Who ever met a “fun” socialist in a high school? I just enjoy teachers who expect effort and get you to thinking at a higher level.

I spend very little time on the computer during the week. I use the time for my school work. I’ll check in during the weekend.

Thanks for the insight.

Your tone used towards the other bloggers here does not reflect well on you in my book. You need practice at this public discourse thing.

As far as your post in #15, remember Senator John Kerry and his siblings did not know they were Jewish until research by others during the presidential campaign provided proof and showed exactly when the name change occurred in Europe just prior to ancestors immigrating. Ex-Secretary of State Madeline Allbright was informed of research on her family line after she was appointed Secretary. They both claim they had no idea. Right… But their stories are typical and I have a close friend raised as Catholic with a similar story. He was the last one to know and the first to admit it.

And none of these people were exactly cleaning windows… Interesting how life works out. In the first half of the 20th Century there were a lot of survival mechanisms at work. The strong surviving and all that. Other people were busy “passing” also, but that’s another story.

And another thing, students from OUSD I’ve seen post here have a habit of using a lot of gushy terms… “wonderful” information? I’m am not the Oracle at Delphi you know. All you are getting from me is another view of a problem and solution. You can go on all, some, or none of it. Don’t take anything I say as carved on concrete tablets until you have tested it and run it around in your own research. That should take about 10 years.

At 18 or whatever you are you are too much in danger of being besotted by the last person you have talked to. I myself voted for McGovern for President once. Can’t even remember why. Probably had something to do with someone named Debbi.

Thanks for the wonderful information you shared with me. It feels good knowing I have taken the same courses that you outlined.

I also atteded summer school the past four years. This will save me time and money in college.

We need people like you in public education. There are thousands of students like myself who have been beat down by the socialist nonsense of the secondary educators in Oakland.

The high school tried to disallow my enrollment in the UC coursework and my parents had to go off on the counselor to get me enrolled in their choice of courses. The counselor objected to taking so many solids at once. That was in 10th grade maybe. We never had that problem again. My PSAT was very high. I started UC Berkeley on the accellerated High School program so I never applied for college with the normal round of applications. I was in UC at the beginning of 12th grade along with several of my high school classmates. High school became irrelevant then so I stopped classes in December as I had all my graduation requirements done. So did everybody else in the UC High School program.

My self and all the siblings went to summer school each year of High School which got us out of the house early in the am – which was the parents’ plan. It made the completion of the UC requirements easier to plan and allowed the early enrollment in UC.

There was a price to pay for all this that I couldn’t have realized at the time. By splitting my classwork prior to age 18 between regular public school, summer schools at Oakland Tech, and then UC at beginning of 12th grade I was divorced from the high school class. I was around, but had other interests and drifted apart from everybody. I was working a lot also and I enjoyed that because I was carrying my own weight among adults, loved the $$, and was implementing computerization of back office accounting (Payroll, General Ledger, Receivables). Computers were new then and very expensive and cutting edge. I bought Radio Shack computers and spent as much as a car would have cost. As I look back on my classwork I easily maintained a B average (3.5 hs) but my mind was always elsewhere – usually on rearranging the accounting systems at work. I started in branch banking and retail credit in downtown Oakland at age 18.

You are one of the few adults who make sense to me in regards to public eduation. I respect that you are up front. I hope to have professors like you in the fall when I enter college.

I had great teachers in elementary school; there were less in middle school. In high school all they talked about was diversity and social justice.

I have been working like a dog for the past four years to get enrolled in academic classes. When the administrators see a Mexican it seems they think we must be dumb and enroll us into courses that are not college track. This is particular true of Mexican and Black school administrators.

This biggest racist in Oakland are those educators who don’t challenge us in this city. It seems they want to keep us dumb.

What was your major in college?

No progress will ever be made for black students or any other ethnic in OUSD until and unless the polititians tell the “black” political groups that their day is over and no further concessions will be given to them.

The start re-segregating the schools by deportment and progress, letting the racial chips fall where they may.

Maybe now things are different and OUSD is ready. I would suppose that the Co-Chairs of the African American Education Task Force who are hosting the African American Honor Roll Ceremony on May 12 where “More than a thousand students will be honored…” would like to see such a school, too.

Political Correctness is first and foremost a policy to suppress truth and to keep the natives docile and happy. It has been decided that since the minorities become agitated easily the best way to run things is to suppress anything that stirs the pot – like competition or competitors. Thus the elimination of (essentially) all the white and jewish students who cannot be controlled so easily.

AP does not fit well into this unless the AP classes are false. Objective testing creates a problem for them because when the urban school students get A’s in AP classes but fail the exams, the masquerade is exposed.

I had a cousin who went to Richmond schools and got all B’s (a generation ago). He got 400s on his SATs. The family was upset because the SATs were so low they were having trouble placing him in college. They didn’t seem upset at the significance of his bombing the objective tests. When they got around to asking me what is happening I said – he doesn’t read – ever. The only books or magazines in his room are picture books. What did you expect? Their reply was “What about the B average in High School?” my answer – Did you really think that place was a “School”? The B’s were for showing up and not burning the place down, didn’t you know?

This is why Sharon’s well-meaning but odd post above gets to me. How can she really believe it is possible to bring real students into OUSD? And how can she believe any real parent would take her and OUSD seriously? People may be stupid sometimes but they are not dumb. They have eyes and they can see houses on fire. This process has been going on for nearly half a century and nobody is fooled but those who want to be fooled.

I suggest you re-read my statement regarding Caroline. In regards to the AP program in public schools, it seems to have been created as a method to respond to public school intergration. It allowed white students to choose seprate classes from minorites.

Do you relize Federal Public school intergaration law and the AP program came about at the same time? What timing! How many Mexicans, Blacks or Native American students do you think are enrolled in the AP classes at Skyline High School? We have mostly whites and Asians.

There are 7 millions Jews in the United States. Based on the background history you shared regarding the Jews and academic achivement, I’m sure many of those I though were whites signed up for the AP exam with us were Jews. My people could learn something from the Jews.

You are correct regarding OUSD, they hate competition. I have met several other minority students who relize the same thing. Keeping us uneducated ensures them a job.

This is one of the reasons, so many of my friends applied for scholarships to attend private high schools. They relized that OUSD has little interest in preparing most of us with the academic skills to attend college.

Do you relize, we are offered more Multiculture courses than AP courses by the district?

Does it give you pause to think that if you actually talk them into it you might get personalities such as mine? The families you speak of are highly unlikely to tolerate Affirmative Action politics and are aggressive and competitive. You cannot run the existing culture of OUSD together with a culture of competiton and merit. I have seen it tried. The two sides hate each other and they will not attempt to cloak or moderate their politics. Mixing them on the same campus will lead to a riot.

To put it gently, “competitive” people are not politically correct. They will speak the truth in season or out with no concern for the “feelings” of other people living a lie. I went to school with them through Law School. Getting to know the other families and their history and geneology explains their attitude – but it can be hard to take until you learn to admire their consistency. Reading Ayn Rand helped.

If OUSD wants to get into the academic school game – and I hope they do – they need to shut down Skyline, rename it perhaps (not after any minority), and reopen it as OUSD’s answer to Lowell High School. Open citywide only by competitive testing with UC entrance requirements classes required of all students, with no guarantee of being allowed to stay if performance drops for any reason. No AA, and No behavioral problems or you’re transferred out. Only terms such as that will get the new school taken seriously and will keep out the undesirable students of all races.

I don’t think OUSD could stand it. But this way there would not be a civil war within the campus since all enrolled would have earned a place and have the same basic values.