School segregation in the U.S. is defined as the separation of students based on their race to the extent that an institution can be racially predominant by black students or white students. Currently more than half of all students in the U.S. attend school distracts with high racial concentration. Racial segregation in schools has a long history that leads up to modern times. Although enforced racial segregation is now illegal, American schools are more racially segregated now than in the late 1960s, especially in the Northeast U.S. Much of de facto segregation between Black, Hispanic and White students is the result of where public schools are located and their respective tax base in support of the schools, often referred to as ‘residential segregation’. Many of the underlying problems of segregation haven’t been solved, even if it’s no longer legal.
Unlike in the U.S., the vast majority of Canadian public schools are financially supported by the provinces, given that each province is responsible for education under the constitution. While property taxes do support a portion of funding for schools, the province guarantees that additional funding is allocated based on the number of students. This reinforces the need to ensure adequate funding intended to provide equal access, teaching and curriculum in each school district. However, this does not preclude the issue of systemic discrimination occurring in schools where visible minorities, including Black students, are in attendance. Most boards of education don’t deny there is systemic racism in their schools, and have introduced measures in the last few years aimed at dealing with it. In Ontario, the Ministry of Education conducted a recent review that showed a disproportionate number of Black students are streamed into applied courses — meant for students seeking to go to college instead of university — regardless of academic performance. This is referred to as ‘streaming for students’ which led to implicit biases whereby a disproportionate number of Black students were prevented from going to university instead of community colleges. As in the U.S., the review also disclosed that many more Black students received suspensions than White students relative to their proportion of the student population.
Many American schools are segregated by ethnicity and poverty, and for some minority students — particularly the soaring Latino population — the segregation is also by language. As a result, even the highest-achieving Black and Hispanic students are often denied access to advanced math and science courses in the later grades, although such access is more commonplace for their White peers. In Canada, the same can be said for new immigrants in particular who, because of their presumed ability in English and their accents, are often forced into remedial classes despite good academic capabilities. Thus, they are being unfairly held back.
Some students believe a key solution is to hire more Black and other teachers representing visible minorities in both countries. As the population becomes more diverse, it seems only too obvious that such teachers would be in a better position to understand and appreciate the daily challenges that non-White students face on a daily basis. For example, in a 2016 census of teaching staff, one Ontario school board showed seven percent of staff members identified as Black, while 67 percent identified as White. That’s in contrast to a student census, which showed 10 percent of its students were Black, while 13 percent were White. The lack of ethnic diversity among teaching staffs can do nothing but accentuate the prevalence of systemic racism in the eyes of Black, Hispanic and other visible minority students.
While things have improved somewhat in both American and Canadian schools, a lot more needs to be done to deal with systemic racism in the education systems. In order to ensure equal opportunities for all young people, more funding and resources are needed to raise the standards for public education in each country. There is an evident need to ensure that school board members, administrative and teaching staffs are sufficiently educated themselves about systemic discrimination and its resulting effects on the future of these young people. No issue could be more important as there will be even greater population diversity in the coming years.
FROLITICKS 