CHAPTER 3

 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

Introduction

            The educational issues which I have described in the Prologue to this study were not a new occurrence, at the time when I experienced them, nor have they yet become irrelevant to the many of the minority children who are presently in Canadian schools. In fact, recent years have seen the widespread publication of evidence to indicate that, for more than two decades, students from a number of racial and ethnic groups in the Ontario Public education system have consistently been having a shorter and less than adequate education, (Advisor on Race Relations, 1983; Brown, Cheng, Yau, & Ziegler, 1992; Cheng, Yau, & Ziegler, 1993; Cheng, Tsuji, Yau, & Ziegler, 1989; Contenta, 1987; Larter & Eason, 1978; Lind, 1974; Matas, 1980; Ramcharan, 1975; Royal Commission on Learning, 1994; Senyk, 1983; Toronto Board of Education, 1988; Wright, & Tsuji, 1981, 1983; Wright, Tsuji, & Dahota, 1981). Yet, even amongst these young people, Portuguese–Canadians comprise one of the groups which have been the most severely disadvantaged. Over the past 20 years, Portuguese-Canadian children have left school earlier, studied at significantly lower levels, and been disproportionately represented in Special Education and Remedial Reading programmes, even in comparison with children from other ethnic groups. They have also been reported as the least likely to feel that they have the ability to succeed in university, 

            In the following section, I will illustrate the precarious educational situation of Luso-Canadian young people in the City of Toronto, (where nearly 50% of the Portuguese-Canadian community resides), by citing some of the available evidence which has been compiled on the academic achievement of these children, within that city’s school system.

Academic Problems of Luso-Canadian Children in the Toronto Public School System

            In 1991-92, Luso–Canadian young people constituted almost 10% of the total number of students in Toronto Public Secondary Schools, forming the third-largest group after the English and Chinese (Cheng, et al, 1993, p. iii). They also made up the largest group, after English-speakers, within the Metropolitan Toronto Separate School Board (the Catholic system), (Januario, 1993, October). Yet, these youth have consistently displayed some of the most severely disproportionate rates of failure in achieving adequate educational goals.

            Historically, Portuguese students have been observed to drop out of school earlier, and in greater proportionate numbers, than most other pupils (Cheng, et. al., 1989; Cheng, et. al., 1993; Ferguson, 1964; Larter, & Eason, 1978; “Royal Commission,” 1994, pp. 95-96; “The Portuguese,” 1984).[1] Ferguson (1964, p. 86) described how, as early as the first half of the 1960’s, school officials were already concerned about the drop-out problem amongst children of immigrant parents (especially the Portuguese). These concerns were substantiated by a study issued by the Toronto Board of Education examining the Early School Leaving programme, (which allowed students under the age of 16 to leave school and seek employment), Portuguese–born students were deemed to be substantially over–represented, in comparison to their Canadian–born peers, (Larter & Eason, 1978, p. 21).

            Luso-Canadian students have also studied at significantly lower levels. While early Toronto Board of Education reports either did not provide direct achievement variables or did not cross-tabulate these with ethnicity, (only with race, or broad geographic origin), indirect evidence was nonetheless provided by listings which showed the distribution of different language groups across Board schools. These illustrated that Portuguese-speaking students in grade 9 were disproportionately attending vocational, technical or commercial schools, where the level of study was normally at the non-university streams of Basic- or General-level (Wright, & Tsuji, 1981, 1983; Wright, Tsuji, & Dahota, 1981).

            The reports that were produced in later years, contained more precise information, which reinforced the suspicions of many people in the community concerning the low achievement amongst Luso-Canadian students. In the 1987 Every Secondary Student Survey, Portuguese students were shown to comprise the second highest proportional representation of any ethnic group in the city in Basic–level programs and the highest in the General stream, (Cheng, et al., 1989) (See Table 1.).

            Over the years, a disproportionate number of Portuguese children have also been placed in Special Education (ex. remedial help for learning disabilities, physical handicaps, emotional or behavioural problems and special programmes for Gifted children). In a research report conducted by the Toronto Board of Education focussing on parents with youngsters in Special Education, Portuguese parents constituted the second–largest proportion of parents interviewed, (9%), after the sample identified by the authors as "Canadian", (Larter, Draffin, Power, & Cheng, 1986).[2] A full 33% of the children of those Portuguese parents had been placed in elementary Learning Disability and Reading Clinic programs, while another 33% had been placed in secondary programs, (not Gifted). Portuguese parents had the highest percentages of children in secondary (not Gifted) programs, and the second–lowest percentage of children in elementary Gifted programs, (Table 2).

