Instilling the love of learning in our youth?
I Googled around a bit over the weekend to learn more about Oakland's American Indian Public Charter School after KC posted that intriguing East Bay Express story on it.
The long and the short is that I got into a discussion on an Oakland blog about whether the school's test scores, which in six years went from the toilet to the stratosphere, might possibly have been tinkered with. That was before the Sunday Chron coincidentally came out with its lead story on schools that cheat on their test scores (which did not mention AIPCS).
One blogger and AIPCS enthusiast who read my posts put an enraged rejoinder on his/her own blog. His/her point is that he/she had a successful teacher in his/her youth who got top performance out of his students with these tactics:
"... abject terror ..."
"... no limit on the level of cruelty ..."
"... [being] a sadistic asshole who made my life a living hell ..."
"... misery ..."
The blogger' s interpretation of my comments was that I was a racist for saying that only poor minorities would subject their kids to the kind of humiliation and intimidation inflicted on them at AIPCS. The blogger offered up his/her fond memories to prove that I'm a racist for making that point — he/she is apparently not a poor minority and was also subjected to humiliation and intimidation, and thinks it was a fine thing.
(What I was actually saying is that some middle-class whites seem willing to endorse inflicting humiliation and intimidation on poor minorities, when we would never tolerate it for our own kids.)
All I can say about that blogger's comments is that his/her position is not likely to be much of a sales tactic for AIPCS. (The true secrets to closing the achievement gap: terror, misery, living hell and cruelty!) But the essential point of the news coverage is that nobody cares what outrageous tactics Ben Chavis uses as long as his kids' test scores are high.
— Caroline
The long and the short is that I got into a discussion on an Oakland blog about whether the school's test scores, which in six years went from the toilet to the stratosphere, might possibly have been tinkered with. That was before the Sunday Chron coincidentally came out with its lead story on schools that cheat on their test scores (which did not mention AIPCS).
One blogger and AIPCS enthusiast who read my posts put an enraged rejoinder on his/her own blog. His/her point is that he/she had a successful teacher in his/her youth who got top performance out of his students with these tactics:
"... abject terror ..."
"... no limit on the level of cruelty ..."
"... [being] a sadistic asshole who made my life a living hell ..."
"... misery ..."
The blogger' s interpretation of my comments was that I was a racist for saying that only poor minorities would subject their kids to the kind of humiliation and intimidation inflicted on them at AIPCS. The blogger offered up his/her fond memories to prove that I'm a racist for making that point — he/she is apparently not a poor minority and was also subjected to humiliation and intimidation, and thinks it was a fine thing.
(What I was actually saying is that some middle-class whites seem willing to endorse inflicting humiliation and intimidation on poor minorities, when we would never tolerate it for our own kids.)
All I can say about that blogger's comments is that his/her position is not likely to be much of a sales tactic for AIPCS. (The true secrets to closing the achievement gap: terror, misery, living hell and cruelty!) But the essential point of the news coverage is that nobody cares what outrageous tactics Ben Chavis uses as long as his kids' test scores are high.
— Caroline
2 Comments:
Caroline -
I think you missed my point. (Also, it's considered poor etiquette to discuss and extensively quote someone's work without linking to it. The post in question can be found at www.abetteroakland.com.)
I say pretty explicitly that I don't approve of these methods. They do, however, work. And most people, whether poor and Latino or wealthy and white, are willing to tolerate all sorts of cruelty in exchange for academic achievement.
I also want to point out that while this class made me miserable, there were plenty of students who thrived in the same environment and thought that the dunce cap and donuts were the greatest thing ever. The wonderful thing about charter schools is that if your child doesn't like AIPCS, they can just go to another school that employs a different approach.
Sorry; I'll add the link to the original post.
OTOH, calling a stranger a psychopath and a racist isn't exactly designed to win any Miss Manners awards either...
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