FIRE ALL THE TEACHERS!!!

Central Falls High School has just over 800 students and fewer than 50 percent of them graduate in four years, according to state statistics.

The Leader-Post October 24, 2009
Aboriginal drop-out rate draws a failing grade

In Brief: Too many aboriginal students still fail to finish high school and some radical reforms are needed, a new report says.

The Leader-Post October 24, 2009

Decades after most of them closed, the notorious Indian residential schools continue to haunt Canadians.

It's not just the sad lives of many of its survivors, who were torn from their families and often cruelly treated in a misguided attempt to "assimilate" them into the then-white, Christian mainstream.

Equally damaging is the impact on First Nations education today, which the author of a new study says is "in a state of crisis" because of the high drop-out rate.

Prof. John Richards of Simon Fraser University in Vancouver says the high aboriginal population on the Prairies is a major contributing factor to Manitoba having the highest provincial average of high school dropouts (21.5 per cent) among adults 20-24, with Saskatchewan in second place at 18.3 per cent. The national average for this group is 13.8 per cent, according to 2006 census data.

Countless studies have consistently shown dropout rates of more than 50 per cent among First Nations -- and he says the "cultural alienation from formal education" among aboriginal people is understandable considering the residential school legacy.

Richards cites a 2003 Canadian Senate report that found "deep mistrust" of mainstream education among some aboriginal people and he says efforts by band councils and provincial governments to counter this alienation have met with "limited success".

Richards has some good ideas for improvement, starting with early childhood education which all aboriginal children should have access to, on or off-reserve. He also calls for more "aggressive affirmative action" to encourage aboriginal post-secondary students to become teachers and cultural role models.

Richards says "stand alone" reserve schools operated by bands lack the resources to provide adequate education, particularly considering their high proportion of special- needs students. He says the federal government should offer higher per-student funding in return for bands transferring the authority and budget for on-reserve schools to the aboriginal equivalent of provincial school districts.

It's crucial, Richards says, for aboriginal communities to get more involved in education and its ultimate reward: the key to a healthier, more rewarding life.
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