            Indirect information from independent studies also illustrates that Portuguese children have been found disproportionately in Special Education. For example, in a study conducted by Cummins, Lopes and King (1987) which explored the language use patterns and proficiency of Portuguese children in grade 7 who were taking heritage language classes, the researchers discovered that a disproportionate amount, (13%), of the total sample of 191 students were receiving special education. Furthermore, although already proportionately high, this figure had nonetheless still been rendered artificially low, since the principals of two of the schools studied had not allowed any students in special education to be tested. A third school also offered no special education in grade seven. When only the sample from the remaining four schools were considered, the proportion of Portuguese children in this study who were enrolled in special education climbed to 26%.[3]

            In another two–year research project conducted on 22 Portuguese– and English–Canadian elementary school children, in two Toronto schools, Januario (1992) found that there were more Portuguese–Canadian children in her study group, whose families pervened from families of low socioeconomic status, who had been ranked as "below average", than there were in the remainder of the sample, even when socioeconomic status was taken into consideration.

            Portuguese youth have also been observed to possess an insufficient mastery of the English language (Coelho, 1973; Board of Education, 1962). As early as 1962, a Toronto Board of Education report described how a staggering 48.4% of the total number of Portuguese immigrant children in the Toronto school system were reading below their grade level; the third-highest proportional group with this problem (Board of Education, 1962). Furthermore, in the early 1980's it was mentioned that, one out of every three high school students in Toronto with Portuguese as their first language was in a vocational program, where most students are at a grade 5 level in reading and mathematical skills, (Matas, 1984).

            These language difficulties have often become associated and confused with a lack of intelligence (Leishman, 1978). Laura Araujo, a counsellor and interpreter stated in 1978 that

Children of Portuguese immigrants get short–changed in Ontario's school system because their weakness in the English language is confused with slowness. (Brazao, 1978).

            It is clear, therefore, that Portuguese children have traditionally lagged behind other children of their age or grade level. Moreover, there is both direct and indirect evidence that, in more recent years, these trends have not been reversed.

            The latest Toronto Board of Education, Every Secondary Student Survey illustrated that, in 1991, Luso-Canadian students were the second-highest represented group in Basic- and General-level studies (9% and 39%) (after the Black-Caribbean group) and the second-lowest represented in Advanced-level studies (See Table 3, next page) (Cheng, et. al., 1993). In all, over one-third of the Portuguese-Canadian student population was enrolled in General-level courses. Furthermore, 33% of all Luso-Canadian students had been designated as “at-risk” (of dropping-out), compared with 25% of the overall population (Yau, Cheng, & Ziegler, 1993, p. 26).

            A simultaneously-released, five-year follow-up study of the Grade 9 students who had participated in the 1987 Every Student Survey also showed that Luso-Canadian youth had highest drop-out rate of any of the groups sampled in the cohort (Brown, 1993, pp. 4-5). Forty-one percent (41%) of the Luso-Canadian young people who had attended this grade, in Toronto Board of Education schools in 1987, had dropped-out by the 1991-92 school year, (in comparison to 33%, in the general population, 19% of the Chinese, 32% of Italians). Similarly, only 48% of the Portuguese students in the cohort had graduated (the lowest rate), (in comparison to 56% in the general population). Furthermore, at the end of this time period, 72% of Portuguese students failed to accumulate any OAC credits (once again, the highest rate) in comparison to 47% of the overall student population (Brown, 1993, p. 11).

            In the 1991 Every Secondary Student Survey, Portuguese-Canadian students also reported some of the lowest levels of parental schooling and occupation of any minority group (Cheng, et. al., 1993). Over one-third of Portuguese students reported that their parents had elementary school as their highest education (61%); this was the highest percentage reported by any group, and double the number mentioned by Greek (34%) and Italian students (34%). Adversely, Portuguese students also had the lowest percentage of university educated parents (5%). This lack of education amongst Luso-Canadian parents was also reflected in the fact that Portuguese-Canadian students reported the highest percentage of parents who worked in skilled/semi-skilled jobs (61%).

