The Study of Racialism

G-Man · Moderator Joined: 27 Nov 2004 {Posts: 2652 }

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1515032,00.html

Britain

March 07, 2005

Race chief defends 'classroom apartheid'
BY SIMON FREEMAN, TIMES ONLINE, AND ALEXANDRA BLAIR

Trevor Phillips, the outspoken chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, today defended his proposal to segregate black boys for certain school subjects after the plan was dismissed as 'educational apartheid' and possibly illegal.

Mr Phillips was forced to step in as a row erupted over his suggestion that separate lessons may be needed to overcome years of academic failure by black youths.

Teachers reacted with concern to the proposals, which come after the publication of figures last month showing black teenage boys continuing to lag far behind their white peers in GCSEs.

Martin Ward, the deputy general secretary of the Secondary Heads Association warned that the suggestions could fall foul of racial equality laws. He said: Clearly there is scope for schools to help all children who are doing badly. But to single out black children for special treatment could be counter-productive and even illegal.

Mr Phillips insisted the proposals did not break the law. He said the Government had succeeded in raising the performance of children as a whole at GCSE level, but black boys were not improving.

It seems to me that we need to look for some new ideas because this is costing the whole community, not just the black community or the individuals, a great deal, he told BBC Radio 4s Today programme.

These boys are unemployable, they end up in a situation where, in a sense, they cant participate in society. So we wanted to look for some radical ideas.

Mr Phillips said anything that worked was "at least worth considering. He also insisted that the scheme did not amount to segregation.

The point is there is a group of boys who we know have a particular set of needs, partly because of their background, partly because of things that they bring into school... and we may need to have some specific tailor-made solutions for them which dont apply to other people.

That might mean putting them in some classes together.

Mr Phillips is no stranger to controversy, having called last year for a redefinition of multiculturalism. He explained that this was to ensure community cohesion rather than the promotion of separate cultural identities.

Mr Phillips told Inside Out, the BBC One programme due to be broadcast at 7.30pm today, that many black boys were suffering from a culture where it was not cool to be clever, and they lacked selfesteem and good role models.

If the only way to break through the wall of attitude that surrounds black boys is to teach them separately for some subjects, then we should be ready for that, he said.

A spokeswoman for Mr Phillips said last night that he did not believe that separate lessons were right for all black boys but he was reacting in the BBC programme to a successful experiment in a US school.

The spokeswoman said: The BBC asked him to see the work of Professor Stan Mims, the chief executive of the East Saint Louis school district, who took black boys out of class at one school and had them taught separately in a different classroom. Trevor saw that it seemed to be working there and believes we should not close our minds to it and should look into it.

He is not saying that all black boys should be taught separately. He is saying it seems to have worked in America and we should look into it.

Mr Phillips told the programme: A tough new strategy would compel black fathers to be responsible fathers. If they cant be bothered to turn up for parents evening, should they expect automatic access to their sons?

But another prominent black figure said that educating black boys separately in mixed schools might actually cause them to be demonised. Simon Woolley, co-ordinator of Operation Black Vote, said that the roots of under-achievement went deeper than Mr Phillipss comments suggested.

The issue about poor results with some black children is complex," he said. "Run-down housing estates, broken families and low teacher expectation are all factors. I would prefer to focus on these things first before we start blaming the victims and demonise them for their failure. However, it is true that the bling-bling and gangster rap culture does not help.

Although results improved marginally last year, just 35.7 per cent of black Caribbean pupils in England and 43.3 per cent of black African pupils scored at least five C grades at GCSE, compared with a national average of 52.3 per cent.

Those figures masked the fact that black Caribbean girls achieved far better results than boys, with 43.8 per cent achieving five A*-C GCSEs compared with 27.3 per cent boys. The difference of 15.5 percentage points compares with a national gender gap of 10.2 per cent.

Mr Phillips returned to his old school, White Hart Lane in Wood Green, North London, to film the programme and get a better understanding of the problem. He said that radical measures were needed.

In order to tackle the lack of sufficient black male role models, he also suggested that the Government pay incentives to encourage more black men to join the teaching profession.

He said: We need more male black teachers, tempting them with extra cash if necessary. . . . We need to embrace some new, if unpalatable, ideas both at home and at school. None of us, least of all the next generation of black children, can afford a repeat of the past 40 years.

Mr Phillips also said that schools should consider stopping pupils who do not apply themselves in lessons from playing in school sports teams.

But Baroness Rosalind Howells, the black Labour peer, dismissed Mr Phillipss suggestion, saying it would be a step back to the racially divided United States of the past century. She said: I would never support segregation of any sort. It is the education system that is failing not only black pupils but also white working-class pupils from council estates.

"Now if you were to segregate these groups of pupils and drive them away from each other and prevent them playing with each other, then when these groups meet up theres a chance they will fight and cause all sorts of chaos. I find it difficult to see that segregation is the way.

Dr Tony Sewell, the prominent black educationalist, said: I think what Trevor is saying is that we need some of our pupils to have a black time-out: to take a step back.

There is a lack of focus with some of our boys and taking them aside occasionally can be beneficial. But kids perform better in a mixed context.

The proposal was also attacked by Keith Vaz, Labour MP for Leicester East, the city with the highest proportion of ethnic minorities in Britain. This would be a huge mistake. If the state education system is failing Afro-Caribbean boys then it is up to the education system to provide the extra resources within the mainstream classroom.

Segregation of the kind proposed will have disastrous consequences in the education system and in so many other areas. It will create educational apartheid. This would put back the ethnic minority community years."