<p>“Toronto District School Board trustees last night approved a contentious proposal for a black-focused school in the city, The Globe’s Caroline Alphonso and James Bradshaw wrote today in their front-page article Toronto trustees narrowly approve black-focused school”</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s an issue that demands or deserves laughter or snide remarks. This is an issue that has been in discussions for quite some time in Toronto as a result of problems in the black community. There are many who would argue that some of the black youth of the city are not getting what they need in the current system. It has been acknowledged that the system is not a success in providing these kids with a good education, with a good retention and graduation rate, or with a good amount of success in getting these kids to post-secondary education. </p>
<p>The proposal is for an alternative school which is chosen voluntarily by the students and their families which may (the operative word is may) help accomplish all that the current system isn’t. I would have expected better than the Snoop and Barbara Billingsley comments from mature, intelligent adults.</p>
<p>And yes, Ari, Canada is, indeed, more progressive than the U.S. in many ways.</p>
<p>I’m laughing because of the irony, and yes, I know quite a bit about Canada.</p>
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<p>It didn’t strike me as any worse than something you’d see on Daily Show or Colbert. Just because we’re mature and intelligent doesn’t mean we’re always serious.</p>
<p>Well we have an African American Academy that is part of the Seattle public schools.
However- it hasn’t acheived its goals IMO.</p>
<p>Several children in the neighborhood ( who are AA) attended for a few years, but now attend a local school, they said they were harrassed on the playground and in the classroom because they wanted to excel- they also were disappointed ( their parents were) by low adult expectations in the building.
Which is really sad- because isn’t academics what it is about?</p>
<p>I suspect that most Americans would be appalled by the quality of facilities at most Japanese high schools. I mean seriously appalled. Yet they learn, somehow…</p>
<p>That’s why I added Jive. Airplane allusions are always good. But I thought she was dead. Glad to hear otherwise. She was the mom we all wanted in the 50’s.</p>
<p>Conservatives who support increased school choice should be applauding this. In the branch of American education that has a truly competitive private sector (colleges), there’s consumer demand for HBCUs, and the market meets that demand. This is the same thing: a niche market of consumers wants an HBCU product at the elementary school level, and the market (albeit a state-owned market in this case) is adapting to satisfy the demand.</p>
<p>I’m pretty cynical about what any school – even the world’s best – can do for kids who come from completely dysfunctional backgrounds, but if a group of parents wants to experiment with different school themes, that’s fine with me.</p>
<p>I’m sorry. I did read the whole article, but I just can’t get past the notion that there is a Canadian political party named the Progressive Conservatives.</p>
<p>Maybe there could be a school for children of obsessed CC-ers. Or pro-lifers? Or pro-choice-ers? Or pro-HYPS? Or pro-state schools w/substantial aid/merit?</p>
<p>Canada can now better afford it since their currency has also lapped ours.</p>
<p>Washdad, segregation usually involves an element of discrimination, force, isolation, none of which are the case with an alternative school where the attendees are exercising their own choice to attend.</p>
<p>Would you feel the same if it was a majority anglo group requesting the government sanction a “whites only” school and support it through tax dollars?</p>
<p>Alwaysamom, no matter how you wrap it up in words, the core meaning is that there is some group that needs to be isolated in their own world for some reason. The fact that skin color has been chosen as the item to reify does not camouflage the logic that the group in question was chosen because of a belief that they cannot succeed in the mainstream educational environment and need to be isolated for their own good – voluntary or not.</p>
<p>When this happens because a student or the student’s parents believes that they would do better in a science high school, or a high school of the performing arts, I accept it, because a love of a subject or a particular talent is easily reified as something that should be supported if possible. Choosing skin color for this is exactly the same principle used in apartheid, and it makes me sick. I am opposed to this infantalizing of certain groups based on their racial or cultural heritage.</p>