This week I helped my son to select his high school courses.
We watched videos from his guidance counsellor and walked through options and while enjoying this exciting milestone, I admit to giving the process a wary side eye.
I grew up in the Canadian education system and when I was in Grade 8 selecting high school courses, I remember my teacher telling me “people like me” did better with hands-on work and that I should enroll in “general”, now known as “applied”, courses.
At 13, I did not fully grasp how much of my future this teacher’s words could thwart, but I knew enough to feel slighted. Despite report cards boasting As and Bs, academic awards and praise for my extra-curricular writing, I was being guided toward a different, lower, category of learning than those classmates encouraged to choose “academic” courses.
Research proves what many of us already knew – my experience was not unique. While for decades all Ontario students entering Grade 9 were “streamed” based on their perceived academic ability, data shows the practice saw Black children discouraged from higher academic pursuits at disproportionately higher rates than all other children.
Last year, Ontario’s Ministry of Education acknowledged streaming as “discriminatory” and mandated its end by September 2022. While we can applaud this decision, simply ending streaming addresses one symptom rather than the illness at the heart of why the policy resulted in inequitable outcomes for Black children.
Rogue teachers are not at the heart of the problem.
Streaming is still defended by some who argue that directing kids to paths suited to their learning styles is valuable, but if that were true Black students would not have been disproportionately negatively affected by the practice. Black children are no less driven, academically inclined, or capable of choosing academic courses than their classmates. Yet, according to research completed by the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) – one of the only boards collecting this data – Black students were two and a half times more likely than White students to be streamed into applied courses.
The “isolated incident” or “bad apple” theory would have us imagine the educators who helped stream Black students were those whose bias is easy to see. Those committing flagrant acts of racial violence — like the teacher who used the N-word in an elementary class, or the other who roamed the halls, unchallenged by his colleagues, while wearing Black face or another who thought it acceptable to use tape to restrain two racialized students. It would be nice and easy for us to blame these folks for failing Black kids.
But we know better.
And hence my apprehensive side-eye.
Rogue teachers are not at the heart of the problem in education. Data points to normalized anti-Black bias within our school system. Black children are suspended and expelled at a rate four times higher than their white classmates and even educators who are probably not ill-intentioned may be almost twice as likely to refer white students to gifted programs or rate them as ‘excellent’ at a rate far higher than Black students.
The reality is it was bias that overshadowed my achievements in my teacher’s eyes back in Grade 8 and led her to recommend a path that could have sidelined my ambitions.
It was anti-Black bias entwined in the system that made streaming inequitable, led to lower academic outcomes for Black students and impacted their future pathways as admission to most university programs requires a high school transcript filled with “academic” level courses.
I don’t need research to tell me that it is not possible for the few days of anti-racism training teachers may have received in the wake of the racial reckoning of 2020 isn’t enough to truly dismantle institution-wide bias that makes the system and streaming inequitable for Black children. As Black students walk into de-streamed classes, it will be after decades of being convinced that they shouldn’t be there. My son doesn’t exist outside of what are this education system’s generally low ass expectations for Black boys.
Current plans for de-streaming seem to do little if anything to specifically tackle bias. Those who lobbied for an end to streaming insist this should be done in parallel with strong supports for educators and Black students. While many school boards have invested in ongoing anti-racism training, strong discipline for racist acts, measuring outcomes, hiring more diverse teachers, and entrenching Black voices meaningfully into curriculum, the ministry has not mandated any of these supports and they are not being applied in every board.
De-streaming is not a magic tonic that will wash away bias and equip Black students to thrive in a system that has failed them for decades. Only a mandated, province-wide and equity-driven approach to addressing the anti-Black bias that ails our education system can meaningfully improve the experience and academic outcomes of Black students.
That said, every Black parent navigating the education system should be aware of the programs in their school to better support equitable outcomes for Black students. As always, it’s a lot to manage and has me longing for the time when my biggest concern was my child being called the N-Word at school..
I keep this in mind as I support my child to navigate his choices on this winding path to higher learning.
