Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Segregation comes to Canada

I am sure that Leftists will want to bus some whites into these schools -- or am I missing something? "Diversity" IS good for education, isn't it?

Toronto's school board is expected to vote over harsh opposition tomorrow to approve Canada's first "Afro-centered" high school, which likely would open next year. Black parents have been central in pushing for the institution, which is touted as a solution to dropout rates that range between 25 percent and 40 percent among Toronto's black students, many of whom are of Caribbean heritage.

Critics have reacted viscerally, calling the plan a step toward the sort of segregation that once troubled U.S. schools but has seldom been an issue in Canada. "The majority of Torontonians are against it," said school trustee Michael Coteau, who added that he had never seen such a strong reaction. Many of his constituents have condemned the idea, he said, but "when there were reports of skyrocketing dropout rates among black students, no one called."

Since 1991, studies have shown dropout rates of more than 40 percent among the city's black Caribbean students, and of 25 percent to 30 percent among the children of recent immigrants from Africa. This compares with rates of 25 percent among white students and 18 percent for Asians.

One of the strongest advocates of the school is Donna Harrow, one of two black women who approached the school board in 2003 to petition for an alternative, special-needs school. Toronto has schools for other "at-risk" student groups, including homosexuals and American Indians. The United States has a few schools specifically for blacks, including in Cleveland and Milwaukee. Mrs. Harrow said the Canadian press had wrongly presented the project as a form of segregation, or suggested that students who attend would be seen as unable to survive in the real world. "Any student - whether white, black or Chinese - who wants to celebrate the unity of people as part of being prepared for postsecondary education and opportunity is welcome," she said.

After months of study and community input, the school board released a 156-page report recommending the creation of one alternative school for 150 to 200 students, along with black-focused streams in three other schools at a total cost of about $800,000.

Despite the public opposition, the measure is expected to be approved when the board votes tomorrow. Although the school would be open to all students, it is not clear how many non-blacks would apply.

Trustee Josh Matlow opposes the plan. He fears the school for black children will start a domino effect that will splinter the city's 558 public schools into ethnic and racial educational ghettos. "It's a Pandora's box," he said, while quoting Martin Luther King's dream of all-inclusiveness. Even if the black-focused school doesn't fracture the school system, Mr. Matlow said, its success cannot be measured until "after my lifetime."

Three private schools in Toronto serve black students up to the sixth grade. Zakiya Tafaria, who teaches at the Umoja Learning Circle, said that in the 12 years since the school's inception, 90 percent of its graduates have been put forward a grade when evaluated for admittance to mainstream middle schools. Mr. Tafaria called the alternative school a good idea, but warned that many families will not want to participate if it is placed in an area stigmatized as a black crime zone.

Education in Canada is a provincial responsibility, and the country's early schools often were segregated by law. In the 1800s, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Ontario schools were established to segregate black students. In Nova Scotia, the last separate school for blacks closed in 1986, said Angela Wilson, who joined Mrs. Harrow in pushing for the Toronto school.

During slavery in the United States, public schools were integrated in Toronto, but many Ontario communities enforced segregated education. In 1853, Ontario's chief justice ruled that no matter how poor the quality of the school, blacks must attend. Yet during this same period, William Hubbard, the son of refugee slaves and a graduate of the city's integrated schools, was elected to 14 consecutive terms as a Toronto alderman and served as acting mayor.

The proposed school will teach the basic Ontario curriculum along with some black history that is not taught in mainstream schools, Miss Wilson said. It also will provide a culturally sensitive environment where teachers don't react with hostility to black students who use slang or wear dreadlocks. Miss Wilson said her teenage son and daughter attend mainstream schools but they understand the need for this alternative. "This is about choice," she said.

Source





Britain: Special favours for Muslim schools

Even I, who have written constantly about the British government's lethally flawed strategy of appeasing Islamism, am left breathless by today's story in the Telegraph:
Private Muslim schools have been given the power to police themselves, despite widespread fears over religious segregation, The Daily Telegraph can disclose. In a controversial move, they have won the right to appoint their own Ofsted-style inspectors. A new independent watchdog has been set up to be more `sensitive' toward Islamic education. The decision comes despite concerns some private Muslim schools are already failing to prepare pupils for life in modern Britain.

Barry Sheerman, the chairman of the Commons schools select committee, told MPs last month local councils were finding it `difficult to know what is going on in some faith schools - particularly Muslim schools'. But religious leaders defended the move, saying the curriculum and religious traditions in faith schools demand specialist knowledge. Under present legislation, most state and private schools are inspected by Ofsted, the Government's standards watchdog. The Association of Muslim Schools and the Christian Schools' Trust applied to the Government to set up a separate inspectorate for a small number of private faith schools. The Daily Telegraph has learned the Department for Children, Schools and Families [DCSF] approved plans for the Bridge Schools' Inspectorate last week, giving it the power to inspect about 60 private Muslim schools and 50 Christian schools.

