I believe the purpose of public schools is written and generally well known. The problem I see is that the public schools have been taken over by people who don’t want the public school students to do as well.

If you are grooming people to be important (or just first among equals), it shows. If you are not, that shows also. I have seen it done both ways.

And I’ve never known a credible teacher use the term “generally suck”, least of all in writing.

Guess What? It doesn’t work in real life. You can’t effectively stop people from communicating among themselves about what is going on. Maybe you can stop them from communicating with you.

I haven’t noticed you around previously so I don’t know if you are college aged or old enough to have some memories prior to President Johnson’s “Great Society”. Please let us know. I do have those memories and I don’t accept the status quo as being acceptable for blacks at all. I think the urban schools are merely pacifying black students and black families while their opportunities fade away. So I blog. If it annoys leftists in general – good.

As far as the black colleges – got news for you, they are on the way our. There numbers (scores) are not good and they can’t sell their products anymore as well as they used to in the ’60s and ’70s. And people aren’t as interested in paying for segregated finishing schools for blacks. And another thing – the black colleges of the 1950′s and 1960s were authoritarian and imposed rather unpleasant discipline – or at least the family who taught and went to those schools tell me.

I’d like the black kids in the East Bay to have some of the benefit of such schooling. They would wear better for it.

Students do not need any lessons on the benefit of diversity. They do not need to be taught self esteem – quite the opposite, they need to be taken down a peg until they’ve earned some of it. Secondary education is to prepare the students for military, work, or high education. That means respect for authority, language, math, research and technical skills, and a good grasp of Civics, Science and history need to be taught to those who have the ability and interest to absorb all this. Many don’t. Too bad, So Sad, but many students have limited ability to absorb a complete slate of high school subjects. For the limited ability students appropriate survey courses and technical courses need to be put together so they have the best chance at other than a higher education – that is military and vocational careers. One size doesn’t fit all.

Political indoctrination – so dear to the lefties – doesn’t feed a family or keep a child out of a premature grave.

From the scores I read about and the people I see we aren’t even teaching basic Civics, reading and Writing to urban blacks. They are pretty happy though. No worry beads in sight. And that’s the problem. too much Pacification and not enough Education.

Part of me knows that you’re just doing this for attention and I shouldn’t even bother responding to you but the other part of me can’t let this slide without responding because it’s so inaccurate and offensive . . .

I understand that you believe that all black children should be taught (in that old school way) “you need to work ten times harder than the white kids because nothing will be handed to you and life ain’t no crystal stair.” I get that . . . I really do. That’s the way I was taught and that’s what I teach my sons (I hate that I have to but . . . ). On the other hand, you seem to have a very narrow view of what is happening in schools and what is best for children.

What I hear you saying (with your comment on how black they are and “white society”) is what Reverend Lowery referenced in his inaugural benediction: If you’re black get back; if you’re white, you’re right. We’re trying to move away from that and to affirm human beings whatever their color is.

Mainstream America is very black actually: jazz, rock and roll, hip-hop, Obama, P. Diddy, Michael Jordan. Corporate execs quote rappers and rappers wear ascots. In many “mainstream” events, it is not uncommon to hear “you go girl” and good luck going a day without seeing Barack and Michelle’s face on a t-shirt, bumper sticker, poster, magazine cover. Mainstream is about as black as it can get if you ask me and it’s nothing new. What about your concerns are “blackness” and what about your concerns have to do with class? Does Michelle Obama’s black dialect offend you? What about Oprah Winfrey’s?

Do you really feel that school is the place to be taught table manners and traffic laws? When are we going to have time for reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic (and maybe some music and science).

We should be doing better. We should fund schools better. We should recruit and train teachers better. More parents and community members should be involved in the schools. Teachers should be allowed to meet the individual needs of students instead of having to follow a scripted curriculum that teaches to an arbitrary test instead of to a creative, critical inquisitive mind. School should be a place where all students are affirmed not just students who sit can sit still and be quiet for 7 hours a day. Students should have access to a meaningful curriculum that exposes them to diverse ways of “being”: talking, dancing, writing, singing.

John: Black colleges are a great success models. Black colleges only have 16% of the African-American college student population, but they produce almost 30% of African-American college graduates . . . Almost 75% of Blacks who go on to earn a Master’s or Doctorate degree were undergrads at Black colleges. Also, check out CIBI schools (Council of Independent Black Institutions). They don’t receive a lot of publicity but there are some incredible schools around the country educating Black children–not all schools are missing the mark. We lost something with Brown vs. Board of Education–primarily we lost some great black teachers and their commitment to the children and the community in which they were teaching.

