Africentric School to Open in 2009
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Louise Brown, Toronto Star, May 21, 2008
After years of debate that has divided communities of every colour, Toronto’s public school board voted tonight to open an Africentric alternative school in September 2009. The junior kindergarten to Grade 5 school—believed to be a first in Canada—is expected to help tackle a 40 per cent dropout rate among black students.
Approved by a 13-8 vote after a heated debate in which one trustee called another a racist, the school will be located in an empty wing of Sheppard Public School on Sheppard Ave. W. near Keele St.
The board also voted to study the feasibility of opening an Africentric high school in the future, but rejected a proposal to do so by September 2010, a timeline trustee Irene Atkinson called “absurdly” short.
“We want to get it right, and a high school program is completely different from elementary school.”
The Africentric grade school will seek to hire a number of black teachers and use a more global, less Europe-focused curriculum to engage more students of colour. It will be open to children of all backgrounds from anywhere in the city.
“This is an excellent start, a good thing,” said Donna Harrow, one of two parents who spearheaded the push for the school. Although disappointed the board did not schedule an Africentric high shcool for 2010, Harrow said “it’s important for us to start working on the real issues. The struggle continues.”
Trustee James Pasternak, whose ward includes the school, held a thumbs up sign after the vote, and said kids eager to start at the Africentric school in 2009 could move to Sheppard this fall to get used to the building and community.
However, emotions ran high, with trustee Maria Rodrigues, who supports the school, accusing trustee Josh Matlow of being racist in his opposition to the school, and refused to apologize.
Those who voted against the school were: Matlow, Stephnie Payne, Howard Goodman, Scott Harrison, Chris Tonk, John Hastings, Soo Wong and Mari Rutka.
Unlike the freestanding model common in dozens of U.S. cities and urged by many local proponents, board staff drafted what it called a “made-in-Toronto” blueprint that will open in an unused wing of a larger underenrolled school.
It is a model Premier Dalton McGuinty has said he prefers to a school in a separate building, although he has made it clear he opposes any public school focused on one culture.
Children in the new Africentric school likely will enter Sheppard through the same front door, share a lunch room, playground and library and join the same after-school club and teams.
If interest proves strong, Sheppard has enough empty rooms to accommodate classes up to Grade 8. The site of an Africentric high school could also be located in an underenrolled high school.
Grace-Edward Galabuzi, a Ryerson professor, said he was pleased with the vote for an elementary school, “but we’ll have to keep working on the continuum, right through to Grade 12.” He said he was disappointed there was no start date for the high school.
Trustee Bruce Davis opposed a move to scratch plans for the high school.
“If you kill this idea, we’ll be giving children a path up to a certain grade and then giving them no where else to go.”
Staff need time to study the more complex high school system with its compulsory credits, Davis said.
The idea of an Africentric school has been in and out of the spotlight since Ontario’s Royal Commission on Learning in 1995 cited it as one possible fix for the stubborn dropout rate among students of colour.
It was raised anew in 2005 at a public forum on black achievement by education professor George Dei, who studies black youth disengagement. The idea gained steam last year when two local mothers argued Africentric schools could be a sort of academic test lab with lessons for mainstream schools.
While Angela Wilson and Harrow said their dream is to have an Africentric alternative school in each corner of Toronto, they cheered the vote as a start.
Trustees agreed that the school will need at least enough students for two classes of consecutive grades, with about 22 students each, in order to be viable. The board will start taking applications this fall.
(Posted on May 22, 2008)
Comments
Right, the best way to deal with 70% out of wedlock birth rates, high dropout rates, and the fact that 1/3 of all black males are in prison is to teach them phony and fake African history. Much easier to fantasize than it is to deal with the problem at hand, isn’t it?
Posted by at 6:58 PM on May 22
If I were a white Canadian parent, I would be all for this. Any time you can isolate blacks away from other students, it has to be a positive.
