Graduation in Black and White

The Center for Education Reform's Jeanne Allen with an Op Ed in Oakland about a successful school there -- and one that demonstrates a key advantage of charter schools: many (too many) are lousy, but at least there's a accountability: they know if they don't improve, they'll be shut down, so -- SURPRISE! -- many do improve:

The American Indian Public  Charter School was once fraught with problems but was forced to make changes -  or close. In 2000-01, the school earned an embarrassing 436 state test score  on a 1,000-point scale. Just five years later, the school earned a whopping  920, better than any other middle school in Oakland.


How did this charter school succeed? Principal Ben Chavis  eschews what he calls the "demagoguery of tolerance," instead insisting his  staff doesn't subscribe to the "back swamp logic of minority students as  victims." He ruthlessly monitors his hallways, handing out detentions for  infractions such as being tardy or breaking the dress code. Upon graduation,  those students who live up to his tough-love standards are rewarded with a  crisp $100 bill for good grades and perfect attendance.


While some of Oakland's conventional public middle schools are  struggling with state test scores as low as 530 - dooming many of their  students to a 52 percent likelihood of becoming one of the city's high school  dropouts - two thirds of Dr. Chavis's students are heading to the charter's  superb high school, while the other third are off to prep schools across the  country.

------------------
  
 Graduation in Black and  White  
  By Jeanne  Allen
Op-Ed, Oakland Tribune, California
June  16, 2007
http://www.edreform.com/index.cfm?fuseAction=document&documentID=2670&SEctionID=69 <http://www.edreform.com/index.cfm?fuseAction=document&amp;documentID=2670&amp;SEctionID=69>

  
  As I delivered the commencement address <http://www.edreform.com/index.cfm?fuseAction=document&amp;documentID=2671>  before the 43  eighth graders at the American Indian Public Charter School in Oakland on  Tuesday, June 5, I couldn't get Three Dog Night's song "Black or White"  out of my mind. Released just four years after the assassinations of  Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, the idealistic plea to children for  racial reconciliation was about choice, the choice my generation, just  coming of age, had to think and do things differently.  It was the nation's number one hit as I entered sixth grade in 1972 -  and my teacher had our class perform the song, which had unusual heft for  the era (Together we learn to read and write / A child is black, a child  is white / The whole world looks upon the sight, a beautiful sight). But as I looked at the faces of the graduates, 95 percent minority and  largely Asian, Hispanic, and Indian, it occurred to me that last  generation's hit song had fallen short on its promise of equality. Eighth  grade Hispanic students in the United States are still languishing 27  points behind white students in math and 25 points behind in reading on a  500 point scale, and black eighth graders are faring even worse - 34  points behind in math and 28 points behind in reading, according to the  National Center for Education Statistics. We're simply not giving our conventional public school students what  they need, and that failure has to do with choice, or the lack thereof.  Not every student learns well in the same environment, and many of those  oppressive environments have little incentive to change. Not so with  charter schools. Consider this: The American Indian Public Charter School was once  fraught with problems but was forced to make changes - or close. In  2000-01, the school earned an embarrassing 436 state test score on a  1,000-point scale. Just five years later, the school earned a whopping  920, better than any other middle school in Oakland. How did this charter school succeed? Principal Ben Chavis eschews what  he calls the "demagoguery of tolerance," instead insisting his staff  doesn't subscribe to the "back swamp logic of minority students as  victims." He ruthlessly monitors his hallways, handing out detentions for  infractions such as being tardy or breaking the dress code. Upon  graduation, those students who live up to his tough-love standards are  rewarded with a crisp $100 bill for good grades and perfect attendance. While some of Oakland's conventional public middle schools are  struggling with state test scores as low as 530 - dooming many of their  students to a 52 percent likelihood of becoming one of the city's high  school dropouts - two thirds of Dr. Chavis's students are heading to the  charter's superb high school, while the other third are off to prep  schools across the country.  Dr. Chavis's demanding approach may not work for every student. So  there are choices. Other charters are achieving similar results with  kinder, gentler approaches. But that kind of competition to win students -  not offered by a one-kind-fits-all conventional public school system where  Chavis's approach wouldn't fly - allows parents who know their children  best to choose the approach most likely to benefit their own sons or  daughters.  So as I presided over one of the happiest days of these 43 young lives  filled with promise and surrounded by hundreds of unspeakably proud family  members, I thought, the whole world looks upon the sight, a beautiful  sight - choice. Jeanne Allen is president of the Center for Education Reform, which  creates opportunities for and challenges obstacles to better education for  America’s communities.