Thomas Sowell - "The Education of Minority Children": "For all I know, there may be some Afrocentric schools that are doing well. The point here is simply that this has not been an essential ingredient in the successful education of minority students. At St. Augustine school in New Orleans, its principal, Father Grant, resisted attempts to bring into the school the issues arising from the civil rights struggles of the 1960s. Although sympathetic to the civil rights movement himself, and to some extent a participant in it, Father Grant opposed the introduction into the school of what he called 'extraneous elements, issues, and concerns.' Keenly aware of the students' cultural disadvantages and the need to overcome them, as well as the importance of the social issues that some wanted to address in the school, he said that 'we absolutely could not do both things well'-- and both deserved to be done well, or not at all. As Father Grant put it bluntly: 'Do not consume my time with extraneous issues and then expect me to have enough time left over to dedicate myself to a strong academic program where I will turn out strong, intelligent, competent kids.'"