Toronto parents seek black-focused schools

TORONTO (Reuters Life!) - Concerned about the large number of black students who are failing and dropping out of high school, some Toronto parents want to create a set of black-focused schools to help tackle the problem.

The proposal for three publicly funded "African-centered alternative schools," from junior kindergarten to Grade 12, was pitched to Toronto's public school board in the summer, and is due to be discussed in January.

If the trustees approve the idea, the schools -- a first for Canada -- could open as early as next fall. A similar idea has been proposed in Nova Scotia and black-focused schools already exist in the United States.

"We believe there are just too many students who are being alienated from the system, who are not in the system anymore, who are failing within the system," said Donna Harrow, a parent and community worker who proposed the idea last year.

"We believe that this is one option that will be successful ... because parents will have the choice to commit to the school. A student will have the choice to commit to the school, and the teachers, the staff and administration, will also be people who will be committed to this."

But some say it is up to parents to create a black-focused home and to get more heavily involved with their children's education, rather than setting up experimental schools that some critics view as a new type of segregation.

"Black parents really need to come out to the school more often and be more actively involved in their children's lives at the school," said parent Robert Small, an artist and former director of the YMCA Black Achievers' Program.

"I don't think people who are focusing on getting these black-focused schools have spent five minutes getting the black community to understand that they have to be more actively involved in black children's lives."

Small said he would only consider sending his daughter to a black-focused school if the black community was funding it.

"Black-focused has to be black-financed too, because then you have control. Then the students will feel empowered knowing that you've created this institution," he said.

Figures from the Toronto public school board for 2005-06 show that 55 percent of Grade 10 students born in the English-speaking Caribbean and 32 percent born in Eastern Africa are at risk of dropping out because they have not completed enough credits to graduate on time.

The figures do not include black students in the system who were born in Canada or elsewhere. About 12 percent of students in Toronto public high schools identify themselves as black, according to a 2006 student census. In grades 7 and 8, it's 15 percent.

Advocates say the new program won't exclude nonblack students and teachers, although the curriculum would aim to approach subjects from a black perspective.

"This isn't an all-black school, this is a school where if the people identify with the principles they have every right to go there," said George Dei, a sociology professor at the University of Toronto and author of the book "Anti-Racism Education: Theory and Practice".

"This isn't a school where they're only going to be taught by black teachers, we don't have enough black teachers out there anyway."

He adds that forms of segregation in the school system already exist. The Toronto school board has piloted "Africentric" elementary social studies units and set up schools for aboriginal students and for gay and lesbian students.

"How come we have the faith-based schools, we have the all-boys schools, we have the all-girls schools and studies show the students do well. But when it comes to issues of race, you see people always hedging," Dei said.

Dei points to successful black-focused schools in Detroit, Washington and Kansas City, which have improved test scores of students, making the Toronto project worthy of a trial run.

"At least we should try it on a pilot basis, at least one or two, because we have nothing to lose. Unless we want to see our kids out on the streets we have nothing to lose."

(Editing by Janet Guttsman)