Writes St. Petersburg Times columnist Bill Maxwell: “I do not have solid proof, but I believe that the public school experience of my generation of black males in Jim Crow’s South was far superior to most young African-American males in today’s public schools anywhere in the nation. My generation’s experience was better, I am certain, because we had a substantial number of black male teachers as role models.”

Only 2 percent of the nation’s 4.8 million teachers are black men, Maxwell notes. The figure in Florida: about 3 percent. In Pinellas: 1.7 percent.

Ron Matus, state education reporter

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