Woke Toronto moves forward on segregated schools

Toronto, aka the Wormy Apple, aka The City Canadians Love to Hate, aspires to be not just a "world-class" but, under Mayor John Jelly, the Wokest City in the World. Facing stiff competition from London (the other one) and San Francisco, it has had to settle for Wokest City in Canuckistan. But it's trying to improve. 

Today (Agent 3 reports)The Toronto District School Board is unveiling a "Centre of Excellence for Black Student Achievement". In politically incorrect English (archaic language no longer spoken in Canada), that's a segregated school For Blacks Only.

Unable to justify the cost of building a full-sized standard school building for the few dozen students expected to attend, the TDSB, after a year of delays and "virtual learning" has settled for a wing [left or right? Ed.] in Winston Churchill Collegiate Institute in the dreary but integrated Scarborough district, some distance from North York and Etobicoke, where many schools are already segregated, being located in predominantly black neighbourhoods.

According to CBC News, the centre, which the TDSB says is the first of its kind in Canada, "is part of its plan to dismantle anti-Black racism after years of complaints from staff, students and families. It reached a tipping point last year when the board said in its annual report that it had a 'serious racism problem' and anti-Black racism exceeded all other hate incidents by far....

"The ultimate goal is to educate staff and students on anti-Black racism, help affirm the identity of Black students and give them the tools to advocate for themselves when instances of racism do happen, so 'they know how to engage and be responsive'."

Agent 3 questions the boards claim that the new school is the first of its kind.  A short-lived "Afro-Caribbean alternative high school" operated in the mid-1980s. In 1995, a royal commission Report on Learning recommended "black-focused" schools. Some critics it, errr, "segregation", but others said such a school was needed to tackle the 40% dropout rate amongst Toronto’s black yoofs.

The idea of separate schools for blacks and others was even more divisive by the mid-2000s, but the TDSB, dominated by leftist politicos, voted in 2008 to move ahead with a small "Africentric" school. It opened for students in JK to Grade 5 in September of 2009, with 128 kids from across the so-called Greater Toronto Area enrolled. 

Like the new Centre for Excellence &c, the Africentric school had to share a building, and some spaces, with an integrated public school. The Toronto Red Star reports that the library was divided by an imaginary line, with a poster of Toronto Maple Leafs centre Auston Matthews on one side, and a picture of Nelson Mandela on the other. The latter has books clearly focused on the black experience, while the former is filled with typical children's books. 

Teachers at the Africentric school, most of whom are black, incorporate black history, experiences and contributions into the curriculum. While curriculum from the alternative school was available online following the closure of schools due to the Wuhan flu, Africentric teaching was discontinued.

Agent 3 could not say whether the Africentric school will reopen in September, or whether the new Centre for Excellence &c is intended as a "new and improved" replacement. The Africentric school had challenges right from the get-go. There was no school bus service. Test scores were shaky and enrolment declined to a few dozen in the last year it was open.

The TDSB, "Canada's largest and most diverse school board", has 582 schools, serving 246,000 students, 11% of whom are Black. Statistics show black students have historically performed below average. They're more likely to be labelled as having "special education" needs, suspended and expelled, and streamed into programmes that don’t lead to university or college. Whether they'll do better, now that they don't have to compete with white and (especially) Asian kids, remains to be seen.

Sick and tired of the ultra-PC Toronto school board? Follow these links!

The Toronto District School Board, responsible for the maladministration of Toronto's "public" schools, is well known as a hotbed of political correctness, secular humanism, and racism (of the anti-white variety). And let's not forget continual promotion of diversity, multiculturalism and the LGBT homosexuals-are-normal agenda.

The TDSB has no idea of how to manage a budget or run an educational system, but that's beside the point. What counts is that they are champions of progress and a tolerant and inclusive community -- except for heterosexual white people.

Some people are sick, sore and tired of the TDSB's constant carping about racism, bullying, homophobia yada yada yada. And some people are prepared to call out the TDSB publicly. One angry white guy is Arnie Lemaire, the real person behind Blazing Cat Fur, a blog highly critical of the TDSB's "theatre of the absurd".

Back in March, M Lemaire wrote that "OISE [the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education] and the TDSB need to be purged, or burnt to the ground whichever is more effective". Can you imagine the reaction of the poor dears at the TDSB? They felt so intimidated/bullied/threatened/all of the above that they called in Toronto's finest to investigate Arnie for threatening arson... or maybe forced enemas! [But wouldn't they enjoy that? Ed.]

"We received a knock at our door a little after 8 a.m.," M Lemaire told the Toronto Sun. "Two detectives...identified themselves and asked if they could come in to discuss a matter. They presented a photocopy of my post about the TDSB teaching children that the Black Panthers were a harmless social justice organization link" and specifically the "OISE and the TDSB need to be purged, or burnt to the ground" stinger.

Arnie told the flatfoots he thought everybody would understand it was meant figuratively and obviously not literally. "It was nothing but a rhetorical flourish. It's the language of blogging."

He also told the Sun, "I have to wonder why a non-threat was reacted to with near hysteria... To my mind this was simply an effort by the TDSB to intimidate me into silence and is plainly an abuse of power. It won't work, but I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that an organization that holds up psychopaths such as Che Guevara and the Black Panthers as role models for children would resort to such thuggery."

The police, he said, "were immediately satisfied with that explanation and assured me there would be no charges."

Here's a comment on the story from Laura Rosa Cohen, with a good quote from Mark Steyn. To Arnie, Laura and Mark, we say "Keep speaking out." Nolite illegitimi vos carborundum!