There is a reason American students have been “dumbed down” over the last 50 years or so. And there is no denying that has indeed happened. Strangely that coincides with the Brown vs board of education decision. It was thought that blacks couldnt learn without sitting next to white kids. Now that that has proven to be in error, it is apparent that some blacks want segregated schools again, which I am all for. If that happens in America and blacks still make no meaningful gains on white students, then what? More accusations of white racism? More demands that schools again become integrated? School busing to insure that there is the right “mix” in every school. It seems to me that no matter what is done it wont be good enough. Blacks will demand more and more and black students will still bring up the rear.
Posted by Mike Harrigan at 7:02 PM on May 22
If these pyramid fantasies and helicopter myths were something imposed on them by whites as an egregiously silly substitute for a real education, blacks would be rioting in the streets.
Since blacks are inflicting this on *themselves*, we won’t have any violent protests; merely a few graduating classes of kids who think white people were created by a mad scientist rather than an ice age, but who still won’t be able to spell or cypher.
Posted by Michael C. Scott at 7:22 PM on May 22
It would be very interesting to see what the students will be taught, especially in history. At an all black school they are free to re-write and interperate history as they see fit, and since the purpose of the school is to give the students a positive self image, well, it’s easy to guess how they will accomplish this
Posted by at 7:25 PM on May 22
If blacks want to start and “afrocentric” school, I suggest they all go back to Africa and start one. Then they can be surrounded by all the african “culture” they want. Whites are surrounded by the african culture here and are robbed raped and murdered by it almost daily.
George Manuelian
Atherton, CA
Posted by George Manuelian at 8:47 PM on May 22
Once again, a government body takes the responsibility of parenting black kids. And like their past experiments, tax money will be flushed down the proverbial toilet. Blacks who wanted an education prior to 1960, got one with no problem and no special anything.
Instead of losing something for acting out, they’re rewarded with something “special”. This is insane.
It’s very incriminating when black “adults” treat their children like lab rats to be used for their next social experiment.
To the black people who continue to demand government in every part of your lives to include the parenting of your children; you’re wasting your time! Give it up! Admit that blacks refuse to parent their children unlike every other race in the world! Announce to the world that you expect government to make up for your lack of personal responsibility while you continue to practice irresponsible birthing and then refuse to teach your children civil behavior.
They have absolutely no shame.
Posted by Proactive at 8:48 PM on May 22
So let’s see if we have this right:
1)White solidarity is evil.
2)Black solidarity is good.
3)White schools are wicked and require “diversity” to be whole.
4)Black schools are a wonderful and righteous idea.
Okay - no double standard here. Moving right along…
Posted by Hank at 8:50 PM on May 22
Translation: Blacks can’t succeed when faced with the same educational challenges and hurdles that every other ethnicity faces, so lets dumb it down for them so we can pretend we’re all equal and feel good.
By the way, I’m curious as to what kind of “Africentricity” the school is aiming for. Seeing as almost all worthwhile mentions of Africa have to do with either the arab egyptians or white european colonialism.
Posted by Mike at 9:12 PM on May 22
“The Africentric grade school will seek to hire a number of black teachers and use a more global, less Europe-focused curriculum to engage more students of colour.”
They make references to “people of color,” even though the school will only teach those things black? What non-black would want to sit through class after class listening to a pack of lies about an arrogant group of people that are not smart enough to achieve anything of any value on their own? I doubt Hispanics would want that.
Posted by lurp at 9:12 PM on May 22
I say, let them have at it! Let ‘em go.
I want to see what the excuse for the inevitable failure will be and just how they will twist it around to make it the fault of whites.
Posted by kitty at 9:28 PM on May 22
“Approved by a 13-8 vote after a heated debate in which one trustee called another a racist……”
The usual translation:
“Shut up and sit down, Whitey, because we’re going to railroad this policy into action because I don’t have one rational debating point to match your own.”
Posted by at 9:47 PM on May 22
I say I am all for it. Keeping the races away from each other is good. People do not realise how much multiculturalism helps Whites maintain their unique genes and culture preserved during such large scale immigration.
Posted by Jasper at 10:07 PM on May 22
Personally I am all for Afrocentric schools.This will make life safer and less stressful for students of other races who really want to learn. Of course this concept will fail because blacks throughout the world actively prey on other blacks.
