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Inquirer Editorial: Is it ever right to segregate?

Sometimes you can't win for losing. That must be how Lancaster County school officials feel after being accused of racism for trying to bridge the achievement gap between black and white students.

Sometimes you can't win for losing. That must be how Lancaster County school officials feel after being accused of racism for trying to bridge the achievement gap between black and white students.

This isn't a problem limited to that Southeastern Pennsylvania community. Nationally, African American students have failed to perform at the same academic level as whites for decades, even among students with similar economic backgrounds.

Confronted with test scores showing that only a third of its black students were proficient in reading, compared to 60 percent of white students, Lancaster County's McCaskey East High School decided to take a controversial step to reduce the gap.

It separated three of its 19 homeroom classes from the rest and assigned only black girls to one homeroom and black boys to the other two. The children are in homeroom only six minutes a day and 20 minutes once every two weeks, but that's time the school thought it could use more wisely.

It assigned mentors to the race- and gender-specific classes to encourage the black students, listen to them, and help them get past any stumbling blocks that might impede their academic success.

And for trying to help black children, the school was accused of promoting segregation the likes of which has not been seen in America since George Wallace stood in the schoolhouse door.

It didn't matter that participation in the mentoring program was voluntary. It didn't matter that the local NAACP thought it was a fine idea.

In fact, a group called the New York Civil Rights Coalition called on the national NAACP to censure the local chapter of the civil rights organization.

As a result of all of the controversy, including making the national news and blowing up the blogosphere, the school district has decided to end the program after only six weeks. Maybe it would have worked, but it's likely that no one will ever know.

School officials naively underestimated the reaction to any program that divides people by race. They weren't prepared for the national backlash.

McCaskey East literacy instructor Angela Tilghman nonetheless deserves applause for thinking out of the box to propose a strategy to address a national problem. She based her idea on research that shows black males do better academically in single-sex classrooms, especially when they have a strong relationship with a teacher or mentor. Girls have made similar gains in single-sex math and science classes.

It's not discrimination when kids are being helped, not held back.