School for "poor kids" to open in Canada
Source: canada.com
A public school slated to open in southern Ontario in the fall is believed to be the first in Canada to only offer admission to students of low-income backgrounds, a move critics charge will marginalize already vulnerable children.
A public school slated to open in southern Ontario in the fall is believed to be the first in Canada to only offer admission to students of low-income backgrounds, a move critics charge will marginalize already vulnerable children.The District School Board of Niagara (DSBN) Academy will open its doors in September to 150 grades 6 and 7 students whose parents have not attended college or university and currently live under the poverty line. Each year, the school will expand until it can accommodate grades 6 to 12.
Nearly half a million dollars has been allocated by the province in 2011-12 to fund busing for children throughout the Niagara region to attend the school, which will be located in Welland, Ont., about 150 kilometres south of Toronto.
Board vice-chairwoman Dale Robinson said the school is desperately needed in the region -which has the second highest unemployment rate in Canada.
"This is an effort to break the cycle of poverty, not just to put Band-Aids on it," she said Wednesday. "It’s not just about getting by, but getting out of it and about having an education to make a better life for themselves and their families."
The idea for the DSBN Academy for "poor students" has been in the works for the past 18 months and has the support of a number of community partners, including the local health board, YMCA, United Way and the local college and university.
The school will provide specialized programs for students, including mentoring, college/university preparation and free meals. It will also rely heavily on parent involvement and participation.
Since announcing the opening of the school last week, the board has been inundated with calls from parents interested in applying for their children, and officials anticipate a "lottery" to pick qualified students. Applications won’t be accepted for another few weeks.
The board has also received a lot of backlash, which Robinson said has left her "shocked and disappointed."
This includes an open letter Wednesday by a provincial NDP member, who called the school a "repugnant proposal" that creates an "educational apartheid." The letter calls on the Ontario government to cancel the opening.
"(This school) suggests that ’poor’ children should be kept with their own kind," writes local MPP Peter Kormos. "Our public system requires that every student, poor or not, in every school have equal access to educational opportunities and special supports if necessary to fulfil their academic potential. The DSBN proposal undermines the fundamentals of public education."
The board is considering the feedback but said it doesn’t see a difference between a school like DSBN Academy, and those that segregate students by being private or on religious or cultural grounds such as a school in Toronto that opened this year for students of African backgrounds.
"This school is going to be about giving these kids hope," said Robinson, who pointed to a number of similar schools in the U.S. with high graduation rates including the Preuss School in La Jolla, Calif. The middle and high school, run by the University of California San Diego, is open to lowincome students, who would be the first in their families to go on to post-secondary education.
But David Livingstone, a professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto, said that although the ideas behind the DSBN Academy are well-intentioned, they will not work.
"The solution is not to ghettoize schools," he said. "The solution is to find more innovative ways to recognize the skills of these students in the comprehensive schools that we have."
Article from: canada.com
