Black People : Afrocentric School In Toronto Outperforms Rivals

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Africentric school shines: MacDonald

By MOIRA MacDONALD, Toronto Sun

The most scrutinized school in the Toronto District School Board has a very public feather in its cap — thanks to those dastardly provincial EQAO tests.

The inaugural Grade 3 class of the Africentric Alternative School significantly outperformed both the board and the province in this year’s results.

The school’s 16 Grade 3 students collectively had 69% of students reaching the provincial Level 3 standard in reading, 81% in writing and 81% in math. For the board, those scores sit at 60%, 70% and 71%. For all of Ontario, they’re 62%, 70% and 71%.

Sure, it’s only the first year — and educators always caution it’s important to look at improvement over time. As well, the Africentric school’s 2009-10 class was a small one where even a few high-performing — or low-performing — students could significantly skew results.

Still, it shows the Downsview-area school must be doing something right.

It also proves what the black community already knows — black students are capable of high levels of achievement.

“When you see achievement, both great and small, especially in the EQAO, it just provides another context for the reason why you need a school like the Africentric Alternative School,” says principal Thando Hyman, adding enrolment has doubled to 160 for the school’s second year.

Was the school simply blessed with an already high-achieving crop of kids? Nope, she says.

“The students really run the gamut … Some kids at the beginning of (last) year were having challenges in reading and so it really required ongoing consistent teaching and continual motivation,” says Hyman, adding the school “still has some work to do” in reading.

High expectations, consistent routines, a strong sense of purpose based on African cultural principles that students are steeped in during daily opening exercises, after-school tutorials and close, caring attention by teachers are things Hyman believes have fuelled students’ success. With the TDSB battling a 40% dropout rate among black students, she thinks those factors can help students elsewhere do better too.

In the city’s east end principal Glenn Boden credits extra professional development and staff collaboration time — bought by grants under a provincial education ministry struggling schools program — for his school’s dramatic improvements.

Last year’s EQAO results at Cedarbrook Junior Public School were not so hot — see the above note on the hazards of looking at a single year. But since 2005 Grade 3 students’ Level 3 reading performance has shot from 32% to 62% and Grade 6, from 44% to 83%. Grade 3 math has gone from 29% to 76%; Grade 6 from 47% to 66%.

“It’s not rocket science,” says Boden, whose school is in the Bellamy Rd.-Eglinton Ave. E. area. But, “it takes time, it takes planning and it takes (teacher) buy-in.”

Cedarbrook is in the top third of the TDSB’s list of its neediest schools. Teachers meet regularly to analyze student test data and plan how they’ll collectively tackle weaknesses. They watch each other teach and have worked on getting their marking schemes in line with each other so they’re more standardized and less subjective.

The school also set up a professional learning library where teachers can look up research on teaching and get students books aimed at improving specific academic skills.

Last year staff targeted students performing immediately below the Level 3 standard and worked throughout the year to move them up a level.

The results “surpassed our expectations,” says teacher Carri Brown.

“We were really, really excited.”

Two schools. Two successes. And one still-controversial test that allows those successes to shine.

moira.macdonald@sunmedia.ca

http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/moira_macdonald/2010/09/24/15469271.html
 
The Curiculum of Inclusion, proposed by State Regent Adelaid Sanford and Dr Leonard Jeffries, to be implemented in the NYC high school system was rejected inspite of the high scores,
achieved by Afrocetric private schools across the city.

ironicaly at the same time draconian measures were taken by City hall to dismantle the community school board sytem and local elections of local board heads and staff.

They feared the input of the Black community and the power it would provide in making real changes and real achievement.

However a national Black education think tank is needed in lieu of the scientific fact that a child's knowledge of their culture and history has an inestimatable effect on a benefiting child's self esteem.
 
The Curiculum of Inclusion, proposed by State Regent Adelaid Sanford and Dr Leonard Jeffries, to be implemented in the NYC high school system was rejected inspite of the high scores,
achieved by Afrocetric private schools across the city.

ironicaly at the same time draconian measures were taken by City hall to dismantle the community school board sytem and local elections of local board heads and staff.

They feared the input of the Black community and the power it would provide in making real changes and real achievement.

However a national Black education think tank is needed in lieu of the scientific fact that a child's knowledge of their culture and history has an inestimatable effect on a benefiting child's self esteem.


They day is at hand-all that's has been hidden will be laid bare for all to see... I want to see the rebuttal from the ''Black conservatives'' (frigging oxymoron) about this.....

I mean.. could it be that black boys can learn and process information when they are not DRUGGED UP and are taught relevant information which feeds their spirit???

nooooooooooooooo:SuN048:

say it ain't so!!!!!
 

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