February 3rd, 2008
Toronto Set To Open Black-Focused Schools To Help The Drop Out Rate
After a heated but civil debate, Canada’s largest school board voted 11-9 last night to open an alternative Africentric school to help fight a 40 per cent dropout rate among Toronto’s black teens.
“Don’t propose it – Martin Luther King thought we could sit at the front of the bus together,” pleaded Loreen Small, whose son was shot dead last spring at his school in northwest Toronto.
Yet human rights activist Vicky McPhee said an Africentric school “is a right,” and the only type of school to which she wants to send her 6-year-old child. She called for these schools in each of the city’s 22 wards.
Will this really help black students or provide them with inferior education? I don’t see how this will improve anything.
Props to Ashley
Suggestion Box
February 3rd, 2008 at 1:11 am
SMH….All civil rights leaders must be turning in their respective graves.
February 3rd, 2008 at 1:12 am
word we fought for desegregation now we bringin it bak ourselves…wat woulda killa cam say about this?
February 3rd, 2008 at 1:30 am
ya that’ll help white-black relations
February 3rd, 2008 at 1:31 am
thats sarcasim by the way..
February 3rd, 2008 at 1:38 am
You all realize this isn’t about giving black people “their own” school right? It’s going to be a public school actually which means anybody can attend, but it’ll definitely be 99% inner city black, Middle Eastern, and Latin American kids though.
The goal is to just slightly modify the curriculum, but not so much so that it becomes a problem going on into college.
It’s basically like some more Maya Angelou and less Robert Frost, some more Thurgood Marshall and a little less Christopher Columbus. It’s basically like they’ll watch Roots instead of Schindler’s List. It’s also likely to have mostly minority teachers and administration.
If anything, rich white people should like the idea since it keeps all the drudges of society in the same building, apart from their children.
Decent idea, but horribly executed. I doubt it’ll work on a high level, because if you could poll the kids who drop out and ask them why, I guarantee you you won’t get many responses, “I got tired of reading about so many white people in my books.”
February 3rd, 2008 at 3:08 am
“wat woulda killa cam say about this?”
SUGA DUGA BUGA BEAR
February 3rd, 2008 at 3:38 am
I actually live in a city next to Toronto and im done high school and go to college in Toronto. But I think people who oppose this are kinda crazy. First of all its not segregation because much like catholic high schools, gay/lesbian focus school and a native focus school that the TDSB ALREADY fund they will be considered public schools and anyone can attend.
No one is forcing anyone to go to the new schools they are building, and the way the school board works is every resident has to have minimum 2 (mostly 3) schools in their boundaries too chose from. So just let the plan run its course and see what the results are.
February 3rd, 2008 at 4:42 am
I dunno, I think Toronto needs to work on making its black population a part of mainstream society. Keeping a minorities seperate hasn’t worked too well in the past - take a look at any native reserve in North America.
February 3rd, 2008 at 6:27 am
You’re welcome, lol. I don’t see how this will help anything either, because it’s not just black students who need help. It’s students of ALL RACES. They need to focus giving a better education to all the youth…not just one specific group.
February 3rd, 2008 at 8:57 am
i wouldnt mind if the brightest and smartest went to the black-focused school.
sending the dropouts to a black-focused school would accomplish nothing, i doubt niggas drop out because they wasnt teaching enought black-focused material. niggas aint righteous, school just wasnt for them, its not for everyone.
but i wouldnt want that black-focused material to be wasted on B-class teachers and dropout students. i would rather the brighter students learn that black material maybe they can do something great with the knowledge they gain. maybe feeding the mind of the next malcolm or martin. and not the next sharpton
February 3rd, 2008 at 11:15 am
Yea, I agree with The King…There are reasons why they’re dropping out and i’m pretty sure that, “it’s not black enough” isn’t one of the reasons. Just because it’s a black-focused school, that’s not gonna make them wake up from their bed and say “I WANNA GO TO SCHOOL TODAY! :D” No…It’s just not solving the problem. If you don’t wanna go to school, you DON’T wanna go to school, simple. So the solution is NOT, “Lets open up a black-focused school and maybe they’ll wanna come”. SOOOO MANY black students here in Toronto are against it, they hate the idea of it.
Oh and the black population over here IS a part of mainstream society already. Toronto is SOOO mulitcultural, so whites aren’t the majority anymore. People of other cultures have the same opportunities as everyone else. Same education, same job opportunities, same health care, etc.
What the school board needs to do, is look at the other factors, like their home lives, to better understand what’s causing the dropout rate.
February 3rd, 2008 at 12:35 pm
What does race have to do with education??? Just modernized segregation SMDH……
February 3rd, 2008 at 7:16 pm
I am a high school student who goes to a school in Toronto and there is no reason what so ever that a black student cannot reach success within the toronto school board. This simply isnt a racial issue, like the video said near the end its about exploring the issues that are making todays youth underachieve, black or white.
There is already this subtle racial divide going on within toronto high schools and by opening a black focused school, that they say everyone can attend (yeah right btw, there is no way a white kid is gonna be truly welcome at that school) is only drawing further attention to the fact that not everybodys skin is the same.
its going to be very interesting in a couple of years when statistics show if these types of schools are effective or not
February 4th, 2008 at 1:45 am
yes finally something that is focus on us not his-story of europeans.
February 4th, 2008 at 1:48 am
this is not going back to segregation. integration was never good idea for us, it was just another to control us. for those folks on here that has no idea, the brown vs. board of education had been overturned last year by the supreme court. it means segregation is legal again.