            Other statistics, for more recent years, are also available, from both the Toronto Public Board as well as from the Metropolitan Toronto Separate School Board, which illustrate that the problem of Luso-Canadian underachievement in local schools has not diminished. This evidence is in the form of the results of the Grade 9 Reading and Writing Tests (by school), the scores from the Canadian Achievement Test (CAT/2), non-public documents showing calculated drop-out rates for the Metropolitan Separate School Board, as well as other internal information from both Boards pertaining to the proportions of students in Special Education who are of Portuguese origin.

            These statistics clearly illustrate how Luso-Canadian students - as a group - have continued to function well below the average for children in their ages and grade levels and how they continue to be the most numerous group in Special Education programmes. They also illustrate how similar patterns of underachievement are occuring within the Metropolitan Separate School Board, (which conducts only statistics for internal purposes only and does not make these public). Unfortunately, I was specifically asked on more than one occasion by officers of both Boards to keep this information confidential and to not reproduce these statistics in my dissertation.[4]

            One of the worst consequences of the underachievement of Portuguese youth has been the negative manner in which this problem has impacted on their perceptions of their ability to seek a higher education. A Toronto Board of Education report conducted in 1982, which measured the post secondary plans of grade 8 pupils found that, Luso-Canadian children were one of the two groups that were the least likely to feel that they had the ability to succeed in university and who did not have plans to attend, (Larter, Cheng, Capps & Lee, 1982).[5] Over 20% of the Portuguese students surveyed felt this way.

                Almost ten years later, the 1991 Every Secondary Student Survey illustrated that these attitudes had not changed, to any great degree, amongst Luso-Canadian students (Cheng, et. al., 1993). As Table 3 illustrates, the Portuguese constituted one of the two groups with the lowest percentage of students who planned to attend university (29%), the highest who were unsure about their post-secondary plans (31%) and the highest who planned to work full-time after their secondary education (10%). In fact, there is evidence that many Luso-Canadian students are already heavily involved with employment well before they leave school, since these also reported the longest average hours of part-time work (18), and one of the least numbers of hours spent on homework (7 per week) of any group.

            The participants in the present study also raised grave concerns in many of the focus groups across this country about what they perceived to be the serious lack of Luso-Canadian students in post-secondary education (see Chapter 9 “Educational Marginalization”). Their impressions are confirmed by figures gathered from the 1991 Census which indicated that Portuguese-Canadians in Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia displayed proportions of post-secondary frequency which were at the levels of the Aboriginal communities in those provinces (See Chapter 8, “Statistical Profile”). Their fears are further corroborated by a report conducted by the University of Toronto on the racial and ethnic origin of its students which showed that, in 1991-92, Portuguese students on the campus of this university (which is situated in the midst of Canada’s largest Luso-Canadian community) were disproportionately less numerous than those from comparable major Toronto ethnic groups (Tables 4 and 5, next page), (University of Toronto, 1992, pp. 35, 38).

The Call for Answers and Action

            The existence of the problem of academic underachievement amongst Portuguese-Canadian children has been widely recognized in the larger community, by journalists, Portuguese parents and educators, (Duffy, 1995a, 1995b, 1995c, 1995d, 1995e; Ferreira, 1998; “Insucesso escolar entre os,” 1994; Levy 1995; Matas, 1982, 1984; McLaren 1988; Nunes, 1995; Philp, 1995; Ponte, 1994; “‘Portuguese’ students,” 1995; “Será,” 1994; Vieira, 1995). Luso–Canadian parents, in particular, have demanded answers:

Portuguese parents do not understand what is happening to their children... We're not any dumber than anyone else," Mr. Dos Santos said. "The only question is why is this happening." (Matas, 1984).

            In response, teachers and other observers have often laid the blame for the underachievement back on parental attitudes and practices (Anderson, 1974, p. 164; Coelho, 1973, 1977Hartwig, 1979; Matas, 1984; Neves, 1977).

Teachers say it is not their fault students cannot read or write. Parents are blamed for not expecting enough of their children and for not emphasizing literacy at home. But if that is so, teachers have a responsibility to educate the parents and tell them how to help, Mr. Marcese [Sic] said (Matas, 1984).

