Jerry Yaroslaw Diakiw

“Keeping the Conversation Going”
Jerry Diakiw
2008
Soaring drop out rates, high levels of youth unemployment and disturbing levels of violence among Black students in some of our schools and neighbourhoods present problems, the level of which is unacceptable in Canadian society. Black-focused schools have been offered as one solution to this problem. It is not my intention here to argue for or against Black-focused schools. I am interested in promoting a variety of alternatives that have proven successful in other jurisdictions or countries. I hope, also, to explore the issue of unacceptably high drop out rates among Black youth in a larger context and examine the problem in a more comprehensive way.

I teach in the Faculty of Education at York University. In the context of the social justice and equity approach I take in my Models and Foundations of Education courses, I repeatedly impress upon my students that in my opinion racism is the most divisive problem we face in our democratic Canadian society. While I am convinced that no nation on the face of the earth is more egalitarian than we are in Canada, and that no nation has implemented a multicultural, multi-faith society more successfully than we have, we still have a long way to go!

While we are inclined to not believe the extent to which racism is alive and well in Canada, it is undeniably true, based on several recent studies in Toronto, that White job applicants with comparable experiences and qualifications will be consistently hired over Black candidates. There are still areas of the city where Black applicants have more difficulty renting an apartment than White applicants do. We are failing our Black Canadian citizens.

I feel strongly that racism is the greatest threat to our democratic multicultural society. If we are to rectify this problem, the most critical, feasible place to do so is in our schools. It is sad to realise, as research has shown repeatedly in several countries, that Black children believe themselves to be inferior to White students before they enter Kindergarten, and White students perceive themselves to be superior to Black students before entering the school system.

As a starting point, it is critical that anti-racist principles be integrated across the curriculum, regardless of the composition of the student body or the location of the school within the province. All students will be immersed in a multi-racial environment at some point, whether it is at the hockey arena or a regional track meet and certainly in the workplace. However, a multicultural approach although beneficial to some extent, has fundamentally been unsuccessful in combating racism, as revealed in many studies. During the Bob Rae NDP government, an antiracist Directorate was established within the Ministry of Education and curriculum was being re-written from an antiracist perspective. All of this was dismantled, sadly, following the election of the Conservative Party under Mike Harris.

While an anti-racist initiative focussed on all students in all schools is essential in order to combat racism, there is still the problem of how to address the high drop out rate of many of our Black students, as well as other ethnic groups that persistently under-perform in our schools. Walking through the campus at York University one is immediately aware that Canadian minorities are the majority on the York campus. Thousands of Black students do achieve at a high level academically, but on the other hand there are thousands of Black students who are not succeeding in our Toronto schools. There is no reason why they can not be performing and succeeding as well as the students at York University.

Black students are certainly not less intelligent than White and Asian students. White students living in poverty, equally under-perform in our schools, drop out early, are unemployed at higher rate than their middle class White peers and are involved in crime at comparable rates to poor Black students.

I may be naïve, but I feel there are no compelling reasons why Black students can not complete high school and college at comparable rates as White students, given a supportive family and an educational system committed to addressing the problem of unacceptable dropout rates among Black youth. A glimpse into other cultures where similar groups are disadvantaged by society offers insights into why Black students are not succeeding. In a region of Sweden, there is a pocket of historically Finnish citizens who are looked down upon by the Swedish population. They have a low status. The Finnish students do not perform at comparable levels to their Swedish compatriots. They are not expected to achieve well and they don’t. Yet when they immigrate to Australia along with their Swedish compatriots they perform equally to Swedish immigrants. Why is this? The Australians can’t tell the difference! They are expected to perform as well as the high status Swedish students and they do. Similarly in Japan, an ethnocultural group called the Burakumin performs poorly in Japan where they are perceived as a low status group, but they perform as well as other Japanese when they emigrate to the United States. When the social status of a group changes the educational performance also changes. Black children born into poverty, but raised by Black or White middle class families perform as well as White students.

