<p>The school will feature a black-focussed/Afro-centric curriculum. It will not be a school which will be available only to black students. Just as at the other TDSB alternative schools, any student may attend. </p>
<p>07Dad, it isn’t as simple as that. The reason that this has become an issue in Toronto is because in the past few years, there has been an ever-increasing problem with black youth and violence. Compared to U.S. cities, it’s a drop in the bucket, but in Toronto, it is not an issue that people want to ignore. As a result, and after many workshops, town hall type meetings, various government and community studies, this attempt at a solution came to the forefront. Of course, it has been controversial and no one is without an opinion on the subject. If there was a ‘major Anglo group’ which had the same type of problems and issues, related to increased crime in the city and drastic educational issues of dropping out, etc., and which had been studied as this current issue had been studied, then, yes, I can say with some confidence that I would feel the same way. It hasn’t happened, doesn’t happen now, and is not likely to happen in the future.</p>
<p>Washdad, as I said previously, it’s ONE school. This is not a case of taking every black student in the city and isolating them. They wouldn’t all fit into one school! It’s an attempt to provide an opportunity for some students who are now not being successful. Will it work? Who knows. I hope it does because the alternative is not working. What is your solution? To maintain the status quo and ignore the situation of these kids? That isn’t working.</p>
<p>Not only is this racial segregation, whether by choice or not, but I wonder if its curriculum, staffing, and focus is also based too much on race. It sounds like it from the meager description in the article. What problems are they trying to solve? Will the education of the students really improve by making sure all the teachers are the same race as them and that history classes spend little time on traditional topics but focus on achievements by people of a particular race instead?</p>
<p>I agree with the ‘inclusive’ method by having a faculty from various backgrounds and history classes that cover additional topics relevant to the students but I don’t agree with an ‘exclusive’ method based simply on race which is what this sounds like.</p>
<p>Preuss has demonstrated, in a big way, that students can succeed outside of the ethnic issues-- it’s NOT about race. It’s about economic identity. It just so happens that many people of specific ethnicities are also working-class/poor.</p>
<p>I’m not so sure I’d hold up Preuss School as a shining example of anything right now. They are currently bogged down in a big grade-tampering scandal:</p>
<p>“The audit confirmed suspicions that inappropriate grading had occurred. It found alleged undue influence being placed on teachers by the Press School principal, former high school counselor and current senior academic advisors to change grades to benefit students, provide alterntive grading measures for failing students or to lessen the rigors of student AP courses to allow students to pass.”</p>
<p>Elite universities inflate grades like mad, but you’re going to tell me that they aren’t meeting their missions? </p>
<p>Yes, Preuss screwed up there, but you honestly believe that this negates EVERY SINGLE YEAR of success? It’s funny how a school finally finds a way to get underrepresented kids into good colleges, and people spend more time focusing on the screwups than the successes. </p>
<p>Plus, they took action and made a point of doing something about the mistakes. That’s more than can be said about a lot of other secondary schools. Sorry, but even if Preuss dropped the ball, the model itself is not flawed. </p>
<p>I mean, the US is a flawed democracy. Is republican democracy bad?</p>
<p>False analogy. A case where the entire grading scale drifts upward over time due to systemic changes in grading practices or lessening of teacher expectations is not even close to being the same thing as teachers being strong-armed by the administration to change grades for failing students to give the illusion that the school is doing better than it really is.</p>
<p>Fair enough (I’ll concede that), but what are your arguments about the model vs. the reality?</p>
<p>Are you saying that the model, in and of itself, is failing? I don’t see that. I see an administration that was afraid of seeing numbers slipping and just did something stupid. To negate the entire model and history, however, seems silly.</p>
<p>The flaws in the implementation are not necessarily reason to throw out the baby with the bathwater.</p>
<p>I’m saying it’s impossible to tell one way or the other in the face of the cheating. Run the model clean for a while and then we can make that judgment.</p>
<p>Trying to guess how well the school is really doing without the cheating is like trying to guess how many medals Marion Jones would have won if she hadn’t taken steroids. Might have won some. Might have won none at all. We just can’t say.</p>
<p>The point is that the cheating is seemingly a recent issue. It’s not like we also can’t look at SAT scores, which cannot be rigged. If the SAT scores are higher at Preuss, then it does suggest that they’re getting fundamentals in.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, as well, this is social science (not natural science.) We can’t really do the same kinds of experiments that would allow us for control groups. We have to tease out whatever info we can from the data we have.</p>