Is New Education Program an About-Face for School District?

What’s wrong with this picture?

The San Diego city school district--which once was the target of a desegregation lawsuit--has developed a unique program.

Several hundred students are being taken to a YMCA camp near Julian and given pep talks on decision-making, self-esteem, etc. The program is specifically for black males.

Hold it. A school program--a mix of public and private money--designed for one sex and one race, to the exclusion of the other sex and other races?

Isn’t that the kind of racial separatism the school district is sworn to oppose?

This, remember, is the same school district that won’t allow racially exclusive proms. And abhors ability “tracking” because it separates the races.

Supt. Tom Payzant says he wouldn’t define the camp program as discriminatory:

“I would say it a different way: we are targeting a group of students to meet their special needs. . . . You have to begin to take some risks and address them.”

Payzant has bought into an idea now in vogue: that, for sociological reasons, young black males can best be educated by separating them, at least some of the time, from males of other races and females of all races.

It’s an idea supported by school board president Shirley Weber, a professor of Africana studies at San Diego State University. She put her son into a private school geared mainly for black males.

Payzant says that, a few years ago, he would have opposed a program like that at the YMCA camp. Now his thinking has modified, as long as the separatism is only a small portion of the “total school experience.”

He says he would consider similar limited programs for Latinos and Asians if someone could show that there was a need. That might have to wait until there is a professor of Latino or Asian studies on the school board.

Payzant notes that some school districts--Milwaukee, for example--have established entire schools just for blacks. He says he would oppose that--for today, at least.

“As a liberally educated person, you at least have to keep yourself open to those possibilities.”

Conclusion: Liberalism has changed.

A Garbled Future

If you say so.

* Stupid crime tricks.

A television producer in Hollywood has asked the San Diego Police Department to contribute examples for a special called “Caught Red-Handed” about less-than-intelligent crimes.

My favorite: The stickup man who took his stocking mask off when his victim complained that he couldn’t understand his demands for money.

* Making news.

When (Escondido) Times Advocate reporter Jeffrey Bean asked to follow Escondido water conservation officer Dick Ramos on his rounds, Ramos said fine.

Then the pair took off for Ramos’ first stop: The Times Advocate.

Ramos wrote the newspaper a citation for watering its lawn during daytime. Seems a city employee had alerted the city’s snitch line for water abusers.

* Three homes in La Jolla and one in Rancho Santa Fe are listed in the ultra-exclusive Sotheby’s International Realty portfolio.

* Palomar College offers a course in using Mace for self-defense.

* Just say no.

A San Diego cop, a San Diego County deputy sheriff and three Los Angeles cops just finished teaching a two-week course on using the D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) program in schools to 13 Tijuana police officers.

For the San Diego-L.A. team, it was the first south-of-the-border experience but probably not the last. Police departments in Chile, Bolivia, Colombia and Brazil have shown interest.

* Even the ritzy feel the recession.

The La Costa Resort & Spa just laid off 60 employees.

Something to Write Home About

Fun City.

Does San Diego know how to show its tourists a good time or what?

Mayors, spouses and others attending the U.S. Conference of Mayors have been invited to attend the city Waste Management Department’s second annual Recycled Products Symposium and Vendor Show.

The lure: a chance to win a set of retread tires, donated by the Tire Retread Information Bureau.