RCSD: For Black Kids Only?
I'm just thinking aloud here but could someone please give me a good reason why we should convert the educational curriculum of the Rochester City School District to an afrocentric one? Today's D&C reported that "nationally known" educator and author Jawanza Kunjufu (never heard of him) came to town yesterday to encourage our fair city to adopt afrocentric policies that would seemingly alienate all other races of children represented in the district.Kunjufu suggests that if we modified the district's educational focus to be more "African American-centered", students would be less likely to drop out. That seems like a bit of a stretch to me. While I assume he's only concerned with black students, I still don't see how spending more time learning about Marcus Garvey would convince young black men and women to stay in school. If we switched to a more "Asian American-centered" curriculum, would less Asians drop out? Hmmm...I guess I see his point. As a white guy, I was really motivated to stay in school because we learned more about European history than that of other ethnicities. Had we spent more time on the Chinese dynasties, I probably would've failed miserably while my Chinese counterparts would have excelled. That's a bad analogy, the Chinese know more about honkey history than us honkeys.
Other ideas Kunjufu put forth include establishing single-gender schools. I support that one because girls have cooties. Another idea is for the district to create African-centered charter schools. Is it just me or does this sound like segregation? Why don't we just force all black kids to go to one district and they can learn about their history and all the Latinos can go to their district and learn about their history? The same goes for the Asians, whites, Arabs, Native Americans, and every other ethnicity out there.
I would agree with him that, if indeed too many black children are being wrongly classified as "special education students," that needs to change. I would also agree that black children often face challenges that are unique from others. But Kunjufu seems to go way overboard. His policies would cause more harm than good. IMO, kids in public schools in America should learn the same thing no matter where their school is located. It's called equality, whether it truly exists or not.
So who brought Mr. Kunjufu to town? Why none other than City School Board member and noted racist Cynthia Elliott, who summed up her reasoning for sponsoring his visit with this non-sensical statement: "I thought it was apropos for us to bring someone here, and to see what kind of policies that we need to be considering for Rochester." Need I say more?
posted by Man About Town @ 1:45 PM
Comments: 2
