Black Students Need Special Treatment, Say Advocates of Afrocentric School

By Keith Leslie, THE CANADIAN PRESS

TORONTO – Achieving equality sometimes requires special treatment, parents and educators who successfully lobbied for the creation of a black-focused school in Toronto said Thursday as they rejected suggestions their controversial idea would end up segregating students.

The goal is to lower the 40 per cent dropout rate among black teens so they can participate fully and equally in society, and that means special programs and a special school tailored to their needs, said Grace-Edward Galabuzi, a professor at Ryerson University.

“A curriculum that assumes sameness, or colour blindness, does not necessarily lead to equality,” Galabuzi said during a news conference at the Ontario legislature.

“Equal treatment does not mean same treatment. The standard understanding of how you do equity is you sometimes have to do things differently for some groups to ensure equitable outcomes.”

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty continued to speak out against the idea, saying he would rather broaden the provincial curriculum for all students to make it more inclusive instead of segregating kids by race.

“I’m all for sitting down and looking at ways that we might enhance the curriculum, looking at ways that we might ensure that not just black kids but all kids who aren’t doing as well at school as they could, finding ways for them to perform better,” said McGuinty.

“I don’t think the way to do that is to divide our kids according to faith or according to race or according to culture.”

Community activists who convinced the Toronto District School Board to create an Afrocentric school starting in the fall of 2009 dismissed critics who say the proposal is a 21st century version of segregation.

“This notion of segregation is kind of old. We really need to move on to the positive, proactive ways in which we help a group of students who are not doing well within our system,” said Donna Harrow, a grandmother who co-authored the proposal for the black-focused school in Toronto.

“I’m appalled that we’re not all yelling and screaming, ‘What is going on with our system when 40 per cent of a group of students are failing?”‘

An Afrocentric school was one important way to bring young black people who feel disengaged from the education system back to school, said Galabuzi.

“This is not about separating (them),” he said. “It’s about integrating them.”

McGuinty again warned the Toronto board that the province would not provide any extra funding for a black-focused school, but said he understands that parents are “desperate” for something that will help young black people who are not doing as well in class as they should.

“I’m opposed to that program, not because I’m dismissing the real desire on behalf of parents to have their kids perform better at school so they can do better in life,” he said

“I’m against that because I think fundamentally one of the most important things that we need to do in a society as diverse as ours is to continue to bring our kids together from all the various backgrounds so they can learn from one another and grow together and help us build the foundation for a caring, cohesive society.”

The Progressive Conservatives had pressed McGuinty to step in and order a halt to the project, saying it flew in the face of the Liberals’ much-touted opposition to funding religious schools, which helped propel the party to victory in the last election.

Proponents of the Afrocentric school were reluctant to criticize McGuinty for his opposition to the idea, saying many people are against it until they hear the details and the reasons behind the idea. But they insist they’re not worried the board will back down.

“We’re very confident,” said Angela Wilson, a Toronto mother who lobbied the board for the Afrocentric school.

“The Toronto District School Board has been in the business for almost 43 years of establishing alternative schools, so I don’t believe they would have taken this on if they weren’t sure.”

The proposed Toronto alternative school would be the first black-focused public school in Canada.

Nelson Whynder Elementary School in North Preston, N.S., has Afrocentric content and a primarily black student body, but it follows the regular provincial curriculum and is not considered a black-focused school in the same vein as the one proposed in Toronto.