Cincinnati Colored Teachers Set a Standard

Abstract

In a city that is noted for its well trained teachers, it is interesting to find the Negro teachers having even a higher level of training than the white teachers. Yet that is the situation which exists for the 128 Negro teachers in Cincinnati, as revealed by a recent study' of the teaching staff of that city. Furthermore, the Negro teachers receive a higher average salary than do white teachers. These conditions are brought about by two factors: (1) the single salary schedule, which has been in force in Cincinnati since 1927, and which pays all teachers alike for the same training and length of experience, and (2) the University of Cincinnati, which is open to Negro teachers on the same terms as white teachers, and which, through its Teachers College, offers many helpful courses. Cincinnati has 11,500 Negro pupils in the public schools, and 56,000 white pupils. Twenty-eight hundred, or 24 per cent of the colored pupils are in junior and senior high school, and nine thousand are in the elementary grades. Four thousand, or 35 per cent of the total number, are in elementary and junior high schools exclusively for Negroes: these are taught by the 128 Negro teachers, 34 being in the junior high school and 94 in the elementary