3 of California’s “Top” Schools On the Chopping Block, And Good Riddance

What makes a “top” school, top? According to the San Francisco Chronicle (and most other media) it is test scores. Thanks to No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and Obama’s Race to the Top (RttT), test scores are all that matter these days. This has led to numerous cheating scandals, as well as a reduction in science, arts, physical education and other curricula to make room for more test preparation. It has also led to a number of other scandals, such as the one at Oakland’s American Indian Charter Schools, now under threat of closure for financial improprieties, despite its relatively high test scores.

The American Indian schools are currently being investigated by the Alameda County district attorney for funneling $3.8 million to founder and former director Ben Chavis and his wife for shady real estate deals and services, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. As director, Chavis signed school checks over to himself for properties he rented to the schools. In one case, he charged the schools $1.09 per square foot per month, when Oakland Unified was charging one-fifth of that ($2.50 per year).

The Oakland school board has asked the school to shape up and convince them their books are now in order. The board will make its final decision on March 20.

The problem is that it is not just financial improprieties that call the schools’ quality into question. Chavis, who ran the schools from 2001 until 2007, has been accused of humiliating students, swearing at them and calling them names publicly. The East Bay Express reports that he also made racist and sexist comments in front of students, while the WSWS reports he physically abused an adult visitor to the campus and forced a student to shave his head as a punishment. The Express also found that the schools’ high test scores had nothing to do with good teaching or school structure, but were the result of cherry-picking higher performing students—a form of cheating that violates OUSD’s own policies. In essence, the schools were phony “top” schools that rigged the system in order to look good, maintain high enrollment, and serve as a cover for Chavis’ embezzlement schemes.

While the OUSD is threatening to revoke the schools’ charters and shut them down, they should not be seen as the hero riding in on their white horse. According to the Express, the school board had known for years about Chavis’ abuses and misconduct, yet continually renewed the schools’ charters, citing their wonderful test scores as justification. Indeed, the OUSB, due its lack of effective oversight, was complicit in both the cheating scandal and Chavis’ embezzlement of millions of dollars from the district

The OUSD likewise had no problem with the schools’ refusal to hire unionized teachers or its rabid anti-communism (one of the schools’ “10 Commandments” was “Thou shalt be aware of quacks who believe in communism. Hast thou ever heard of illegal immigrants risking their lives to enter Cuba?”

 

55% of Oakland’s African American Males At Risk of Not Graduating

New research by the Urban Strategies Council of Oakland found that 55% of African American male students in the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) were at risk of not graduating due to high suspension rates, chronic absences and poor academic performance. This compares with a still high rate of 37.5% for the general student population, according to the Bay Citizen.

Of those who were not on track to graduate on time, 73% were chronically absent in elementary school, missing at least 10% of school days. This parallels findings from a Baltimore study (see here). The same percentage had been suspended at least once in middle school.

It is easy to blame schools, teachers and parents for the problem. Indeed, the Bay Citizen quoted Hedy Chang, director of Attendance Works, who said that “five-year-olds don’t miss school without an adult knowing at home,” as if the parent was keeping the child home for illegitimate reasons. Yet, high absenteeism is not primarily due to irresponsible parents who simply keep their kids home or don’t monitor their attendance. Rather, high absenteeism correlates with poverty and lack of health insurance or access to affordable care, suggesting that poor kids stay home more because they are not receiving preventative or prompt curative care, leading to longer and more severe infectious and chronic illnesses.

Of course, at the higher grades, students sometimes cut class for other reasons, like preferring to be out on the streets or with friends, to avoid gangs or bullies, or because they are so behind in grades or academic skills that school has become a traumatic and unpleasant experience for them.

Most of these problems, likewise, cannot be directly blamed on parents, teachers or even the students themselves. Poverty creates an achievement gap before children have even entered kindergarten (see here and here). The achievement gap only gets worse as children progress through the system, with affluent students continuing to reap benefits like summer travel, enriching extracurricular activities and better health and nutrition that are denied to their lower income peers. Failure and frustration are thus built into the system and routine for many students and cutting class could be seen as a rational response to the embarrassment, powerlessness or frustration of being stuck in classes in which one is lost, confused and has little chance of passing.

Gangs are also a product of socioeconomic conditions and a problem that can be significantly reduced or eliminated by eradicating poverty and providing jobs and extracurricular activities for youth. Until that happens, students who must cross through rival gang territory in order to get to school could be provided with transportation alternatives that bypass the dangerous turf or reassigned to other schools.

Bullying is also a societal problem. It occurs at home and in the streets and playgrounds. Politicians, bosses and community leaders also engage in it. Until it as addressed at these levels, children and adults will continue to see it as a normal (and effective) way to interact and achieve one’s goals and the problem will persist. However, schools can do a lot more to reduce bullying on campus by better educating their staffs and creating and enforcing disciplinary policies that treat it as a serious offense.

High suspension rates are also related to socioeconomic factors. While racial bias probably plays a role in the higher suspension rates for African American males among certain teachers and administrators, it is unlikely the main cause (see Parsing the Black-White Suspension Gap for more analysis of this topic). Rather, lower rates of academic success (remember, the achievement gap is already in place before students even start school) likely create a frustrating academic experience that contributes to disruptive behavior. Also, the middle class culture, mores and expectations of school often come into conflict with the culture, mores and expectations of lower income and non-white communities, leading to the unnecessary escalation of conflicts and more severe punishment for students.

