Q: When is racism not racism?

A: When the establishment does it.

McCaskey tries new mentoring program - LancasterOnline.com

During a recent class period at McCaskey East High School, T'onna Johnson's class discussed a film, learned about a college-visit trip, talked about designing a class T-shirt and was encouraged to sign up for a seminar on the importance of a good education.

This all happened during homeroom — that fleeting period when teachers take attendance, principals make announcements and students, usually, don't do much of anything.

Not at McCaskey East.

Every junior at the school has been paired with an adult homeroom mentor who tries to squeeze as much information and activities as possible into six minutes each day and 20 minutes twice a month.

The intent of the program, implemented in mid-December, is simple, principal Bill Jimanez said: "Let's make these guys think for six minutes about their future."

Every junior — the class that will take PSSA tests this year — was matched with a teacher who already had a relationship with that pupil.

But in the case of T'onna's class, there are other ties that bind the homeroom.

Every pupil is a black female. And their mentors are both female African-Americans. Across the hall, two homerooms of black male students are led by black men.

The all-black homerooms are part of an experiment to determine if grouping students homogeneously for a brief period each day will help them socially and academically.

"At first I was kind of like iffy because why would we be in homeroom together?" T'onna recalled. "But we work together and we do problems together, so I like it.

"Here we learn about how we can basically make a difference and how we don't have to settle for less."

The idea originated with Angela Tilghman, a McCaskey East instructional coach who was alarmed at the poor academic performance of the school's black students.

Only about a third of McCaskey's African-Americans scored proficient or advanced in reading on last year's PSSAs, compared with 60 percent of white students and 42 percent of all students.

Math scores were even worse, with just 27 percent of black pupils scoring proficient or advanced.

Research has shown, Tilghman said, that grouping black students by gender with a strong role model can help boost their academic achievement and self-esteem.

She and fellow instructional coach Rhauni Gregory volunteered to mentor the African-American girls, and Michael Mitchell and Willie Thedford each took a homeroom of black males.

No other students were divided by race, Jimanez said, although pupils enrolled in the school's English language learners program were paired with ELL teachers.

Initially, some McCaskey East students and staff objected to separating out black students. Some juniors asked to go back to their old homerooms. Others complained that the experiment ran counter to the culture of McCaskey, long a melting pot of students and staff from many diverse backgrounds.

But Jimanez said the academic data dictated the school take a different approach with its black students.

"One of the things we said when we did this was, 'Let's look at the data, let's not run from it,' " he said. "Let's confront it and see what we can do about it."

In all homerooms, teachers are tracking their students' grades, test scores and attendance and encouraging them to engage in discussions around "goal setting and self-actualization," Jimanez said.

If the "data" do indeed indicate this is the proper course of action, why don't we build exclusively black schools and exclusively latino public schools? Then we would need white schools, asian schools, and schools only for Pacific Islanders.

I am only following the "data" to its logical conclusion. It seems the left-fascists can't even keep their own ignorant party line straight in their tiny little brains.

The lesson to be learned here, kiddies, is an oldie but a goodie. GET YOUR KIDS OUT OF THE GOVERNMENT INDOCTRINATION CENTERS AT ALL COSTS.