unimaginative2
Senior Member
Trustee revisits ethnic education issue
JAMES BRADSHAW
April 1, 2008
Little more than two months after the Toronto public school board approved the creation of an Afro-centric school, trustee Josh Matlow is set to ask the board tomorrow to address the needs of language groups with distressingly high dropout rates.
Fellow trustees are already balking at his list of proposals, with some suggesting he is trying to revive the debate over a black-focused school, to which he was adamantly opposed, while others say an action plan to address all "marginalized and vulnerable students" is already expected in May.
But Mr. Matlow insists the Toronto District School Board must look carefully at the challenges faced by each group - all with dropout rates of more than 23 per cent - rather than searching for a blanket solution. He added that black students have been unfairly stigmatized as the only group failing in large numbers.
He suggests the widely publicized 40 per cent dropout rate among black students that was found in one study is is actually the second-highest for an identifiable group, behind Portuguese speakers. According to a 2006 board report, students whose first language is Vietnamese, Arabic, Farsi, Punjabi, Somali or Spanish leave school in numbers above the 23-per-cent average.
"So I'm going to be challenging the board to take real action on all these different communities that are struggling with a high dropout rate," said Mr. Matlow, who is asking for a separate staff report on each group.
Board chair John Campbell points out that the Afro-centric initiative is a response to a community's requests for an alternative school.
"Rather than being genuinely interested in student achievement, Josh is trying to make a point," he said
Mr. Campbell sent Mr. Matlow a strongly worded response.
"At a time when the board is embarking on very serious debates ... you appear to be intent on playing games with motions to entice media attention and to debase the reputation of the board," he wrote.
In an internal e-mail to all trustees obtained by The Globe and Mail, trustee Sheila Ward had this to say about Mr. Matlow's proposals: "I think this is all well and good but what about closing the gap for those with two left feet born between 8 a.m. and 8:07 a.m. on Feb 29?"
Mr. Matlow called the e-mail "inappropriate," but Ms. Ward said she was only making light of Mr. Matlow's actions, not students' struggles.
Despite the reaction, Mr. Matlow is vowing to press ahead.
"The reason I didn't bundle them into one is that I'm symbolically saying, 'No, let's look at each one individually. What are we doing for each specific group?' I don't think we've got answers, and I want answers," he said.
Michael Ornstein, director of the Institute for Social Research and a professor of sociology at York University who studies ethno-racial inequalities, said he worries about the accuracy of data used to choose the groups, which were extracted from a "cohort study" that tracked students who entered Grade 9 in 2000. Nevertheless he said Mr. Matlow's approach has some validity.
"There's clearly big problems and they're racialized. It's totally ridiculous to deny it," he said. "I guess the question is, do you have one big problem, or do you have a lot of individual problems that are kind of related?"
Proven initiatives already exist, but trustees and program directors say they're not enough. One example is the On Your Mark tutoring program, which works with 300 Portuguese students and is receiving $60,000 from the board this year after operating for 4½ years without funding.
Marcy Ponte, the program's head thinks there is merit in tailoring programs to communities like hers, which face specific cultural challenges such as having large numbers of parents raised in situations where, she says, there was comparatively little value placed on formal education.
*****
Who needs more help
Some language groups fared better than others, in terms of dropout rates, in a study of records for students who started Grade 9 at Toronto public schools in 2000.
Language Number of students % who dropped out
Romanian 102 10.8
Chinese 1,439 12
Gujarati 105 14.3
Bengali 132 16.7
Tamil 599 16.9
Greek 124 17.7
Urdu 365 19.5
Russian 368 19.6
Korean 220 20
English 9,668 22.9
Vietnamese 236 24.6
Arabic 126 27.8
Persian (Farsi) 294 30.6
Punjabi 185 34.6
Somali 237 36.7
Spanish 256 39.1
Portuguese 134 42.5
SOURCE: TORONTO DISTRICT SCHOOL BOARD
JAMES BRADSHAW
April 1, 2008
Little more than two months after the Toronto public school board approved the creation of an Afro-centric school, trustee Josh Matlow is set to ask the board tomorrow to address the needs of language groups with distressingly high dropout rates.
