School defends experiment to separate black students in a bid to boost their academic results

Daily Mail 01/26/2011 16:58

Separating students: McCaskey East High School in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, has set up homerooms based on race and gender

A high school in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, is defending its decision to segregate its students by race and gender. The scheme, at McCaskey East High School, separates black students from the rest of the school body, and then further breaks it down into black females and black males.

The separation is only for a short period - six minutes each day and 20 minutes twice a month - but it naturally drew criticism for bringing back the awful memory of racial segregation.

Today the school's principal defended its policy.

Bill Jimenez said the school noticed that black students were not performing as well as other students, and that research had shown that same-race classes with strong same-race role models led to better academic results.

Mr Jimenez admitted that no other students were divided by race at the school, but he added that academic data dictated the school take a different approach with its black students.

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

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