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Spitting in the eye of mainstream education
The Los Angeles Times ^ | 5/31/2009 | Mitchell Landsberg

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 ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News
KEYWORDS: education; publikskoolz
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To: JRochelle
A school that teaches?
The LA Times would much rather have results like this.

LAUSD students rallying "againts represion" and, apparently, againts taxpayrs.

41 posted on 05/30/2009 10:09:09 PM PDT by PressurePoint (The Constitution. Seriously. Just read it.)
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To: wac3rd
I hate to be a conspiracy theorist, but ...

As Mark Levin says: "It's not conspiracy, it's ideology."

42 posted on 05/30/2009 11:23:11 PM PDT by PressurePoint
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To: JRochelle

Are these the same schools whose students recently scored substantially higher than average on the NEAP or comparable tests?

Odd, isn’t it, that this “reporter” omitted this little fact.


43 posted on 05/31/2009 4:33:44 AM PDT by Tenniel2 (Memo to politicians: Don't worry about "shovel-ready." Worry about "pitchfork-ready.")
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To: JRochelle

bump


44 posted on 05/31/2009 6:02:43 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer (The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.)
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To: JRochelle

BVMPVS MAXIMVS


45 posted on 05/31/2009 8:07:40 AM PDT by martin_fierro (< |:)~)
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To: martin_fierro

BTTT


46 posted on 05/31/2009 8:37:41 AM PDT by I got the rope
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