Wouldn't you love to see this want-ad in the Milwaukee newspaper?
"We are looking for hard working people who believe in free market capitalism. . . . Multicultural 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 hardscrabble 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.
And what REALLY frosts the Thugs of Edjyommakayshun:
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.
To what end, you ask?
...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.
Read the whole article. This bunch makes me feel like a marshmallow. I may have to re-write all that "nasty" stuff I have in my masthead...
But now and then a little humility is good, right?
HT: First Things
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4 comments:
I went to Catholic Grade & High School. The good Fathers and Sisters brooked little foolishness and had high expectations, both of students AND parents. In todays public schools, they'd be fired for the discipline they used. Nothing harsh, but there was a line that was NOT crossed. Bravo for those charter schools.
Interesting, if long, read.
Kudos to these Charter Schools.
Dad29, who is the Calvin you refer to in your masthead? I'm guessing Calvin and Hobbes?
Your guess is correct. Watterson is easily as great a cartoonist as was Walt Kelly.
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