For their part, some officials have also blamed the confused provision of government educational services for preventing educators from teaching all immigrant children in a more effective manner. Toronto school trustee Irene Atkinson spoke of the disarray which characterizes most school programmes for immigrant children in Canada:

In Toronto and Vancouver, a quarter of the student population does not speak English. Yet Ottawa offers no policy – and no money – for their education..."The federal government says: 'Come ye, come ye,' then dumps these kids on the local school boards with no assistance whatsoever," Toronto school trustee Irene Atkinson says. 'It really is absolutely appalling.' The result is a hodgepodge of programs across the country, provided by school boards that say they are understaffed, underfinanced and generally ill–equipped to meet the unique academic and emotional needs of immigrants and refugee children. (McLaren, 1988)

            Other officials have attributed this disarray in government services to a lack of clear, research–generated knowledge of the factors surrounding the issue of the education of immigrant youth. In commenting in one Toronto newspaper on the state of the education of immigrant students in Canada, Ms. Lorraine Flaherty, executive director of the Canadian School Trustees Association, lamented that: "The true extent of the education problem is not known" (McLaren, 1988). Ms. Flaherty also decried the lack of research studies into programmes for immigrant children.

            The shortage of information on the effectiveness of existing practices, combined with a chronic situation of underfunding, has resulted in all services for immigrant or refugee children being either non–existent or haphazzardly organized. In its report on key issues facing young people in Toronto, the Metro Youth Task Force concluded in 1991 that "services for immigrants and refugee youth are notably absent" in this city (Ashton, 1991, p. 25).

            Educators have warned that this lack of creation and rationalization of services is directly setting–up the underachievement of a generation of immigrant children, (McLaren, 1988; Senyk, 1983):

In recent interviews, educators in English Canada warned that the shortage of services may be failing immigrant children academically. (McLaren, 1988)

Some trustees are convinced that, without more support, immigrant students will miss the opportunity to become the next generation of productive citizens...Some educators say bright minds are already going to waste. (McLaren, 1988)

            Faced with this obvious crisis in our schools, and the acknowledgement of the problem by educators, the question most often raised by Portuguese, and other minority parents, has been the apparent inability, or unwillingness, of the schools to effectively adapt to meet the needs of their children (Contenta, 1987; Levy, 1995; Matas, 1982, 1984; McLaren 1988; Senyk, 1983; Serge, 1985). In a study on parent activism amongst various ethnic community groups in Toronto, Dehli and Januario (1994, pp. 63-74) remarked how many parents had felt frustrated at not having achieved much change in school practices and policies. These parents have particularly questioned why school boards have reacted slowly, or not at all, to parental concerns, (such as enacting destreaming), and to their suggestions for improvement, (such as the provision of heritage languages), (Dehli & Januario, 1994, pp. 63-74; Matas, 1982, 1984; Portuguese parents, 1985).  One individual who contributed to the Royal Commission on Learning asked:

...we must ask serious questions about a system that puts students into narrow streams from which they have little chance of escaping. (Royal Commission on Learning, 1994, p. 95)

            This question became especially relevant to Portuguese parents in light of the widespread publication of evidence which illustrated that Toronto educators had known, for many years, that certain schools located in areas of high immigrant concentrations afforded their students a less–than–equal opportunity. This evidence took the form of a leaked, secret Board of Education document, which graded elementary schools for the use of high school admissions officers, and by another document, commissioned by the Ontario Economic Council and the Ministry of Education, which ranked high schools according to a secret Ministry code, (Personal interview, Valter Lopes, Jan. 5, 1990; Schachter, 1978, February 27; Schachter, 1978, February 28).

            Many Portuguese parents saw the Board's attempt at secrecy, along with the apparent inability of the school system to change in the face of its own overwhelming evidence, as signs that the system's priorities mitigated directly against the interests of Portuguese students and towards the interests of the middle–class mainstream in reproducing a Portuguese–Canadian underclass. Burnet and Palmer (1988) described the reaction of Portuguese parents in Toronto, in the early 80’s, to what they regarded as discriminatory policies and practices within their schools:

An issue that emerged in the Toronto area was the streaming of immigrant children of working-class backgrounds into technical or vocational programs or schools rather than academic programs or academic secondary schools. The parents, many of whom had high ambitions for their children, considered this to be a result of discrimination. Italian, Portuguese and West Indian parents were prominent among those who complained. (Burnet & Palmer, 1988, p. 118)

