This is one more example of the huge success of direct instruction, a
structured school, and a coherent curriculum. However, I question
Will's claim that the Democratic Party is the "handmaiden" of pseudo-
educators.
<<Unfortunately, powerful factions fiercely oppose the flouri****ng.
Among them are education schools with their romantic progressivism --
teachers should be mere "enablers" of group learning; self-esteem is a
prerequisite for accomplishment, not a consequence thereof.>>
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http://www.wa****ngtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/20/AR200808200=
2947.html
Where Paternalism Makes the Grade
By George F. Will
Thursday, August 21, 2008; A15
OAKLAND, Calif. -- Seated at a solitary desk in the hall outside a
classroom, the slender 13-year-old boy with a smile like a sunrise
earnestly does remedial algebra, assisted by a paid tutor. She, too,
is 13. Both wear the uniform -- white polo ****rt, khaki slacks -- of a
school that has not yet admitted the boy. It will, because he refuses
to go away.
The son of Indian immigrants from Mexico, the boy decided he is going
to be a doctor, heard about the American Indian Public Charter School
here and started showing up. Ben Chavis, AIPCS's benevolent dictator,
told the boy that although he was doing well at school, he was not up
to the rigors of AIPCS, which is decorated with photographs of the
many students it has sent to the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented
Youth. So the boy asked, what must I do?
Telling young people what they must do is what Chavis does. With close-
cropped hair and a short beard flecked with gray, he looks somewhat
like Lenin but is less democratic. A Lumbee Indian from North
Carolina, he ran track, earned a PhD from the University of Arizona,
got rich in real estate ("I wanted to buy back America and lease it to
the whites") and decided to fix the world, beginning with AIPCS.
Founded in 1996, it swiftly became a multiculturalists' playground
where much was tolerated and little was learned. Chavis arrived in
2000 to reverse that condition. Charter schools are not unionized, so
he could trim the dead wood, which included all but one staff member.
David Whitman, in his book "Sweating the Small Stuff: Inner-City
Schools and the New Paternalism," re****ts that in Chicago from 2003
through 2006, just three of every 1,000 teachers received an
"unsatisfactory" rating in annual evaluations; of 87 "failing schools"
-- with below-average and declining test scores -- 67 had no teachers
rated unsatisfactory; in all of Chicago, just nine teachers received
more than one unsatisfactory rating, and none of them was dismissed.
Chavis's teachers come from places such as Harvard, Dartmouth,
Oberlin, Columbia, Berkeley, Brown and Wesleyan.
AIPCS is one of six highly prescriptive schools Whitman studied, where
"noncognitive skills" -- responsible behaviors such as self-discipline
and cooperativeness -- are part of the cultural capital the curriculum
delivers. Many inner-city schools feature a monotonous chaos of
disruption. AIPCS -- Oakland's highest-performing middle school --
stresses obligation, not self-expression. Chavis, now "administrator
emeritus," is adamant: "Everyone says we should 'preserve our
culture.' There is a lot of our culture we should wipe out."
A visitor to an AIPCS classroom notices that the children do not
notice visitors. Students are taught to sit properly -- no slumping --
and keep their eyes on the teacher. No makeup, no jewelry, no
electronic devices. AIPCS's 200 pupils take just 20 minutes for lunch
and are with the same teacher in the same classroom all day. Rotating
would consume at least 10 minutes, seven times a day. Seventy minutes
a day in AIPCS's extra-long 196-day school year would be a lot of lost
instruction. The school does not close for Columbus Day, Martin Luther
King Jr. Day or C=E9sar Ch=E1vez Day.
Every student takes four pre-AP (Advanced Placement) cl*****. There
are three hours of homework a night, three weeks of summer math
instruction. Seventh-graders take the SAT. College is assumed.
Paternalism is the restriction of freedom for the good of the person
restricted. AIPCS acts in loco parentis because Chavis, who is cool
toward parental involvement, wants an enveloping school culture that
combats the culture of poverty and the streets.
He and other practitioners of the new paternalism -- once upon a time,
schooling was understood as democracy's permissible, indeed
obligatory, paternalism -- are proving that cultural pessimists are
mistaken: We know how to close the achievement gap that often
separates minorities from whites before kindergarten and widens
through high school. A growing cohort of people possess the pedagogic
skills to make "no excuses" schools flourish.
Unfortunately, powerful factions fiercely oppose the flouri****ng.
Among them are education schools with their romantic progressivism --
teachers should be mere "enablers" of group learning; self-esteem is a
prerequisite for accomplishment, not a consequence thereof. Other
opponents are the teachers unions and their handmaiden, the Democratic
Party. Today's liberals favor paternalism -- you cannot eat trans
fats; you must buy health insurance -- for everyone except children.
Odd.
georgewill@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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