Fellow trustees are already balking at his list of proposals, with some suggesting he is trying to revive the debate over a black-focused school, to which he was adamantly opposed, while others say an action plan to address all "marginalized and vulnerable students" is already expected in May.
But Mr. Matlow insists the Toronto District School Board must look carefully at the challenges faced by each group - all with dropout rates of more than 23 per cent - rather than searching for a blanket solution. He added that black students have been unfairly stigmatized as the only group failing in large numbers.
He suggests the widely publicized 40 per cent dropout rate among black students that was found in one study is is actually the second-highest for an identifiable group, behind Portuguese speakers. According to a 2006 board report, students whose first language is Vietnamese, Arabic, Farsi, Punjabi, Somali or Spanish leave school in numbers above the 23-per-cent average.
"So I'm going to be challenging the board to take real action on all these different communities that are struggling with a high dropout rate," said Mr. Matlow, who is asking for a separate staff report on each group.
Board chair John Campbell points out that the Afro-centric initiative is a response to a community's requests for an alternative school.
"Rather than being genuinely interested in student achievement, Josh is trying to make a point," he said
Mr. Campbell sent Mr. Matlow a strongly worded response.
"At a time when the board is embarking on very serious debates ... you appear to be intent on playing games with motions to entice media attention and to debase the reputation of the board," he wrote.
In an internal e-mail to all trustees obtained by The Globe and Mail, trustee Sheila Ward had this to say about Mr. Matlow's proposals: "I think this is all well and good but what about closing the gap for those with two left feet born between 8 a.m. and 8:07 a.m. on Feb 29?"
Mr. Matlow called the e-mail "inappropriate," but Ms. Ward said she was only making light of Mr. Matlow's actions, not students' struggles.
Despite the reaction, Mr. Matlow is vowing to press ahead.
"The reason I didn't bundle them into one is that I'm symbolically saying, 'No, let's look at each one individually. What are we doing for each specific group?' I don't think we've got answers, and I want answers," he said.
Michael Ornstein, director of the Institute for Social Research and a professor of sociology at York University who studies ethno-racial inequalities, said he worries about the accuracy of data used to choose the groups, which were extracted from a "cohort study" that tracked students who entered Grade 9 in 2000. Nevertheless he said Mr. Matlow's approach has some validity.
"There's clearly big problems and they're racialized. It's totally ridiculous to deny it," he said. "I guess the question is, do you have one big problem, or do you have a lot of individual problems that are kind of related?"
Proven initiatives already exist, but trustees and program directors say they're not enough. One example is the On Your Mark tutoring program, which works with 300 Portuguese students and is receiving $60,000 from the board this year after operating for 4½ years without funding.
Marcy Ponte, the program's head thinks there is merit in tailoring programs to communities like hers, which face specific cultural challenges such as having large numbers of parents raised in situations where, she says, there was comparatively little value placed on formal education.
*****
Who needs more help
Some language groups fared better than others, in terms of dropout rates, in a study of records for students who started Grade 9 at Toronto public schools in 2000.
Language Number of students % who dropped out
Romanian 102 10.8
Chinese 1,439 12
Gujarati 105 14.3
Bengali 132 16.7
Tamil 599 16.9
Greek 124 17.7
Urdu 365 19.5
Russian 368 19.6
Korean 220 20
English 9,668 22.9
Vietnamese 236 24.6
Arabic 126 27.8
Persian (Farsi) 294 30.6
Punjabi 185 34.6
Somali 237 36.7
Spanish 256 39.1
Portuguese 134 42.5
SOURCE: TORONTO DISTRICT SCHOOL BOARD