Included in a book for new teachers this year at orientation is an essay entitled “Dear White Teacher,” written by a veteran black 8th-grade educator named Chrysanthius Lathan. She says that far too many white teachers send students to her for discipline, because “many whites live in fear of their good faith actions being labeled as racist.”

Hmm. Now why would a New York City teacher fear that in 2019? Maybe because they’re getting regular training in how they are all racist, and if they don’t see it then they’re simply full of “implicit bias.”

Perhaps because Chancellor Richard Carranza seems unable to talk about anything except race, and how the entire system is racist, biased and so on. And because Mayor Bill de Blasio (when he’s in town, anyway) backs him up every step of the way.

And because the Department of Education continues to push ever-weaker discipline codes, and ever more reliance on penalty-free “restorative justice,” in a tail-chasing effort to make discipline statistics more racially balanced. Why wouldn’t teachers be scared to run a disciplined classroom?

You have to wonder if “Dear White Teacher” slipped through without Carranza’s notice, since it offers a grounded, sensible and realistic look not just at racial issues, but at the basics of teaching itself. You need to be fair and you need to be involved, Lathan says, and white teachers shouldn’t be afraid of giving time-outs to students of color.

“My strength in the classroom does not come from my racial identity, and neither does yours,” she sums up at the end. “It comes from the way we treat — and what we expect from — kids and families. It is time for you to take back the power in your classroom.”

Absolutely: Classroom control is the threshold skill of teaching; if you’re not in charge, you can’t do anything.

Lathan was inspired to write after realizing that (too) many white teachers in her Portland, Ore., school were overrelying on her for help in communicating to black parents.

She was fine being a source of “advice and understanding regarding students and families of color” — but not on being relied upon solely. So she had a chat with some of her regular discipline cases, who told her the other teachers were “scared of us and our parents, too,” whereas “You’re not scared of us. We’re scared of you, though … scared in a good way. We’re scared to disappoint you.”

“Students spoke of my familiar demeanor and tone, my classroom routines, my allowance of personal space when needed, my low tolerance for work avoidance or refusal, my refusal to kick students out but instead expecting them to work hard, my classroom environment of respect for one another, and so on. All of this sounded like what any good teacher would do.”

Indeed — even if each teacher has to find his or her own effective balance of firmness, empathy, charisma and so on when it comes to winning students’ respect.

You have to wonder if Carranza and de Blasio believe, as Lathan does: “There’s no doubt that we need more teachers of color in our schools, but we also have to deal with the situation that exists today.”

Having seen white teachers “freeze” all too often, she offers some tips along with her “take back the power in your classroom” demand. And new teachers in every school can certainly use more specific advice from veteran educators of all colors.

And, obviously, educators need to know that their superiors, all the way to the top, will back them up as long as they’re doing their job.

Don’t undermine teachers. Let them do that job.