RACIAL SEGREGATION BECOMING CORRECT AGAIN IN BRITAIN

First Canada, now Britain

Black boys may have to be taught apart from other children in some subjects to improve their grades, according to Trevor Phillips, the chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality.

A row over whether black boys should be segregated at school erupted last night after Mr Phillips said that separate lessons may be needed to overcome years of failure. Mr Phillips also called for tougher action on black fathers who do not take parenting responsibilities seriously, including the denial of access to their children if they fail to turn up to school parent meetings.

Teachers reacted with concern to the proposals, which come after the publication of figures last month showing black male teenagers continuing to lag far behind their white peers in GCSEs. Martin Ward, the deputy general secretary of the Secondary Heads Association gave warning that the suggestions could fall foul of racial equality laws. He said: "Clearly there is scope for schools to help all children who are doing badly. But to single out black children for special treatment could be counter-productive and even illegal."

But Mr Phillips is no stranger to controversy, having called last year for a redefintion of multiculturalism. He explained that this was to ensure community cohesion rather than the promotion of separate cultural identities. Mr Phillips told Inside Out, the BBC One programme due to be broadcast at 7.30pm today, that many black boys were suffering from a culture where it was not cool to be clever, and they lacked self-esteem and good role models. "If the only way to break through the wall of attitude that surrounds black boys is to teach them separately for some subjects, then we should be ready for that," he said.

A spokeswoman for Mr Phillips said last night that he did not believe that separate lessons were right for all black boys but he was reacting in the BBC programme to a successful experiment in a US school. The spokeswoman said: "The BBC asked him to see the work of Professor Stan Mimms, who took black boys out of the class in a school in St Louis and they were taught separately in a different classroom. Trevor saw that it seemed to be working there and believes we should not close our minds to it and should look into it. "He is not saying that all black boys should be taught separately. He is saying it seems to have worked in America and we should look into it."

Mr Phillips told the programme: "A tough new strategy would compel black fathers to be responsible fathers. If they can't be bothered to turn up for parents' evening, should they expect automatic access to their sons?"

Another prominent black figure said that educating black boys separately in mixed schools might actually cause them to be demonised. Simon Woolley, co-ordinator of Operation Black Vote, gave warning that the controversy went deeper than Mr Phillips's comments suggested. Mr Woolley, who has invited the Rev Jesse Jackson to Britain this week to encourage the black community to vote, said: "The issue about poor results with some black children is complex. Run-down housing estates, broken families and low teacher expectation are all factors. I would prefer to focus on these things first before we start blaming the victims - and demonise them for their failure. However, it is true that the bling-bling and gangster rap culture does not help."

Although results improved marginally last year, just 35.7 per cent of black Caribbean pupils in England and 43.3 per cent of black African pupils scored at least five C grades at GCSE, compared with a national average of 52.3 per cent. Those figures masked the fact that black Caribbean girls achieved far better results than boys, with 43.8 per cent achieving five A*-C GCSEs compared with 27.3 per cent boys. The difference of 15.5 percentage points compares with a national gender gap of 10.2 per cent.

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EDUCATION NOW THE SERVANT OF LEFTIST POLITICS

Richard Rorty is a philosophy professor at the University of Virginia. He's also editor of an unabashedly socialist magazine, Dissent, and a hero of the academic left. Here's his political assessment of academe: "The power base of the Left in America is now in the universities, since the trade unions have largely been killed off. The universities have done a lot of good work by setting up, for example, African-American studies programs, Women's Studies programs, and Gay and Lesbian Studies programs. They have created power bases for these movements."

Movements? If you had any illusions that these programs were simply "studying" these areas, now you know better. Like Churchill's Ethnic Studies program, they're all "movements." And American universities have become "the power base of the Left."

The debate stimulated by the Churchill affair has escalated into a long overdue exploration into the politics and processes of higher education. The sacred cow of tenure is under review, along with the limits of academic freedom and the shameful lack of ideological balance within college faculties. It's like peeling off the outer layers of an artichoke to get to the heart of the issue. And this is it:

1). Ideology and politics. As Rorty proudly proclaims, the Left has taken over academe. We want it back.