It really is hard to believe this. There is a crying need for much more rigorous state inspection of Muslim schools. Ofsted, which is supposedly going to police this new Muslim/Christian inspectorate, is hopeless; having progressively emasculated its inspection processes generally, it has already failed to identify Islamic extremism in the Muslim schools it inspects (see the evidence revealed in the recent Policy Exchange report of the bigoted teaching materials used at the King Fahad academy in west London, to which Ofsted gave a clean bill of health). The only way to address Islamic extremism is to take the toughest line possible against the dissemination of hatred and incitement. That means that the state must make it its business to find out where children are being thus indoctrinated and stop it. And that means the state must inspect all Muslim teaching institutions and take action against them where it finds that this is happening. To withdraw instead, as the government is now doing, and allow these schools to police themselves is to give a green light to the extremist production line.

Furthermore, it also bows to the Islamist insistence that British Muslims must develop parallel institutions to the British state, a fundamental element of their strategy to Islamise this country. For although this is presented as a Muslim/Christian initiative, no-one can be in any doubt that the main thrust comes from British Muslims. The website of the Christian body involved, the Christian Schools' Trust, is being rejigged so information on it is sparse; but it appears to be a marginal fundamentalist body. Certainly there is no indication that Christian schools in general, or Jewish schools for that matter, are pressing for their own inspectorate.

Many people still think that the idea that Britain could ever be `Islamised' is just too preposterous and silly to be taken seriously. It is not. It is well advanced. What it relies upon is three things: the refusal of the British public to take it seriously; the Islamists' ability to manipulate moral and intellectual liberal confusion and the resulting paralysis over `Islamophobia', `discrimination' and `minority rights'; and the craven desire by the British government to buy off the implicit and explicit threats of Muslim social unrest and yet more terrorist attacks by giving in to the Islamists' demands. Truly moderate British Muslims who want to live under the umbrella of British laws and institutions are thus grievously undermined, and the entire country is put at ever greater peril from the pincer movement of cultural and terrorist attack. Members of Parliament with an elementary sense of national self-preservation simply must not let this pass.

Source






BIG REWARDS FOR FAILURE IN WASHINGTON DC

These guys would get the boot for the poor performance of the system that they supervise if they were employees of a private company -- but in government failure just gets more money thrown at it

School superintendents in the Washington area will collect salaries ranging from $157,200 to $279,340 in the fiscal year that ends June 30. Factor in benefits and perks, however, and the average annual compensation package swells to $351,730.

Compensation for the school chiefs goes well beyond the salaries reported to the public, according to a review of contracts for 12 superintendents in the District and its suburbs. Contracts routinely allow superintendents to collect tens of thousands in deferred compensation and to cash in weeks of unused leave annually. Superintendents enjoy supplemental insurance policies and retirement plans on top of the benefits available to all public school administrators.

In Montgomery County, the $242,686 salary paid this year to School Superintendent Jerry D. Weast represents not quite half of a total compensation package valued at $489,763. John E. Deasy in Prince George's County will receive $424,080 in total compensation, with less than two-thirds coming from salary, according to figures provided by the school system.

The compensation packages help school boards attract quality educators to a job that is becoming increasingly hard to fill. Superintendent salaries nationwide have increased by almost half in the past decade, in an ongoing bidding war for talented candidates. Superintendent tenures are declining, and the lengths of superintendent searches are growing, as top educators leave the field for jobs with less stress and better pay, according to the American Association of School Administrators.

There are "not enough qualified superintendents," said James E. Richmond, superintendent of Charles County schools, adding that there are "plenty of openings all over the country." Superintendent contracts are structured with layers of benefits and perks, allowing school systems to minimize taxpayer outcry.

Information about superintendent contracts was first reported in The Washington Post on Dec. 25. The above chart presents details of the compensation packages, including salary, cost-of-living adjustments and bonuses; deferred compensation; health, life and disability insurance; pension contributions; compensation for unused vacation time and for job-related expenses; a car and, in the case of the Prince George's and D.C. superintendents, someone to drive it.

The figures were supplied by school systems and represent actual or projected earnings. One superintendent included in the Dec. 25 analysis, Rebecca L. Perry of Alexandria, left the job this month. Before her departure, she was drawing an annual salary of $226,243 as leader of the city's 10,570-student system. In the 2006-07 school year, she received total compensation of $285,765.

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