Posted by at 10:08 PM on May 22
Did Canadian whites corrupt them so badly that this is a case of black flight?
Black teachers are resigning from black Baltimore schools daily because black pupils are so violent against them. Look what happened when the great Oprah established her African girls’ school. Within a matter of weeks, the teachers were molesting the students. Nothing will ever change these people; they are what they are.
Posted by joshua t at 10:23 PM on May 22
Let’s see. A black school with a black curriculum. I’d sure like to see black math, black geography, and black english classes. They will really be unique.
Hey! They won’t have the huge benefits and rewards that come with “diversity” in their classes! Liberals tell us we all need it! These black kids are being denied!
Time to protest!
Posted by Proactive at 12:45 AM on May 23
Proactive wrote:
“Hey! They won’t have the huge benefits and rewards that come with ‘diversity’ in their classes! Liberals tell us we all need it! These black kids are being denied!”
Let’s not forget that “diversity” is a leftist code word for “less whites and more blacks”. This is why, if you point out to a leftist that sub-Saharan African schools lack racial diversity (since they’re mostly all black) - the leftist will go into hysterics and call you racist. The real goal of leftists is to make the entire world black; only then will “diversity” be achieved. Even when it comes to Jewish leftists, if you express any interest in preserving the Jewish People, they consider you racist for that. The only “diversity” such leftists value is that everybody be black. Since about 13% of the U.S. population is black, if people intermarry freely, this means that eventually everybody will be about 1/7th black. A person who is 1/7th black is considered “black” and there you have it. With such demographics, civilization will crumble and cities will revert to nature. Humanity will revert to a state of savagery as our numbers decline to what they were during the paleolithic period. Hence, environmentalists will also have achieved their goal. So you see, dear readers, “diversity” and environmentalism are intertwined and this is no accident.
Posted by jewamongyou at 11:02 AM on May 23
Two things will happen here with 100% certainty:
1) The only people who will attend an Afrocentric curriculum will be blacks. Blacks will do what they do best, and with their antisocial behaviour they will drive out the other students of the school until the Afrocentric school is expanded to incorporate the suddenly empty buildings. The rosy predictions of all races sharing clubs and activities will not occur unless they count an activity called “Victim and Perpetrator”.
2) Despite this school being catered exclusively towards blacks, this experiment will have zero effect on the negative social statistics. As this school will be an abject failure, the media will not report on this scheme again. No news which could cast a bad light on the failures of multiculturalism will be permitted.
Posted by ODDL at 12:34 PM on May 23
They don’t need to go through all of that trouble in Canadian schools. Just do like we do here in the U.S.- after Blacks fail a couple of times at a grade, pass them on up to the next grade. Of course this made middle school gym class hell for us 11 years old white boys having to play Greek dodge ball against 16 yr old black boys, but hey, it gives blacks something they’re good at to feel good about themselves, which seems to be the only purpose of the modern school system in American anymore, anyway.
Posted by Winston Smith at 12:51 PM on May 23
The failure of blacks in Canada, a country where there never was any slavery, segregation, Jim Crow, etc, reveals the basic pathology of the black race. Britain is also another example.
Posted by at 12:58 PM on May 23
“The Africentric grade school will seek to hire a number of black teachers and use a more global, less Europe-focused curriculum to engage more students of colour.”
Translation: Segregate blacks with a black faculty in a black-only up-to-grade 5 school, and teach them black ‘subjects.’
This is an effective formula to allow non-black students to learn without the destructive presence of disruptive black students, and will considerably enhance the education of non-black students.
The Africentric grade school experience, however, will leave its students less educated, less prepared for higher grades, and likely increase black dropout rates, since the material taught will be even less relevant to the student’s outside lives.
