Newz from the Toronto School Board

Urban Diversity Strategy aims to cut Toronto's black dropout rate from 40 t0 15 percent

From the Toronto Star (Cut black dropout rate to 15%, schools told by Louise Brown, June 18, 2008):

Canada's largest school board is poised to set tough targets to chop the alarming 40 per cent dropout rate among black students to 15 per cent within five years.

Through mentors, teacher training and close tracking of the most needy students, the Toronto District School Board's sweeping new Urban Diversity Strategy – to be voted on tomorrow by a board committee and by all trustees next week – would aim to make all intermediate and high schools across the city more sensitive to the demographic roadblocks often facing students of differing backgrounds.

The action plan would also target the 25 most racially diverse, low-performing schools for extra youth workers, outreach staff to work with parents, summer programs for Grade 8 students who fail any of the 3 Rs, and a network of teachers who feel passionate about working in such challenging schools.

"We know this is not going to be an easy task, but with the data we now know about our students, and with what we see is working already at some schools – plus a little bit of pressure – we know it can be done," said Gerry Connelly, the board's director of education, in an interview yesterday.

The report is one of the ways the board is responding to new data showing children from poor or turbulent backgrounds or marginalized communities often lag behind.

While trustees voted to open an Africentric alternative school in September 2009 as a sort of test lab for a more global curriculum and more black teachers as role models, the board also charged staff to come up with ways to help children at risk in all schools.

[. . .]

Read all of Louise Brown's article.

Comment:

This strategy seems to be based on the premise that all students have the same potential to do well academically. But what if that's not true? What if, for example, average IQ levels differ from group to group? I suspect five years from now the Star will be publishing articles asking why the Urban Diversity Strategy failed. There's nothing wrong in trying to help black students, but don't assume that all groups will do equally well in school.

See also:

Toronto school study shows great disparities among cultural groups in academic performance

Ontario Safe Schools Act - Liberals plan to abolish zero-tolerance policy. Too many black students being expelled

High number of immigrant children places huge strain on Toronto school system

Toronto high school students who speak Portuguese, Spanish or Somali drop out at higher rates