Oakland students of color, particularly black males, indeed have an appallingly high risk of not graduating on time from high school. However, if we really want to see improvements, we need to stop scapegoating the parents, teachers and children themselves and start addressing the socioeconomic factors that are the primary cause of the problem.

Crying Wolf: Another Unnecessary Lockdown In Oakland

Oakland Unified School District has now locked down three schools within the first two days of the school year. In at least one of the cases, officials admitted that the children’s safety was never in jeopardy, which begs the question: Why were children’s personal freedom, comfort and learning undermined by being confined to their classroom for hours?

In the latest incident, children at Oakland's Horace Mann Elementary School were locked in their classrooms for most of Tuesday, while police searched for suspects in a string of early-morning home-invasion robberies, the Bay Citizen reported today. OUSD spokesman Troy Flint said that Oakland schools experience lockdowns two to four times per week on average and largely as a precaution. “That figure doesn’t really represent an imminent threat to the school.”

Flint specifically stated that the 350 children at Horace Mann were not in danger. The men surrendered voluntarily to the police, except for one suspect who was obese and got stuck in his hiding place and had to be rescued by the fire department.

Despite the lack of danger, parents were forced to wait over an hour to pick up their children in the afternoon. Many complained that the school did not explain the process sufficiently to them.

Regardless, one has to wonder if there is a better alternative to locking kids in their classrooms for hours at a time on such a regular basis. The two to four times per week figure quoted by Mr. Flint likely means that some schools are being locked down on a regular basis as a result of being located in high crime neighborhoods. During these lockdowns, learning is disrupted, activities are canceled and freedom placed on hold. Secondary students cannot switch classes, causing them to lose valuable instructional time in those classes. K-5 students are disrupted from their usual routines which no doubt creates anxiety and discipline problems for some.

During lockdowns, students cannot use the restroom or the drinking fountain or get food from their lockers or the cafeteria. Lockdowns have become so commonplace that LAUSD has equipped classroom with buckets so students can relieve themselves.

Yet when officials publicly declare that the lockdowns are just a precaution and do not represent an imminent threat, the message to parents and students is that they do not have to take them seriously. Districts like OUSD and LAUSD that lockdown their schools on a weekly “precautionary” basis run the risk of being ignored, like the little boy who cried wolf.

I am not suggesting that children’s safety be ignored. When OUSD locked down two schools Monday, police and suspects were exchanging gunfire. Under such circumstances it is prudent to secure school buildings. However, there was no reason to keep children locked down for as long as they did. And apparently the school district did not find Tuesday’s lockdown to be necessary at all.

It’s The Class

Of course there is also a large gorilla in the room that everyone is ignoring: the violence that has become so common in some communities. This is not a side issue that is only indirectly related to children’s academic success. Rather, much of the violence is directly related to or caused by poverty, which tends to be concentrated in certain communities, and which undermines students’ academic success, even when there is no violence involved. In other words, children who attend low income schools in neighborhoods with high rates of violence tend to be poor themselves, just like those who are committing the acts of violence. In some cases, they are the victims of violence outside of school, violence that does physical and/or emotional harm to them.

Having spent most of my career in low income schools, I have seen plenty of this, including one boy whose father murdered his mother in front of him, and another, whose father was gunned down on his doorstep. I’ve had dozens of students who came to class only because it was a parole requirement for violent crimes committed by the student. I’ve had several students who stopped coming to class because they were either tired of getting beaten up on the way to school or could not get to school without crossing through dangerous or rival gang territory.

Of course I could go on and on, as could many of you other teachers out there. But rather than ignoring this gorilla, because we think there is nothing we can do about it as teachers, we should be confronting it directly, as teachers, union members, and community members, and not only for our students’ safety, but because it is a necessary prerequisite for seeing any large scale improvement in the academic success of low income populations.

Ending poverty, closing the wealth gap, ensuring that all members of society have adequate housing, nutrition, health care, and the other necessities of life, not only will help reduce the violence that results in school lockdowns, it will improve the school readiness and success of our students.

Even Kidnappers Want To Run Charter Schools

Most Incompetent Criminals

No one should be surprised to find unscrupulous characters trying to make a buck off the charter school band wagon. In fact, the only thing surprising about this particular case is the incredible chutzpah of the proprietor, a certain Nedir Bey, who attempted to launch the Marcus Garvey charter school in Oakland, California, despite the fact that he owed the city of Oakland over $1.5 million for a failed health care company he launched using city money that he never repaid. Bey eventually withdrew the charter request without offering any explanation.

Bey’s hubris did not end there. He was also a convicted kidnapper.

Bey was a member of the Your Black Muslim Bakery cult, the same organization responsible for the murder of Oakland Post journalist Chauncey Bailey. In 1994, Bey was charged with abducting, assaulting, torturing and robbing a man he believed had cheated Your Black Muslim Bakery. He eventually pled no contest to false imprisonment.

Despite Bey’s checkered history, Oakland City Council member Natalie Bayton saw no problem in voting to give him the money for the health care business. She later turned up as a member of the board of directors for his proposed charter school.

Bey also tried to open a Marcus Garvey school in Berkeley, but was denied by the school board because of irregularities in his application. Several of the signatures of teachers who had pledged to work at the school were identical to those found on a similar application he had made to the San Jose Unified School District.