Posted by Gary at 12:58 PM on May 23
Want to keep Black youths from dropping out? Teach more relevant coursework. Examples being: shoplifting, muggings, burglary and petty theft. With optional subjects like rap ‘music’, nor forgetting African Studies (those Alice-in-Wonderland, well-substantiated claims like those magnificent civilizations, great centers of learning all founded in Black Africa, usually pre-dating those founded in Europe by thousands of years. Nor can we overlook Black Africans inventing all the sciences — math, chemistry, physics, geometry, etc., etc., etc. Long before any White man even imagined higher numbers than represented by one’s fingers and toes might have some dubious practical value after all. Say, did I overlook those incredible break-throughs by Africans in medicine and anatomy? Undoubtedly studied while preparing their dead captives for the evening’s feast.
Posted by Fed Up at 2:16 PM on May 23
Leftists have been promoting black race pride as the answer to black failure for the last forty years with dreadful results.
Posted by Mark at 5:31 PM on May 23
I guess the logic here is, if they send them to a school that tells them their people were kings and queens of ancient Egypt, and that they were responsible for all inventions evil Whitey later took credit for, along with be the original explorers of the new world. And any other grand historical achievement they can falsely take credit for, this will discourage them from dropping out? Charming, mythology trumps reality with them. So what else is new?
Posted by at 8:23 AM on May 24
Blacks want “Africentric” this and “Africentric” that; the ONLY thing blacks DON’T want from Africa is to LIVE there.
Posted by at 12:21 AM on May 25
Well this is a start, but as the article states, it’s only the beginning. What the school board really wants is a separate brick-and-mortar school for ages K - 12 and an open enrollment system with a multiracial student body. And believe me, these new Africentric teachers will sell their souls for each naive little white couple they can con into sending their cute impressionable kiddies to that school.
Ohhh yes. Get ready for 3rd graders re-enacting American slave rebellions, field trips to Afro-American landmarks in Detroit, and a whimsically nebulous grading system designed to ensure that “effort” and “enthusiasm” count just as much as knowledge.
Get ready to hear white teenagers telling you that they have Melanin Envy and wish they lived in the tropics so they could get enough of a suntan to shrug off their evil Ice People personality. And since the new multicultural O Canada anthem isn’t going to be black enough, they’ll think up a new one. Or just borrow Detroit’s if no one in the school has enough imagination to write their own. And when a gang of black students beats up a white kid 3 grades younger than them? Oh well, they’re just taking out their frustration at the unimaginably painful experience of being a black student in a white nation. That little milkface was asking for it, anyway. And of course, it goes without saying that black male teachers will be sexually harassing white girls, and getting away with it, because who’s she going to complain to?
I notice they seem to prefer the spelling “Africentric”. Did they decide the letter O was too offensive to persons of color? “There’s no O in Africa!”
Posted by Sleep at 5:56 PM on May 25
I have read that the average garden varity black in Africa has between a 65 & 75 I.Q. Most of the blacks that succeed in business or invents some small item in America are half white.
Posted by at 7:36 PM on May 25
“The struggle continues.”
Of course, “THE STRUGGLE” is guaranteed its place in eternity; if only by the circular nature of its “progress.”
50 years ago, the claim of inherent discrimination and disparity in racially separate schools was at the very foundation of the de-segregation/”civil rights” movement.
50 years later, black students need an education of “their own” in order to successfully compete (historically black colleges have had society’s blessing all along).
Were the American Southerners who resisted Federally-forced integration really misleading Northerners and deluding themselves, or was Alabama Gov. George Wallace displaying admirable courage, perception, and foresight when he insisted that “…segregation forever” would be of benefit to both races?
One thing is for certain: “THE STRUGGLE” is here to stay.
Posted by KonfederateKarl at 2:02 PM on May 27
As a Canadian who works at a school in Toronto, I can tell you exactly what will transpire. They will invent a curriculum of fairy tales and regurgiated propaganda. And guess what? All students will pass with flying colours. Even if they can’t pass, just move em on up (just like the Jeffersons) to the next grade. The school will be ridden with violence however they will not expel/suspend any students so as not to prevent any written record of the incidents. The following year they will file a report stating Afrocentric school a great success-suspensions down and graduates up! ps: name witheld due to obvious fear of being deemed racist and being fired from school board
Posted by at 7:49 PM on May 28