere. Many observers believe that the lack of Black male role models as teachers and educators is a major factor in the rising crime rate among young African American males.

Mary Dillworth, senior director for research at the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, says, "It's an issue that's been with us for more than a decade now. We started to see a decline in the early eighties."

In an effort to help increase the number of Black educators, several colleges and foundations have begun programs to recruit and train African American teachers, particularly men. Some of the institutions involved in the effort include Morehouse College, Bethune-Cookman College, the Ford Foundation, and the DeWitt Wallace Reader's Digest Fund.

"Over the past eight to ten years there has been an increase in the number of programs to increase the number of African American teachers," says Dillworth. "From what we can ascertain from the data we have, they are very successful."

The Center for Teaching Excellence

Recently, Livingstone College in North Carolina created the Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE), which has a two-fold purpose: to supply more Black teachers for public classrooms; and to increase the number of Black males in the teaching profession.

"Every day, the media gives us stories about the tragic rise in crime, especially those crimes aided by violence," says Dr. Burnett Joiner, Livingstone's president. "All too often, the victim and suspect are young Black males. We believe our program is a pro-active way to address...serious problems.

"It at least begins to hold a candle of hope for young men and women who would aspire to teach, to know they can come to Livingstone to realize their dream of a college education," he continues. "With their education in tow, they will be symbols of light to our children."

Livingstone offers ample incentive for Blacks to pursue a career in education. CTE provides full, four-year scholarships for those who are accepted. In exchange for the scholarship, students agree to teach in North Carolina for three years after they graduate. They must also maintain a "B" academic average and carry at least a 15-hour academic load every semester.

CTE, started in 1993, is the brainchild of Harold Fleming, a retired public school administrator and Livingstone alumnus. Since its inception, the program has expanded its scope to include women.

Last May, five of the eight members of CTE's first class graduated. The remaining three are scheduled to graduate in December. The next graduating class, which is scheduled for commencement in the spring, also has eight members, including three women - CTE's first female graduates.

"This is an exciting program," says Fleming, CTE director who retired as superintendent of schools in Kinston, N.C., in 1995. "We now have an opportunity at Livingstone to help change things for the better. The people who come through our program get the opportunity to help provide youngsters with a quality education while serving as good role models, too. It's a good way for our students to make a viable contribution to society."

The Importance of Early Exposure

Because African Americans have been opting for careers other than teaching, a void has developed in the public school setting. As veteran teachers retire, there aren't enough new instructors entering the field to replace them. That means that today's Black youngsters aren't exposed to Black role models nearly as much as Black youngsters of past generations.

"We have to bridge the gap between the people retiring and the new people coming in," says Fleming. "Teaching gives students the chance to make a difference. Every successful person - regardless of gender or race - had a teacher who played a key role in his or her life."

Unlike the education curriculum at most other schools, CTE provides its students with plenty of early exposure to the total spectrum of teaching. Even as freshmen, CTE students must log at least twelve hours of field experience, which involves working with teachers in the classroom as observers and then as teacher assistants. During training, they also learn how to implement effective strategies to maintain discipline in the classroom.

They also serve as mentors to at-risk kids - those who, for one reason or another, have been classified as difficult to teach. As these teachers-to-be advance from freshman to senior year, the fieldtraining hours increase accordingly.

"We don't want our students to wait until their junior or senior year to find out what teaching is all about," Fleming explains. "The way we go about it, we put our students in situations to help them decide if a career in education is what they really want. Other programs wait until the last year or so before students are exposed to real-life situations. I think that's too late."

The Livingstone program also puts a lot of emphasis on students getting involved in non-instructional duties as part of their career preparation. Those duties include serving as monitors in the school hall, in lunchroom, and at bus stops. They also make themselves available for PTA meetings.

"We stress those non-instructional duties because it helps them get tuned in to all facets of the field," Fleming says. "They learn to develop good communication skills with their peers and with students' parents. They also learn how to deal with different rules and regulations of their respective schools and school boards."

The Beginning of the Pipeline

Six months have passed since CTE had its first graduating class. But even in that short span of time, it's clear that Livingstone has taken big strides in developing a reputable pipeline for future educators.

All five May graduates are now working as teachers. Three members of that class - Nakia Douglas, David Johnson and Mistor Williams - all landed jobs in Winston-Salem. They agree that the CTE experience has prepared them well for what they're facing now as everyday teachers.

"There's a family-type atmosphere at Livingstone," says Douglas, who teaches kindergarten. "You're looked at as an individual and not as a number. All the instructors - at one time or another - were in the classroom, so they know what's going on. They care about your success as an educator.

"Being in education is more of a reward than I thought it would be," he continues. "I see kids growing in so many areas. As a Black male role model, I have a lot of roles to fill. I'm a social worker, father, preacher, big brother, all those things."

Johnson, an elementary school teacher, acknowledges that without the Center's program, his desire to attend college would never have materialized.

"There's no way I would have gone [to college] otherwise," Johnson says. "The program gave me a solid foundation and I got a lot of help in preparing for the [National Teaching Examination].

"We also got a lot of support outside the classroom," he adds. "That was very helpful. We had weekly meetings with different school system recruiters from around the state. We always had up-to-date information on all the happenings in those school systems, so we always knew what was going on in the real world of education."

Giving back, explains Williams, who teaches middle school, has a lot to do with why he chose teaching as a career.

"Livingstone took a chance on a young man - me," he says. "Hopefully, I'm letting them see the fruits of their labor. If I can say something to direct a young man or young lady, then I've given back, not only to the Black community, but to the community at large.

"Teaching is a profession, not just a job," continues Williams. "That's why I must carry myself as a professional at all times. As a teacher, I could very well be the only role model for some of the kids in my class."

As a freshman, Williams picked up a lot of the nuances of the profession when he and his CTE partners served as counselors and tutors for a Head Start program. In Head Start, he faced the challenge of dealing with several at-risk students.

Head Start "really got our feet wet," Williams recalls. "At the time, we didn't know much about preparing students to learn. We know we can't reach everybody, even though we'd like to. But the key is being sensitive to the needs of the kids, many of whom are going through much tougher times than we did when we were kids. So the idea becomes: maybe if you can help one student, then you can help another, and another, and another."

RELATED ARTICLE: The Drawback of Low Salaries

In general, the long hours and low pay for public school teachers has been a turn-off for students when they begin making decisions about choosing a career. In North Carolina, rookie teachers coming right out of school can expect to earn $24,000 a year. But for those who have become teachers in spit of that, the satisfaction comes from helping youngsters reach their potential.

In the meantime, the state government in North Carolina realizes it will have to boost the salary structure to attract and keep the best instructors. To ensure that happens, the state has taken steps to implement incremental pay raises. According to most estimates, the North Carolina pay scale for starting teachers should match the national average (roughly $32,000 annually) within the next three years.

"For some people, pay is a big issue," says Mistor William, a graduate of Livingstone College's Center for Teaching Excellence who teaches middle school in Winston-Salem, N.C. "And some guys may feel that being a teacher is not masculine enough because there are so many women teachers. But the way I see it, you're more of a man to say, 'Somebody helped me when I was a kid, now it's time for me to do the same for somebody else."