Wow..PA school separating white and black students?? Is this genius or stupidity?

[Relic]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...c-results.html

School defends experiment to separate black students in a bid to boost their academic results

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 3:03 PM on 27th January 2011

Defending the move: Principal Bill Jimenez says test results demanded a different approach with students

A high school has defended its decision to segregate students by race and gender.

The scheme, at McCaskey East High School in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, separates black students from the rest of the school pupils, and then further breaks it down into black females and black males.

The separation is only for a short period - six minutes each day and 20 minutes twice a month - but it has drawn criticism for raising the spectre of racial segregation.

Today the school's principal defended the policy.

Bill Jimenez said the school noticed that black students were not performing as well as other students, and that research had shown that same-race classes with strong same-race role models led to better academic results.

Mr Jimenez admitted that no other students were divided by race at the school, but he added that academic data dictated the school take a different approach with its black students.

He told Lancasteronline.com: 'One of the things we said when we did this was, "Let's look at the data, let's not run from it. Let's confront it and see what we can do about it".'

The idea came from Angela Tilghman, an instructional coach at McCaskey East.

She said statistics had shown about a third of McCaskey's African-Americans scored proficient or advanced in reading on last year's Pennsylvania System of School Assessment tests, compared with 60 per cent of white students and 42 per cent of students overall.

In mathematics, only 27 per cent of black students scored proficient or advanced.
McCaskey East High School

The separation at the school in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, is only for a short period - six minutes each day and 20 minutes twice a month - but it has drawn criticism for raising the spectre of racial segregation.

She said research had shown that grouping black students by gender with a strong role model could boost both academic achievement and self-esteem.

Some students, staff and parents were against the segregation, saying that it ran against everything the school stood for - with students from diverse backgrounds.

But it was something Mr Jimenez thought was worth trying.

In all segregated classes, mentors track their students' grades, test scores and attendance.

One such mentor is Michael Mitchell, who hopes to inspire his black male students during their short daily meetings.

He said he often quoted the Reverend Martin Luther King, who said: 'Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.'

Mr Mitchell recently used the quote when he found that some of his students were failing gym.

He said: 'They're all young. They're all strong. They're all athletic. But they're failing because they chose not to participate.

'That's an example of "conscientious stupidity". You can do but you choose not to do. These are the things we need to get away from.'

[CrispyDelicious]

Are there not afro-centric schools in the US?

We had one open in Toronto a few years back. At first there was quite an outcry, claiming it was segregation to a degree, but it's proving to be quite successful.

I see this article as an example of a poor implementation of the idea.

[C.Linton]

It's only an experiment, let's see what happens before dumping on the idea.

[macaroni tony]

Bill Jimenez said the school noticed that black students were not performing as well as other students, and that research had shown that same-race classes with strong same-race role models led to better academic results.

Mr Jimenez admitted that no other students were divided by race at the school, but he added that academic data dictated the school take a different approach with its black students.

He told Lancasteronline.com: 'One of the things we said when we did this was, "Let's look at the data, let's not run from it. Let's confront it and see what we can do about it".'


Mr Mitchell recently used the quote when he found that some of his students were failing gym.

He said: 'They're all young. They're all strong. They're all athletic. But they're failing because they chose not to participate.

'That's an example of "conscientious stupidity". You can do but you choose not to do. These are the things we need to get away from.'

I love the idea. I mean, why not try something, right? I remember watching something following a school in...was it DC? I can't quite remember...but a lot of the kids...heck, most of the kids purposely did not do well in school. I actually heard one of them saying "I ain't gonna be ****n with no school stuff, that's for those nerd *** kids. Let them white boys do they schoolwork, I'm a G!" And who can blame them? That's how the "cool kids" are acting, that's who they look up to, that's what they're gonna do. Yeah, I think insulating them in a class with positive role models who they can identify with at the helm is a good idea. It's at least worth trying

[macaroni tony]

Originally Posted by CrispyDelicious

Are there not afro-centric schools in the US?

I haven't heard of any

[Relic]

Originally Posted by macaroni tony

I love the idea. I mean, why not try something, right? I remember watching something following a school in...was it DC? I can't quite remember...but a lot of the kids...heck, most of the kids purposely did not do well in school. I actually heard one of them saying "I ain't gonna be ****n with no school stuff, that's for those nerd *** kids. Let them white boys do they schoolwork, I'm a G!" And who can blame them? That's how the "cool kids" are acting, that's who they look up to, that's what they're gonna do. Yeah, I think insulating them in a class with positive role models who they can identify with at the helm is a good idea. It's at least worth trying

Yeah my oldest son is in a high school like that. He's constantly telling me how if you act or look smart, you'll get your butt kicked. You need to act like a "tough guy" and god forbid you bow to a teacher's authority... Yet there are a ton of really smart kids in his grade. He was actually tutoring one kid for a while but they had to keep it on the "down low" so no one would find out. It's ridiculous.
The thing is though, that although his school is a majority of black students, it's NOT a racial thing. Many of the white and hispanic kids act the same way, and in his honors classes there are many black students so I dont think that separating by races would do squat in his school at least.