Are you going to allow this derogatory comment from NextSet?

And I don’t. Being black is excuse number one nowadays. It didn’t used to be. There was a time when you have to work harder and that was understood – to break into mainstream and stay there (as in first black such and such).

Nowadays being black is an excuse for failure.

And it would be best is OUSD got in the black kids’ faces early and often and told them how they are going to act, dress, speak, and perform in those schools.

So maybe they too would have a shot at the better things in life – and could pass into mainstream (dare I say “white”?) society. Actually mainstream is a combination of Jewish/Asian/Irish/Hispanic/White culture depending on whether you want to work Wall Street, Civil Service or Wall-Mart. Either way “mainstream” isn’t “black”.

As things go now our black kids are taught to speak in dialect – that really keeps them down – and carefully not taught anything from table manners to traffic laws at our public schools. Then they are dumped into the city at 18 without a diploma – (can’t get that with no discipline) so they can feed into the prison/welfare -industrial complex. We should be doing better.

I do choose my words and I do so to make my point.

“…an outpouring of opposition. Alumni and faculty members of the black universities sent letters of protest to the governor, and Ruby Sales, the founder of Spirit House Project, a social justice organization, drafted a petition to save the black schools.

This (petitioned) proposal would continue a long history of white officials implementing an economic plan that disintegrates institutions in the black community,” Ms. Sales said. “Black educational history has been decimated under these types of desegregation plans.”

Apparently some Afro Americans believe that a “real school” is one that is exclusively black and entrenched in its own brand of “social reproduction.”

Could it be that some black schools don’t want to properly train their teachers to “bridge cultural disconnects, and societal expectations” as evidenced by the above shunning example?

Hey, da ya think it could be the goal of this public school of ‘higher learning’ to reaffirm a societal ethnic class by segregating itself at public expense?

I guess some black folk, not Martin Luther King, consider public school racial “sorting” to be the best final “solution?” But I guess this is to be expected (even respected) in a public education system where self segregation at public expense is permitted for some ethnic groups, but not for (at least) one.

It’s great to be living in ‘white is (also) beautiful’ Orinda, even if what’s good for the black goose isn’t good for the white gander’ in our open minded tolerant society of racially diverse hypocrites?

Aritcle Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/15/us/15georgia.html?_r=1&sq=State%20Senator%20Seth%20Harp%20&st=cse&adxnnl=1&scp=1&adxnnlx=1229454771-HWLtyik5MyU8Uk3XnRkv8Q

This commentary (link below) by a KIPP insider indicates that teacher turnover is a big problem at San Francisco’s KIPP SF Bay Academy, which is a far higher-functioning school by every visible gauge than Oakland’s KIPP school. And except for the eyebrow-raisingly murky (IMHO) American Indian and Oakland Charter schools, KIPP is the most-hailed charter around. If it’s having this problem, what about the run-of-the-mill charters?

http://tinyurl.com/cxjdf9

We have to improve our human resources department (and not outsource it at the cost of close to a million dollars to the New Teacher Project). We need to recruit local teachers who are committed to staying in the area. We have great teachers in Oakland but many are retiring at a faster rate than we can train and retain new teachers. Also, OUSD prepares amazing teachers. We have much more professional development and support resources than the surrounding areas but teachers are prepared and then when they become trained, they move to neighborhood districts.

As the economy changes, I think we’ll see some changes. We’ll see less attrition as other districts are not doing a lot of hiring. Also, many people will realize that whereas teaching is not a well-paying job, it is a much more stable career choice than other more volatile sectors. We’ll see. These are not easy questions but we must stay committed to the children of Oakland that are vibrant, intelligent, beautiful, creative, and deserving of a great education.

BTW: NextSet’s comment “I don’t care how black they are” (and I’m sure this was not his intention or at least I hope it wasn’t) is indicative of the devaluing of all things African that is part of the cultural insensitivity that is a huge problem in our schools especially as our teaching force becomes less and less diverse (because of the change in recruiting efforts over the last five years). This is what Reverend Lowery made reference to at the inaugural benediction. Our children shouldn’t be getting the message that the blacker you are, the more negative you embody. I just want us to be very careful with our language.