In Canada, regrettably, whether subconsciously or overtly Black student are not expected to do well and they don’t. It is the perceived expectation of low status that has led to the concept of a Black-focused school in order to place students in an environment where they are consistently expected to do well. The Aboriginal focussed school in Winnipeg Manitoba has proven to be successful for seventeen years. This school has increased the dropout rate for Aboriginal students from 50% for the provincial norm to 70%. There is the hope, for those who are advocating the establishment of Black-focused schools in Toronto that Black students will be equally successful. It is not my intention here to argue for or against Black-focused schools. There is however a number of other approaches that would benefit Black students raised in poverty as well as all students faced with similar early disadvantages in life. I have been accused of being naïve and living in an ivory tower. There is nothing radically new about the suggestions I am making here. They are all accepted practical strategies that have proven successful elsewhere. Nor do I believe that any one of the following suggestions is a panacea any more that I think a Black-focused school is the panacea. I am simply putting together proven initiatives into a systematic package. I maintain a concerted effort is necessary at four major periods in the school life of a disadvantaged child; in the pre-kindergarten years, in grade 1, in grade 7 and in grade 11.

Certainly the biggest “bang for the buck” in my view is Head Start and other early childhood education initiatives. The impact is astounding and overwhelming. The Ypsilanti study initiated in the 1960s followed thousands of children born into poverty, half of whom were offered the Head Start program and the other not. They followed these students from their pre-school days to adulthood and concluded that for every dollar spent on Head Start society was saved eight dollars down the road. The difference in savings is truly remarkable. The dollars down the road are savings reflected in the decreased drop out rate, and hence higher employment. The savings came from a decrease in number of police, prison guards, teen-age pregnancy, judges, drug counsellors and unemployment and welfare benefits. Eight dollars saved for every dollar spent on early childhood education!

An infusion of funds to facilitate the implementation of widespread early childhood education in our most depressed low income neighbourhoods would help to ameliorate the disadvantages that children from low income homes experience. For example, the richness of the travel, literary and cultural experiences considered normal for middle class children is often missing in low-income homes.

A powerful and convincing drop out prevention program is aimed, oddly enough, at grade 1 students. The argument is made that those students who do not learn to read by the end of grade 1 are at an enormous disadvantage to their peers as they move on into grade 2 and 3. As the whole world opens up to them in print, being able to read allows students to speed ahead exponentially compared to those who can not. It is important that all students start on the same page as they enter the world of the written word. It is this gap between readers and non-readers that opens a gulf in achievement over a short span of time. By the time students hit grade 7 and 8 the writing is on the wall and one can predict future drop-outs as they struggle with their reading, particularly when confronted with the kind of reading required for comprehending “the text book”.

In 1990, my principal colleagues became convinced of the veracity of this argument and struggled to implement Reading Recovery, a very innovative, highly technical and very expensive program for all lagging grade 1 students. Two years later I released a teacher from our staffing complement in order for her to spend the year in Reading Recovery training. We then had within our own jurisdiction a teacher trainer available to train teachers to implement a widespread Reading Recovery program. York Region District School Board, with the strong support and leadership of the current Director, Bill Hogarth, now has a Reading Recovery program in every elementary school. It is my contention that this program is an enormously successful dropout prevention program.

After grade 1, the next wall that students face is at grade 7. It is at this level in particular that students are confronted by “the textbook”. Studies have shown that there is a significant jump in the level of vocabulary demands in intermediate level textbooks. There is also an overall rise in the level of academic demands placed on students and it is here that early identification of at-risk students should be made. Some schools and school boards have made this connection and have implemented remedial reading programs to counteract the gap that appears here between those who are going to sail through their high school years and those who will struggle.