2). Accountability. Self-important academics believe themselves to be beyond reproach, sitting as philosopher-kings, dispensing their wisdom to the ignorant masses. Nonsense. They're ordinary people, government employees dependent on their customers and the taxpayers for their income, and ultimately accountable to their bosses and the citizens who elect the Board of Regents. Academic freedom is not absolute.

One hundred ninety-nine CU faculty members, in an ad in the Boulder Daily Camera, have "demanded" that the investigation of Churchill be "stopped immediately." They argue that inquiries into his alleged plagiarism, misrepresentation of sources cited in his "scholarly" writings, false claims of Indian status in his affirmative action job application, and incitements to commit violence should be inadmissible because he had originally been criticized only for his ideas. Please. This is like saying a fugitive serial killer should be released because he was originally stopped by the police for making an illegal left turn. Churchill's potty mouth is what got him noticed.

Some of his apologists have resorted to playing the "McCarthyism" card. Nonsense. This implies that Churchill is being unjustly hounded for things he has not done or things that cause no harm. On the contrary, Churchill's misdeeds appear to be quite tangible, deadly serious and extremely harmful. That's why there's an investigation. Let's see what it concludes. Professor Charles Braider, director of the Center for Humanities and Arts, says the Churchill investigation has caused a "chilling effect" on curriculum and is "affecting the very life of the university." Good. It's about time. I'd prefer to call it a remedial, correcting effect.

Whatever the outcome for Churchill, the battle lines have formed and are hardening. Here's what many of us, I hope most, would like to see: substantive change, a revolution even, at the University of Colorado. It must start with electing regents who have a commitment to restoring real, intellectual diversity and an evenhanded exchange of ideas. That means hiring conservative professors to balance the now left-lopsided scales.....

We're told that applications from out-of-state students - who subsidize Colorado students by paying six times the resident tuition - have fallen off sharply. Here's the perfect remedy: Convert CU into a bastion of conservative thought, making it the only big-time state university in the country of that kind. The pent-up demand for such a school is overwhelming. Multitudes of students would beat a path to our door

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BRAVE WORDS

But who listens to Britain's Tories?

Michael Howard pledged that Chris Woodhead would rewrite the school timetable under the Tories as head teachers effectively tore up the Government's education White Paper yesterday. The Conservative leader said that the former head of Ofsted would slim down the curriculum and rid it of political correctness, as well as bringing rigour back to exams.

Mr Howard is seeking to move the pre-election agenda on to education after successfully diverting attention away from Labour's school plans last week with his attack on the NHS. This will continue today with plans for special-needs children that challenge the drive for inclusion in mainstream schools. Conversely, Labour wants to talk about health this week with its "mini-manifesto" for the NHS tomorrow.

Mr Woodhead told The Times that he would want all primary children to be taught to read using phonics and all secondary children to be given a good grasp of the classics of English literature. The former Ofsted chief, regarded as a scourge of the teaching profession, said: "This would herald a return to curriculum subjects which focus upon the knowledge that most people want their children to be taught. In geography, for example, they want children to learn where capital cities are and spend less time on ecological issues like global warming."

The Tories are seeking to capitalise on a tough start for Ruth Kelly as Education Secretary after she was jeered by the Secondary Heads' Association last week. Mr Howard was helped further by head teachers yesterday, who said they would advise students to study for A levels instead of vocational qualifications if they wanted to go to university. Speaking less than a fortnight after the Government published its 14-19 proposals, Martin Ward, deputy general secretary of the Secondary Heads' Association (SHA), said that the plans had delivered no change and simply affirmed the second-class status of vocational qualifications. "If universities continue to ask only for A-level grades, we will focus our efforts on getting our students the grades they need. Schools that want breadth for the brighter students will adopt the IB (international baccalaureate) - if they can afford it," he told the annual conference of SHA members in Brighton yesterday. "Every child matters, we are told, but we now know that those who take A levels matter more than others."

Mr Ward's assessment came as an astonishing blow to Ms Kelly, who last month rejected plans for a radical reform of secondary examinations and favoured, instead, a vocational diploma system alongside GCSEs and A levels.

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

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