The American Indian Way

Students sit in detention at American Indian Public Charter school in Oakland for offenses ranging from getting up during class or skipping a problem on a homework assignment. Students who misbehave in the slightest must stay an hour after school; if they misbehave again in the same week, they get more detention and four hours of Saturday detention.

Via Hot Air, one of the absolutely best pieces I've read in a long time.  Forget ever-higher taxation for spending 5 times what was spent when you and I were in school.  Forget "diversity classes" and "sensitivity training".  Forget environmental education.  Forget no punishment for failure to follow rules, and forget automatic moving on to the next grade, irrespective of how a student has performed. 

Welcome to the American Indian Public Charter - a school serving primarily poor and minority children in Oakland, California - where the kids are turning in the best test scores in the state.  If you're a liberal, then prepare yourself before you read further and look at the article.  It may blast everything you always thought to the other side of the planet.

Not many schools in California recruit teachers with language like this: "We are looking for hard working people who believe in free market capitalism. . . . Multi-cultural specialists, ultra liberal zealots, and college-tainted oppression liberators need not apply."

That, it turns out, is just the beginning of the ways in which American Indian Public Charter and its two sibling schools spit in the eye of mainstream education. These small, no-frills, independent public schools in the hard-scrabble flats of Oakland sometimes seem like creations of television's "Colbert Report." They mock liberal orthodoxy with such zeal that it can seem like a parody.

School administrators take pride in their record of frequently firing teachers they consider to be underperforming. Unions are embraced with the same warmth accorded "self-esteem experts, panhandlers, drug dealers and those snapping turtles who refuse to put forth their best effort," to quote the school's website.

Students, almost all poor, wear uniforms and are subject to disciplinary procedures redolent of military school. One local school district official was horrified to learn that a girl was forced to clean the boys' restroom as punishment.

Conservatives, including columnist George Will, adore the American Indian schools, which they see as models of a "new paternalism" that could close the gap between the haves and have-nots in American education. Not surprisingly, many Bay Area liberals have a hard time embracing an educational philosophy that proudly proclaims that it "does not preach or subscribe to the demagoguery of tolerance."

It would be easy to dismiss American Indian as one of the nuttier offshoots of the fast-growing charter school movement, which allows schools to receive public funding but operate outside of day-to-day district oversight. But the schools command attention for one very simple reason: By standard measures, they are among the very best in California.

The Academic Performance Index, the central measuring tool for California schools, rates schools on a scale from zero to 1,000, based on standardized test scores. The state target is an API of 800. The statewide average for middle and high schools is below 750. For schools with mostly low-income students, it is around 650.

The oldest of the American Indian schools, the middle school known simply as American Indian Public Charter School, has an API of 967. Its two siblings -- American Indian Public Charter School II (also a middle school) and American Indian Public High School -- are not far behind.

Among the thousands of public schools in California, only four middle schools and three high schools score higher. None of them serve mostly underprivileged children.

Someone - anyone - please read this entire article.  Then, let me know why almost every city in our nation shouldn't be experimenting with at least some schools modeled after this one.  Poor kids can learn.  Kids of color can prosper.  If educators and administrators are willing to deliver the education - along with a strong dose of tough love and discipline - it can be done.

I don't want one more generation of children to be deprived of a strong and meaningful education.  Do you?

Comments

[Greg]

Simple question, do you know the position the current President has on the issue of Charter Schools?

Here is a hint:

The President supports the expansion of high-quality charter schools. He has challenged States to lift limits that stifle growth among successful charter schools and has encouraged rigorous accountability for all charter schools.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/education/

[Peg]

Great. I look forward to seeing many, many more schools modeled on the American Indian set up throughout our country.

Of course - there are charter schools - and then there are charter schools. It appears that the ones which focus on core subjects, strong discipline and high expectations for the students are the ones that are achieving top results.

[dw]

My opinion is that Mr. Obama would shore up and preserve the public educational syspem as it is. I saw nothing in the link to change my mind. The measily 5 billion barely acknowledges the obvious sucess of charter schools that are free of political interference and idenity politics.

Charter schools need equal funding and promotion before their sucess will acknowledged aside from political concerns.