            In the 1994 report of Ontario’s Royal Commission on Learning, Portuguese-Canadian community representatives and organizations expressed their frustrations at Ontario’s system of streaming, which they felt was directly responsible for steering a large percentage of the community’s children to non-university schools and courses (Royal Commission on Learning, 1994, pp. 95-96). They also decried what they felt to be teacher’s low expectations of Luso-Canadian students and called for a greater number of Portuguese-speaking teachers, a curriculum which better recognizes the presence of the Portuguese in the world and in the classroom, more support for students at-risk and more outreach to Luso-Canadian parents. Finally, they also asked for more research into the educational difficulties of Portuguese-Canadian students.

            The Portuguese Parents' Association of Toronto (TPPA), a group which arose to promote the integration of the heritage languages in the curriculum, directly confronted the Toronto Public School Board over the results of their 1982 report (Larter, et. al., 1982) on student's expectations (Januario, 1995b, 1997). They also also laid much of the blame for the wholesale failure of Portuguese–Canadian students on the policies and practices of the schools and on the attitudes of educators concerning Portuguese students. The TPPA attacked the Board for devaluing Luso-Canadian students and their culture. They fought actively against such practices as ability grouping, streaming, culturally–biased assessment procedures, cultural irrelevancy in the curriculum and criticized the Public School Board for providing inferior programmes in working–class areas, (Dos Santos, Perestrelo & Coelho, 1985; "Portuguese parents," 1985; Toronto Portuguese Parents Association, n.d.; Ward, 1985) They further warned parents that change could only be effected through their active militancy.[6]

Our children are being victimized by a system developed for and supported by the well–to–do sector...It is time for us to wake up and together plan a course of action to correct this injustice!!! (Dos Santos, Perestrelo & Coelho, 1985, p. 153)

            Although some educators casually dismissed the position of the Portuguese Parents Association, calling it "left–wing" and "socialist" and blamed this group for politicizing what they felt was essentially a problem of parental and cultural origin, (Matas, 1984), others more readily admitted the culpability of the schools:

'We were overwhelmed,' admits a school board official. 'From being among the least vocal parents, the Portuguese were suddenly in the front lines. The atmosphere was confrontational, and at times, very rough. But they won, and in most cases they were right. (Ward, 1985)

            Many educators also came to an acknowledgement that the brunt of the problem lays in the manner in which the school system relates to minority students and their cultures. They described how the issue of minority underachievement can only begin to be addressed through an alteration of the manner in which schools receive minority students, (Contenta, 1987; Ashton, 1991, p. 10).

Ontario's school drop–out rate can be reduced by making immigrant children feel at home in classrooms, educators say. (Contenta, 1987)

The Portuguese-Canadian Coalition for Better Education

            The most recent efforts to improve the situation of Luso-Canadian students in Toronto schools have attempted to marry the early militancy of the Toronto Portuguese Parents Association with concerted efforts to work closely with the School Boards, local politicians and the Ministry of Education. In February of 1995, the Portuguese-Canadian Coalition for Better Education - a group comprised of over 40 representative organizations and individuals in the Toronto Luso-Canadian community - was created, as a response to the release of the 1991 Every Secondary Student Survey (Brown, et. al., 1992; Cheng, et. al., 1993; Yau, et. al., 1993), as well as the ensuing negative media coverage which this report focussed upon the Luso-Canadian community (Januario, 1995b, 1997).

            Since 1995, the Coalition has been working collaboratively with the Toronto Public and Separate School Boards on recommending ways to improve assessment practices, school accountability, equity in hiring, and in implementing “best practices” (i.e. those practices which have been found beneficial in certain schools) across all schools (Januario, 1997). The Coalition and the Boards have also been working on mentoring and tutoring programmes for underachieving students, utilizing bilingual beginning reader books, developing the “First Steps” and “Steps to University” programmes for kindergarten and Grade 11 students, as well as working collaboratively on a Board-Coalition committee, that was attempting to isolate the situation of Luso-Canadian students through available Board statistical records (Januario, 1997).

