Today's P-I has a report on something called the Freedom School, headline "Freedom School teaches what others don't". But some of what the Freedom School teaches appears to be rather questionable.
The school's purpose, according to one of its leaders, Dustin Washington, is to "raise the consciousness of young people in social justice issues and create young anti-racist community organizers":
Washington said the Seattle public school system is structured with a Eurocentric curriculum, not reflective of the multicultural student body.The article doesn't explain how the curriculum is "Eurocentric", although I suppose the fact that most instruction is in English, which is a European language, would qualify. Washington implies in this context that the "Eurocentric" curriculum somehow benefits white students and penalizes non-white students
"Young people of color are more likely to be incarcerated than graduate. Students of color are more likely to be suspended or expelled," he said.Washington also explains that part of the motivation for the Freedom School is that
"We want young people to think critically about the world around them,"Since the purpose here is to think critically, I will critically examine some of Washington's assumptions and criticize the P-I reporter for not challenging those assumptions. Let's look at the Seattle School District's own outcomes data. On most measures of achievement and discipline, the most successful ethnic groups are not white, but Asian. Just 2 examples -- mean high school GPA for most recent semester in data set:
Chinese 3.27(this file, page 9). Or rate of long-term suspensions among high school students:
Japanese 3.27
East Indian 3.23
Korean 3.09
Vietnamese 3.06
White 3.01
East Indian 0.0%(same file, page 51)
Chinese 0.3%
Other Southeast Asian 0.4%
Vietnamese 0.6%
Samoan 0.7%
White 0.8%
There are certainly many sociological and historical reasons why some ethnic groups tend to peform better in school than others. But the fact that certain groups of Asian immigrants tend to consistently outperform Whites on average makes it harder to attribute these differences to white racism and Eurocentricism.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at July 22, 2006 08:50 PM | Email ThisLet's see the oldest continuous form of of government in the World currently is?
It has the highest per capita productivity.
It has the highest standard of living.
By any meteric the most succesful country on earth.
It is based on Greek (European) Roman (European) and other European ideas set forth by European authors.
And the country is...
The United States of America.
Currently all countries in the World on governed upon ideas that originated in?
...Europe
Currently all militaries are modeled on?
...European models
The economy of every country and international trade has its roots in?
...Europe
Therefore de-emphasizing eurocentrism will leave students with no knowledge of world history, political, military or economic. Leaving them completely without the tools and utterly clueless as how to operate in todays world.
Brilliant, just friggin' brilliant an idea so idiotic only some with all education and no experience could love it.
On the discipline front: The only meaningful comparison one can make is to look at infraction of similar severity. E.g. bringing a knife to school, for the same infraction is there a difference is punishment meted out to students.
On grades and discipline:How many of the Chinese kids come form stable two parent families vs. oh, say the black kids. Another data point would be by families that have set homework times.
If you did the analysis by those two points, two parent families and set home work times my guess is you would see high GPA and low discipline irrespective of race.
You look at race you'll see a racial component.
Posted by: JCM on July 22, 2006 09:57 PMCan you imagine the outcry if a school was set up to specifically focus on the Eurocentric history and thought? And, no, the Seattle Public schools do not do this. They are more concerned about political correctness. The reading lists are just one example of PC gone amok.
Posted by: Burabee on July 22, 2006 10:05 PMI liked the caption to the photo: "Students exploring racism during a breakout group session Friday at Tyree Scott Freedom School in Seattle..."
I can just imagine the conversation:
Student1 (In Soundparks' Mr. Mackey voice): "Racism is bad, M'kay. Don't do racism".
Student2: "Yea, I hate it when white kids do racism! I just wanna smack 'em!"
Student3: "Yea, man. I didn't know I was racist until they told me I was. Now I'm not, because they showed me I was."
Student1: "Racism is bad, M'kay. Don't do racism".
All Students: "M'kay"
Posted by: alphabet soup on July 23, 2006 07:42 AMJust a real eye-opener to see one group of individuals put down another group of individuals, even though both groups were of the same skin color. A simple story, that shows it is not skin color, but individual choices (why should I study? I don't need an education) that makes one impoverished or wealthy in society.
Posted by: Fred the bus driver on July 23, 2006 11:27 AMWhat makes me so mad that I can't see straight is the liberals furious attempts, (like the "Freedom School"), to deny the obvious and make things worse. The wasted lives as a result is a tragedy.
Posted by: Bill Cruchon on July 24, 2006 08:04 AMDo this story using jungle drums and Swahili and I will give it some credence.
Posted by: Huey on July 24, 2006 10:12 AM