[jmattbassplaya]

Originally Posted by macaroni tony

I love the idea. I mean, why not try something, right? I remember watching something following a school in...was it DC? I can't quite remember...but a lot of the kids...heck, most of the kids purposely did not do well in school. I actually heard one of them saying "I ain't gonna be ****n with no school stuff, that's for those nerd *** kids. Let them white boys do they schoolwork, I'm a G!" And who can blame them? That's how the "cool kids" are acting, that's who they look up to, that's what they're gonna do. Yeah, I think insulating them in a class with positive role models who they can identify with at the helm is a good idea. It's at least worth trying

Have to agree with this and the general idea of at least giving this a try to see what the study finds.

And just as an aside social commentary - I find it interesting how much we as a society force people of different cultures and backgrounds to live together, work together, go to school together, and all other sorts of things. Growing up I always noticed that no matter how hard teachers and admins of my middle school and high school would try to force whites, black, and Hispanics to interact and socialize with each other, you'd always end up with the kids segregating themselves as if it were 100% natural. There weren't racial problems or anything like that going on, but rather it just seemed like people were often more comfortable hanging around people who were not only the same color as them, but shared the same interests in movies, sports, music, extracurricular activities, social exoeriences, etc...

I honestly think this study might be on to something.

[jmattbassplaya]

Originally Posted by Relic

The thing is though, that although his school is a majority of black students, it's NOT a racial thing. Many of the white and hispanic kids act the same way, and in his honors classes there are many black students so I dont think that separating by races would do squat in his school at least.

I honestly don't think it's been a racial thing for at least a decade now in most places. As a young adult who graduated from high school not more than 3 years ago, I have to say that a lot of these issues stem much more from social-economical reasons than racial ones.

[macaroni tony]

Originally Posted by jmattbassplaya

I honestly don't think it's been a racial thing for at least a decade now in most places. As a young adult kid who graduated from high school not more than 3 years ago, I have to say that a lot of these issues stem much more from social-economical reasons than racial ones.

fixed

On a serious note, I like the fact that this particular school is making a moved based on hard date. There was actually a marked difference in how the black children fared vs. everyone else, at least at this school. Now if other schools knee jerked and said, "Hey, I think our black kids are faring badly too! Lets try it!" without any tangible reason to do so well...that would just be kinda dumb

[i_got_a_mohawk]

Worthwhile seeing what happens I guess, just make sure the parents are on-board with any kids that are participating in the seperation experiment and don't seperate those whose parents don't want their kids involved.

(from a purely experimental point of view, it would at least allow you to compare to a control group, though I dare say there may be other factors involved as it isn't randomly picking kids to be part of/not part of the experiment).

[MatticusMania]

Well, heres hoping to some sort of success, I guess.

[MakiSupaStar]

Ah yes. The specter of 'data directed' policy rears it's ugly head. This is where schools are heading. Everything that you do has to be driven by data. Now to me, this seems ridiculous, but the data (which was derived by a little bubble on a scantron sheet where students have to identify themselves as 'white, hispanic, black, south pacific islander, etc) now segregates these students by race, so you can make blanket observations about students and the culture to which they have now so conveniently been lumped into. Personally, the notion that all these students are to be treated and 'helped' as a single group based on race to me sounds ridiculous. Not to take away from cultural differences between different ethnic groups, but in my experience, race, ethnicity, and culture plays only a small part in things when you're talking about biases. In my experience, and I have had a lot of students from all different cultural groups, black students suffer from the same problems as students from all the other ethnic groups. When you're talking about a group of low performing students (who happen to be black), I think better 'data' would be to look at the learning processes/flaws, or conceptual gaps in their comprehension of the standards first. I would support organizing an intervention on these students based on something like low scores in 'reading comprehension' WAY before I would segregate based on their ethnic composition.

[TJ55]

Originally Posted by CrispyDelicious

Are there not afro-centric schools in the US?

