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March 11, 2005
Separate but equal?
Since it’s not what’s said, but who says it that counts, certain people get away with statements that others would be censured for making in even the most tentative terms. On Monday, Trevor Phillips, head of the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE), spoke out about schooling black boys separately. Through the prism of the media, the story took on a spectrum of colours and shades, and the CRE immediately started to complain that he had been misreported. What he said was not that black boys should be schooled separately but that, following the success of a pilot project in the States, we should consider schooling them separately.
It seems ironic that the CRE, an organisation that has deformed the debate about racial and cultural differences, should be so sensitive about being misrepresented, especially given that as media mangling goes this was mild. Imagine, on the contrary, what would have happened if a white politician, Michael Howard, say, drawing on the same evidence, had made those comments. He would have been dubbed a white supremacist. There would have been calls for his resignation. When David Bell, chief inspector for schools, recently said that the growth of Islamic faith schools poses a potential threat to the ‘coherence’ of British society, Muslim groups reacted with outrage. Are members of religious, racial and ethnic groups the only ones permitted to discuss them?
On the face of it, so long as we discount the historical context, Trevor Phillips’s suggestion is persuasive. The fact is that of every sector of the population, black boys are doing worst, and, so the syllogism goes, they therefore need special help. The statistics, assuming they’re correct, say that just 43.3 per cent of black African pupils achieve five good GCSE passes, nine per cent fewer than white children, and only 35.7 per cent of black Caribbean pupils get their five A-Cs. Black boys are twice as likely as their white peers to be expelled. By A-level the gap yawns even wider. All boys do badly – 43.8 per cent – but black boys do worst with 27.3 per cent.
Given such overwhelming evidence of failure, any solution is worth considering. But problems instantly present themselves. How are we to define such a diverse racial group? Why should black boys – as a statistic doing worst, but hardly alone in doing badly – receive special treatment? Indians and Chinese are outperforming white children, but no one would consider putting the worst performing whites in separate schools. Bangladeshi children are performing abysmally, yet they are not mentioned. It’s interesting, too, that the whole idea of streamlining, of separating people according to educational performance, should be so easy to smuggle in under the guise of race. Of course, selection makes some sense. But people who’ve advocated it in the past have been attacked because of the way such policies might intensify feelings of rejection in the least successful.
And then there's history. The bottom line is that against the backdrop of the civil rights movement such policies are unthinkable. Commenting on ethnic separatism in America, the black Harvard professor Orland Patterson has talked of the ‘lamentable betrayal and abandonment of the once cherished goal of integration.’ ‘The thought that repeatedly haunts me,’ he says, ‘is that the South did finally win the moral battle over integration, for no group of people now seems more committed to segregation than Afro-American students and professionals.’ Quite apart from the fact that it would fall foul of racial equality laws, what would a two-tier system do for mutual respect? Trevor Phillips himself said two years ago that BNP voting is at its most extensive where people don’t mix: ‘the pattern of BNP voting is never in areas where black, white and Asian people live together, know each other and understand each other’.
What’s more, the racialisation of education risks missing the point. Issues of bad schooling, deprived backgrounds and inadequate socialisation are transformed into debates solely about skin colour. As Baroness Rosalind Howells, the black Labour peer, said, dismissing Mr Phillips’s suggestion: ‘I would never support segregation of any sort. It is the education system that is failing not only black pupils but also white working-class pupils from council estates.’
Trevor Phillips is absolutely right that we should have a debate about this. I just hope we're all allowed to take part.
Posted by Nick Seddon at March 11, 2005 01:05 PM
Comments
Nick, you are quite right - it should be possible to have a sensible debate about this. On schooling I'm not convinced it would be useful to divide pupils up on racial grounds. Today's Economist (page 33) has a quite compelling chart showing that in fact white male students from poor backgrounds do worse on GCSE scores than black male students - it is simply "the old difficulties of poverty and place" that account for the apparent problems of black male students.
Black students are more likely to live in "bad neighbourhoods with bad schools". It seems to have very little to do with the colour of their skin.
Posted by: New Economist at March 11, 2005 06:16 PM
Let's not beat about the bush here. Trevor Phillips is a racist.
Posted by: John East at March 11, 2005 07:49 PM
How about a Dad, some discipline, setting higher standards, better teachers.
Posted by: Stardasher at March 11, 2005 10:17 PM
I lived in Bermuda for 30 years and it may of interest to note that the same problem exists there. Black people comprise about 75% of the indigenous population so that all of the government schools have mainly black students. Almost all of the teachers are black. It is the boys that have a poor performance whilst the girls do quite well - there can't be any question of racism!
Posted by: Henry Kaye at March 12, 2005 09:42 AM
Yes - and how about having Teachers that can...em...teach?
Posted by: David Vance at March 13, 2005 11:53 AM
So Nick wants "the whole idea of streamlining, of separating people according to educational performance" to be considered ...
Well. 30 years ago we did - we had grammar schools, technical schools and secondary modern schools ...
Oooops! Sorry. Wrong discussion - if it was bad then, surely it is bad now?
Posted by: PhilB at March 14, 2005 07:58 AM
I agree with the New Economist. Disadvantage is the culprit, not phenotypic characteristics such as skin colour. Low educational achievement isn't culturally determined either, rather poor performance is connected to the predictable social manifestations of survival in the face of racism, oppression and exclusion. It's interesting that no determistic relationship is made between white male students and culture, but when you're from a community of colour it's all of a sudden "the culture's fault". Proposing that culture or race is a determinant of poor performance is being ignorant of painful socially constructed inequalities and has a tendency to normalise the acceptability of poor education in already disadvantaged communities. This can result in substandard care/investment and withdrawal of community responsibilities because it's "not our place to change their culture". Yet it is our responsibility if we view education as seperate to and non threatening to culture.
Posted by: Evert at March 14, 2005 04:08 PM
Evert, Referring again to my previous posting, how can you explain the same phenomenon - poor performance amongst black male juveniles - in Bermuda (where, as I explained I lived for thirty years) - where the population is black by a very large majority, where the government is entirely black, where the teachers are all black and where the young girls do so well but the young blacks display an arrogant and defiant attitude to all authority?
Posted by: Henry Kaye at March 14, 2005 06:47 PM
It sounds suspiciously as though Henry Kaye is edging towards a kind of genetic or hereditarian point.
Posted by: Tinsley at March 15, 2005 01:52 PM
Tinsley, Not at all. I am merely pointing out that the poor performance of black boys in this country is not exclusive to this country and that there has to be some other reason than "racism, disadvantage, poverty, etc." I've met too many very intelligent and well educated black men in Bermuda ever to think that there is a genetic reason for the phenomenon we are discussing. I don't know the answer but it's not what Evert was suggesting.
Posted by: Henry Kaye at March 15, 2005 07:04 PM
Tinsley wrote: It sounds suspiciously as though Henry Kaye is edging towards a kind of genetic or hereditarian point.
And it sounds equally suspiciously as though Tinsley is trying to close down the debate by invoking a taboo. Black African boys seem to do better at school than Black Caribbean boys, whereas studies such as Lynn-Vanhanen would predict the reverse, so that is probably an unfruitful line of inquiry. That is not the same thing, however, as implying that hereditary factors should simply be ruled out of consideration because we find them morally unpalatable.
Posted by: Edwin Greenwood at March 16, 2005 04:25 PM
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