Posted on 05/30/2009 3:03:38 PM PDT by JRochelle
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."
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
“Being printed in the LA Times was the first giveaway.”
That’s for sure. I can’t believe that George Will would call this ‘paternalism!’ It sounds like a place where personal responsibility is demanded.
Nope, that kid will remember. Parental rights need to be reasserted against the school system. I agree with you, she’s wrong and likely a nut, but she’s his mom. Where’s dad?
The kid is likely a conservative for life.
Don’t forget Einstein, he was dyslexic and didn’t finish out elementary school.
Excellent post. Labs and “equipment” are the educational-complexes biggest myths.
How did we get here in the first place? Which great minds were raised with access to the top labs?
I agree with you on reading, but the other side of that is government schools kill the excitement of learning.
I saw these kids on BART yesterday on a field trip. There were about 15 children quietly talking and I even told their teacher he was doing a great job.
Normally, school kids in Oakland are screaming and running all over the train, these kids were so much more respectful.
Her actions are typical for her catagory of nominal American.
First, her words:
. “I’m a single mom, and I’m trying to raise an African American young man, and I’m very serious about his education,” said Chaka Grace.
O RLY?
What we have here is what used to be called a slut but is now called a “single parent”. While it is possible the boy was conceived and delivered while the mother was married, odds are against it.
So, that means she is likely raising a “bastard”, though the PC Speak crowd wants them called “children of single parents”.
Enough regarding the taxonomy of the “Student Mama”.
Student Mama removed her boy from the best academic opportunity available to her because she insisted on “acting Black” and forcing her boy to do likewise.
The term “acting Black” is the flip side of “actin’ White”, the term used to taunt studious black students are taunted because they ARE studying.
The inauguration of a President is hardly a reason to have your boy violate school rules considered by both the school and other parents to be core rules.
Then, because the school refuses to make an attendance rule exception for the Student Moma’s “acting Black”, and forcing her son to also so do, Student Moma withdraws her son.
That act is the perfect example of “acting Black”. The consequence is also a perfect example of the costs to those who insist on “acting Black”.
Note that Student Moma specifically makes clear that she is “acting Black” when she states “I’m trying to raise an African American young man”. Not “I’m trying to give my boy the best possible education”.
In contradistinction, the school policy is clearly against, and will in no way going to allow any such narrow ethno-political posturing.
Stupid Student Moma. Racist, too - or so it seems.
Were Student Moma able to pay for her son’s tuition at another such school of excellence, her behavior might be understandable.
She isn’t, and clearly gave priority to her desire to “..raise an African American young man” over her son’s continued attendance at a school of educational excellence.
What did the boy say about the consequences of Student Moma’s decision?
“I miss my class; I miss my teacher,” he said.
‘Nuff said.
Flame away, Liberals.
;-)
I love this school. I owe my great success at school to my foundation at a Jesuite school outside of the US. However, I wish there was a little bit of balance by adding an element of fun to the day. Robbing the childhood from the child is not necessary to being rigorous academically.
I’m in higher education, and it’s already happening. They don’t sit there like little sponge-like robots; they challenge the liberal crap spewed their way and prove they are smarter than their professors.
I hate to be a conspiracy theorist, but years of Marxist/Hippie/Communist loser Libs in media, education and public office (politicians, courts) has PURPOSELY made children dumb.
Dumb and taxed is what they are, and easy to control when they are herded into the churches of Al Gore, Gay Rights, Obama and anything pro-traditonal American. Open borders, gun grabbing and hating the military are just a few things these maggot Communists do to your kids.
My son will not be placed in the care of Mao, sorry, it will cost us, but he is going to a Christian school (conservative).
I was curious if they had a DVR or VHS, or $20? There are a million tapes of Zer0 and Michelle for sale in every bookstore in the country, especially Oakland, I know, I live here.
ping
How delightfully well said and true. The left's form of tolerance mandates adoption of their beliefs over your own, and instills mediocrity. We must "tolerate" ill behavior, lack of effort, lack of respect for our nation and its ideals...
Good for you. You son will know you loved him.
I kind of know the feeling as I lived in the East Bay as a kid. I wouldn't send a child to a public school anywhere in CA, let alone the Bay Area.
And why don’t they read? Because they don’t know how, and several years ago a CA state education official admitted that his state did a lousy job of teaching kids to read.
I teach at a Jesuit school in Australia - regarded as one of the top two Catholic boys schools in the country (the other being it’s brother Jesuit school in Sydney). They are excellent schools, providing brilliant education - but we also do do our best to make school enjoyable and fun for the boys wherever we can. This can be done.
You wrote:
“And why don’t they read? Because they don’t know how, and several years ago a CA state education official admitted that his state did a lousy job of teaching kids to read.”
Many are not good readers, that’s true. I think the problem is worse than a mechanics problem, however. In other words, they could become better readers soon enough if they CHOOSE to read. They simply see no reason to do it. Reading is for those who have no video games, I guess.
Ain't that the truth in a nutshell?
I had one college professor who was so bad (an affirmative action Muzzie) that the only way students got through his course is because we had a decent text and taught ourselves the material. Supposedly, the guy was brilliant and was well respected in his home country (Egypt)-- at least that's what we were told. But we all wondered why he was teaching a graduate level statistics class in America when he couldn't even speak understandable English?
If you saw the old Bill Murray movie Stripes about how they trained themselves to finissh boot camp, you know how our class got through that statistics course . . . and it was because we were motivated to read.
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