Got me surfing...

http://newsone.com/nation/casey-gane...ools-struggle/

http://jacksonville.com/interact/blo...centric_school

[macaroni tony]

Originally Posted by MakiSupaStar

Ah yes. The specter of 'data directed' policy rears it's ugly head. This is where schools are heading. Everything that you do has to be driven by data. Now to me, this seems ridiculous, but the data (which was derived by a little bubble on a scantron sheet where students have to identify themselves as 'white, hispanic, black, south pacific islander, etc) now segregates these students by race, so you can make blanket observations about students and the culture to which they have now so conveniently been lumped into. Personally, the notion that all these students are to be treated and 'helped' as a single group based on race to me sounds ridiculous. Not to take away from cultural differences between different ethnic groups, but in my experience, race, ethnicity, and culture plays only a small part in things when you're talking about biases. In my experience, and I have had a lot of students from all different cultural groups, black students suffer from the same problems as students from all the other ethnic groups. When you're talking about a group of low performing students (who happen to be black), I think better 'data' would be to look at the learning processes/flaws, or conceptual gaps in their comprehension of the standards first. I would support organizing an intervention on these students based on something like low scores in 'reading comprehension' WAY before I would segregate based on their ethnic composition.

Well I sure appreciate this. Care to elaborate on the bolded part?

[beggar98]

There's a bill currently being argued in Florida that would allow teachers in grades K-3 to grade the students' parents based on involvement, homework, whether the kid is on time, etc. The parents will receive grades of "satisfactory", "needs work" or "unsatisfactory". I think that this kind of accountability will do a lot more than segregation to help kids. I also think it will go a long way towards identifying kids early on who don't have parental support.

[macaroni tony]

Originally Posted by beggar98

There's a bill currently being argued in Florida that would allow teachers in grades K-3 to grade the students' parents based on involvement, homework, whether the kid is on time, etc. The parents will receive grades of "satisfactory", "needs work" or "unsatisfactory". I think that this kind of accountability will do a lot more than segregation to help kids. I also think it will go a long way towards identifying kids early on who don't have parental support.

I like the results that would produce, but I don't see a world where that kind of bill would fly

[MatticusMania]

I also like that 'parental accountability grade' idea. The sad thing is, most parents, at least the neglectful ones, would probably just ignore it.

[Relic]

Originally Posted by beggar98

There's a bill currently being argued in Florida that would allow teachers in grades K-3 to grade the students' parents based on involvement, homework, whether the kid is on time, etc. The parents will receive grades of "satisfactory", "needs work" or "unsatisfactory". I think that this kind of accountability will do a lot more than segregation to help kids. I also think it will go a long way towards identifying kids early on who don't have parental support.

See, here in Jersey, the teacher's unions are so out of hand that not only do many of the parents suck, but many of the teachers are also very lackluster in their desire to do anything of use. The students are the losers in this "game" every darn time.

[Rebecky]

I just don't see what was wrong with separating kids according to their ability in different subjects, and help them according to their needs, push them if they're not challenged enough. Could this really work better?

[MakiSupaStar]

Originally Posted by macaroni tony

Well I sure appreciate this. Care to elaborate on the bolded part?

Sure. I've worked with many black students. Each child is different. They have unique personalities, learning styles, approaches to problem solving, and weaknesses in their comprehension. Segregating kids based on ability would be WAY more effective than segregating them based on race or ethnic composition. When you're getting down to the knitty-gritty of working with a child, I firmly believe they are no different than any other kid trying to learn, thus segregating them according to race now officially identifies them as different, leading to a what I believe is a false mindset that they are different (as a learning student). One student might be doing poorly in math because they never fully comprehended something basic (or several basic fundamental concepts) like fractions, or percentages or something like that. Now you segregate him/her and she might falsely believe that she's doing poorly because she's black. Or she might come to the conclusion that 'well, blacks just don't do well in math.' Another child might be doing poorly in reading comprehension because they don't have any methods or strategies for approaching passages, or books, or stories, AND/OR quite possibly they might have some kind of disability in this area. I didn't bring up issues associated with acquiring English as a second language because (while I have had black students from areas like Haiti, and Zimbabwe, and Sierra Leone where students speak another language at home) generally, most of my black students are students that speak English. So if you segregate them by ethnic composition because they are black, they might conclude that they not understanding this stuff because they are black and go down a whole different cultural reflection on why they can't understand a particular piece of material, when it's something basic and fundamental. I will however add one caveat on this. I have found some commonalities in working with black students on certain aspects of spoken language (pronunciation of certain words and letter combinations that I can only attribute to the way these words are spoken in the home, but it's not enough of an issue to warrant being segregated from the general population, IMO.)

Segregating black students is different than segregating students that speak Spanish as their primary language, for instance, because these students generally share a common group of problems associated with language acquisition, so in this case segregation based on ethnic composition makes more sense.

Personally, I don't find any learning problems that are unique to only black students that are large enough to warrant segregating them from the general population. Now gender segregation is a different story. This could be successful if done right.