It is at the grade 7 level that at-risk, disengaged students need to be identified and appropriate interventions taken. For example, in 1991, when I was Area Superintendent of 25 elementary schools and three secondary schools in Markham and Thornhill, the principals began expressing concerns over the number of struggling Black students. We agreed on a series of controversial actions to identify at-risk grade 7 and 8 Black students in Thornhill and Markham elementary schools. One teacher was pulled out of our area staffing allocation and given the sole responsibility of counselling and working with at-risk or disengaged Black students identified in conjunction with the teachers and administrators in the schools. We advertised in the York University student newspaper, inviting Black student volunteers willing to work with at-risk disengaged Black students once a week, as role models, mentors and tutors. We had a flood of applicants. Paul DeLyon, who was engaged for this project went at this responsibility with passion and enthusiasm. He worked with the parents of these at-risk students and they developed a Saturday morning Black school in 1992, perhaps our first Black-focused school where the curriculum reflected the Black experience in Canada. I contend that by identifying students at risk, beginning at the grade 7 level, and offering them intensive counselling, caring support and remedial assistance, and if possible offering them the opportunity to work and play with meaningful mentors, can significantly impact future drop out rates. York University has implemented such a program at their Westview Project as well as their Regent Project, working with students already in secondary school, but I contend that similar initiatives aimed at grade 7 and 8 students would have impressive payoffs.

In 1995, at Park Avenue Public School in Holland Landing we identified two severely at-risk grade 8 students who were bound to drop out even before the early school leaving option. The guidance counsellor placed them in a half-day co-op placement with two kindly old local craftsmen working in their workshops and the students were able to successfully complete their elementary schooling without further disruption or academic struggle. Innovative co-op work placements are an important option for disengaged or struggling grade 7 and 8 students. For so many of these at risk students a full day of school is unbearable. Finding meaningful placements for identified students in grade 7 and 8 can impact positively on their future prospects at secondary school. We need to be aggressively progressive in our efforts to achieve this kind of radical programming. It will not be easy to do but if we want our struggling Black youth to find a meaningful place in our Canadian society, this is the age level to do so. The opportunity is ripe for asking our business communities to partner with us to find appropriate placements for our at risk Black youth. We know that co-op placements often lead to employment and with Black youth unemployment so high this may also has positive employment side benefits

The final area for consideration is aimed at disengaged students currently attending high school. It is in the middle years of high school where the credit system finally catches up with lagging students. They miss a couple of credits in grade nine and another couple in grade ten, and when they start to calculate the annual rate of credit accumulation they begin to realise how many years it is going to take them to graduate, they become disillusioned and give up. A number of options to open up the structure of the high school are possible. The 24-hour High School would provide one site with intensive counselling, that combines online or correspondence courses, intensive credits or regular credits, in either day school or night school settings. A 6-year Grade 9 to 14 option would allow students to work half time or take extensive co-op programs and stretch out the time it takes to get a diploma but they would get one in a methodical planned and supportive environment. A final option is a 4-year dual diploma program. I recently presented a proposal to Seneca College to implement a 4-year dual diploma program — a high school graduation diploma and a 2-year Business Education Diploma. Disengaged students who have completed grade 10 will be eligible to attend this program at the Business Campus in Markham in conjunction with the York Region District School Board. At this point they have agreed to proceed with planning to implement this program. I would contend that this option would be of great interest to a significant number of disengaged Black students. I have elaborated on all these secondary school options in a discussion paper entitled the Postmodern High School
These then, are the alternative initiatives that address the problem of under-performing Black students in our schools. There are four barriers where the difference between the advantaged and disadvantaged youth are most marked; in the immediate pre-school years, in grade one, in grade 7 and in grade 10. I have offered some suggestions at each of these levels; early childhood education programs, Reading Recovery in grade one, alternative interventions in grade 7 and 8 and finally alternative structures and routes to graduation in our secondary schools. A combination of these initiatives could prove to be a powerful force for reducing the drop out rate among all students, but the most critical group of students that needs immediate attention in our schools is our under-performing Black youth. As Richard Rorty, the philosopher noted, “It is not so important to find the absolute truth of anything as it is to keep the conversation going”. This article will hopefully at least achieve the goal of continuing to face the problem of our under-performing youth and “keep the conversation going”.