            The Coalition has also met with different Ministers of Education, in 1995 and 1998, in order to relay the community’s concerns surrounding the educational of its youth, ask for action on the recommendations of the report of the Royal Commission on Learning (1994), solicit for more research to be conducted on the reasons behind the underachievement of Luso-Canadian students and gather political leverage for their work with the Boards (Ferreira, 1998; Januario, 1998; Levy, 1995; Ponte, 1995).

            Many of the individuals who have worked closely with both the Toronto Portuguese Parents Association (TPPA) as well as with the Portuguese-Canadian Coalition for Better Education have felt that the issue of underachievement needs to be approached from  two fronts: With the Luso-Canadian community-at-large, as well as with the School Boards and government. As Ilda Januario, a former spokesperson for the Coalition and President of the TPPA stated:

As a community, what can we do? Are we doing the best we can? [...] We have to work continually at two levels at the local school and at the more global level, on problems that affect our community as well as other ethnocultural communities in order to avoid leaving behind the parents of the disadvantaged students. (Januario, 1994b, p. 6)

The Toronto experience has taught the community, namely the Portuguese-Canadian Coalition for Better Education, that it is necessary to work on various fronts and at various levels [...] Whatever work that is done at the level of the school system has to be complemented with an effort at information and action within the community.(Januario, 1995b)

            There is as yet no reliable information which can  indicate whether the efforts of the Coalition have borne an improvement in the academic performance of the community’s children. Furthermore, the years have taken their toll on this volunteer collective, as many of the Coalition’s members have ceased taking an active part in the long, drawn-out and highly bureaucratized meetings with Board officials. Like the individuals in Dehli and Januario’s (1994) study, some Coalition members have become disillusioned at the slow - or hard to measure - change which they have seen in local schools. Others have been driven away by the often politicized and sometimes highly confrontational nature of some meetings. Others have become pessimistic as to the true intentions of Board officials, in effecting any real change within their schools.

            More significantly, however, as the topics of joint Coalition-Board meetings have become narrower and more complex (ex. looking into Special Education and assessment issues), the remaining members of the organization have been co-opted to devoting more of their time and energy at the level of the classroom and the Boards. Consequently, they have become less visible in the community media and in the wider community, in general. They have also not been able to devote much time or effort to developing the kinds of community-based approaches to this issue, which would be needed to truly work “on two fronts.”

            As Dehli and Januario (1994, p. 83) indicated, few studies on education in Canada have examined how families and schools interact in this country. They described how interventions and research conducted in previous studies have not automatically applied to the situations of the parents which they interviewed in their project. They recommended that their study be followed-up by a participatory-action research initiative in Toronto, on issues of parental activism and involvement; a project which could also attempt to introduce good models of school-family-community interactions, along with efforts to restructure schools and classrooms.

            From what I have here presented, it is clear that the work of the Coalition would benefit greatly from a parallel community-focussed initiative (in the form of a Participatory-Research project); one which can look at the role of the community in the education issue and particularly in influencing the educational policies and decisions of local schools.

Summary

            As I have attempted to illustrate, Luso-Canadian children and youth in the Toronto school system have been experiencing disproportional rates of academic underachievement. Over the past twenty years, they have dropped out of school earlier, studied at significantly lower levels and been disproportionately represented in Special Education programmes. They have also been found to be lagging behind in reading and language skills. Consequently, a disproportionate number of Portuguese-Canadian children either do not plan to acquire a post-secondary education, or they are not confident about their ability to do so. In fact, there are indications that relatively very few Portuguese-Canadians have acquired a post-secondary education and that the numbers of Luso-Canadian students who are attending these institutions is well below those of other groups.

            Luso-Canadian community members have recognized and responded to this issue, most particularly after the publication of the Toronto Public School Board’s reports in 1982 and 1991 (Brown, et. al., 1992; Cheng, et. al., 1993; Larter, et. al., 1982; Yau, et. al., 1993). In particular, the Toronto Portuguese Parents Association and the Portuguese-Canadian Coalition for Better Education have worked in collaboration - and occasionally in confrontation - over recent years with the Toronto School Boards and the Ministry of Education, in order to search for solutions to this problem. Yet, of their work has focused on school practices, or on the parents belonging to these organizations. Very few of their initiatives have targeted the community-at-large, with a view to developing the capacity of Luso-Canadians to understand education issues and to better advocate for changes within their local schools.