The Ben Chavis Way

So, by posting this, are you intimating that the era of futile touchy-feely, approaches to education (for both student and parent) is over? Are you expressing approval for such bluntness as a standard operating procedure for educators?

What a heartwarming story! You mean it doesn’t take more money and better quality teachers and longer school years and days (Hawaii is going to four days a week to cover its budget) and meaningful supplementary after school programs to help kids succeed in lousy high schools? Gee–all it takes is one tough guy to come in and straighten everybody out.Hey, did you see that John Wayne movie on TV, where crime and dissolution and bad behavior all got cleared up just because one tough guy became sheriff? It is really great that the world works like that, and not in those complicated and squishy ways that all research and real world experience tells us. Life IS like the movies! What a relief!

What’s at issue in my comment is NOT “the story of Chavis and the Oakland school” in general, but rather the unchecked, self-congratualory and (to me, at least) somewhat repugnant anecdote of Principal Chavis taking his authority off-limits and walking into a bar to humiliate a drunken woman (who may have been an alcoholic; Chavis never asked). Prof. Bauerlein himself offers no “evidence of having checked” this anecdote other than his own credulous acceptance of what the protagonist says about himself in a commercial, co-written (by a former acolyte) autobiography.The American Indian Public Charter School in Oakland, CA, may indeed constitute some proof that no-nonsense, no-frills, teach-to-the-test education has some value in certain circumstances. But at AIPCS:* Teachers are reportedly paid about five grand a year more than their regular-school counterparts.* AIPCS also got extra general funds, reported in the mid-five-figure range.* Traditionally under-achieving American Indian students plummeted from 65 percent to only one-fifth of the students after Chavis took command, while traditionally high-achieving Asian-American students became the majority.* There’s considerable disagreement about AIPCS’s recruiting academically gifted students (who would, according to another Oakland public schools principal, succeed in just about any California public school) and quickly weeding out the academically deficient ones.* Chavis has been written up (some reports say even fined, however that can work) for incidents of discipline that “bordered on child endangerment.” One girl was disciplined by being made to clean the boys’ restroom.A much better, more complete and balanced story than the rather fawning one in the Oakland Tribune Prof. Bauerlein cites is Mitchell Landsberg’s in the Los Angeles Times: http://articles.latimes.com/2009/may/31/local/me-charter31But back to the OP: Prof. Bauerlein could have selected any number of anecdotes from “Crazy Like a Fox,” but for some reason he was most impressed–at least for purposes of spreading the word to “Brainstorm” readers–by the one where Chavis does a poor man’s “Walking Tall” on a woman who went out and got drunk instead of coming to a meeting about her daughter at his school. Prof. Bauerlein may be impressed by this sort of bullying, but I’m not. I almost wish an indignant member of Oakland’s many robust motorcycle fraternities was present in the bar when Chavis called out a woman in her cups. The anecdote might have had a more just conclusion.

The story sets off my BS meter.

My facts came from articles, pro and con, about Dr. Chavis’s book, including posts on the publisher’s site, and the Oakland Tribune and LA Times articles.Whatever the reason the percentage of American Indian students went down precipitously and the percentage of Asian-American students went up is irrelevent to the probability that it had a lot to do with the remarkable improvement in AIPCS’s test scores. (It’s the Asian-American family culture’s attitude toward school and academics that makes the difference.)Prowl around the Web a bit, on sites that are both pro and con about Dr. Chavis’s “Walking Tall” approach (including the likes of a George Will column), and you’ll find that Dr. Chavis a) rather cherry-picked a lot of students who were already doing conspicuously well at regular grammar schools, and b) encouraged students (through their parents) not testing well enough at AIPCS to withdraw “voluntarily.” It’s like those “my way or the highway” tough college basketball coaches: scratch the surface and you find out that the predominant reason for their success is recruiting lots of 6’9″ forwards who can score and rebound, and advising lesser players to transfer.Since AIPCS is also posting test results since Dr. Chavis’s “retirement”* (it could have been a forced resignation) that are about as good those posted when he was principal, it appears that his bullying personality (a trait cited by admirers and detractors alike, and has nothing to do with his courage in dealing with gang members and thugs) wasn’t all that needed. It is interesting to note that Prof. Bauerlein says about the incident involving humiliating the drunken mother in the bar, “if you notice, the tactic worked.” Hmmm. The ends justify the means. I’ll have to remember that Prof. Bauerlein subscribes to that.

Wait a minute: articles and websites both pro and con are “slim sources,” but “checking with Jerry Brown” isn’t? But my disposition isn’t the issue. The importance of Dr. Chavis’s cherry-picking recruitment of already good students to AIPCS’s test scores is. And nothing Prof. Bauerlein has said sheds any rebuttal light on it.I put (Dr. Chavis’s) “retirement” (from AIPCS) in scare quotes because some of my “slim sources” say it was a forced resignation on account of Dr. Chavis’s conduct with a visiting group of education graduate students, plus a few other behavioral matters. It’s like a lot of executive resignations: jumped or pushed? The scare quotes indicate the doubt–for either conclusion.Finally, Prof. Bauerlein might finally answer ex_ag’s question of the point of his posting on Dr. Chavis: “Are you expressing approval for such bluntness as a standard operating procedure for educators?”

Chavis has a full account of the graduate student visit. And please pass along evidence of Chavis cherry-picking the best students, and I’ll reply. As I said earlier, he did drop people for bad behavior, and bad behavior often went along with bad classroom performance. But he has examples of struggling students in the book whom he admitted after several public schools wouldn’t.As for standard procedures, I have no expertise about it. But it is mighty impressive to see what Chavis has accomplished in the most challenging circumstances.

An interesting element of Chavis’s story, johntoradze, is how his graduate research derived conclusions about learning and behavioral outcomes at segregated and integrated schools. They conflicted with many firm dogmas of education research and schooling, but Chavis felt he had enough solid evidence to back it up. The experience led him to mistrust academic thinking about low-income and minority students, and his subsequent success, he says, warranted the attitude.

The problem with Mark’s post is that it ignores the ever-growing vigorous debates about charters, which are rooted in data and empirical research, in favor of some dopey anecdotes about a tough guy in a bar. There’s lots of recent research on charters, which has some ammunition for defenders and opponents of charters (see, among many others, the 2009 RAND Corporation review of the literature, http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2009/RAND_MG869.pdf , and the 2009 Stanford study on charters in 16 states,http://credo.stanford.edu/reports/MULTIPLE_CHOICE_CREDO.pdf ,and just to be even-handed, conservative scholar Caroline Hoxby’s criticism of statistical approaches in the Stanford study,http://credo.stanford.edu/reports/memo_on_the_credo_study.pdf.Believe me,there’s more, once you get outside of the English Department and look at the huge amount of research and debate over charters. What I, and I suspect others, object to in Mark’s post is this recycling of some tough guy anecdote as proof of something about how schools can improve, and the ignoring of the huge, empirically grounded, social science discussion about charters. Much more fun to think about one unique tough guy in a bar–but what does that have to do with any real discussion about how to improve and reform schools?

I’m in sympathy with johntoradze’s comments, altho I might not put it quite that bluntly here.Since the ’50s, many ‘reforms’ have been proposed & promulgated by those in education, but collectively, none of them have worked to significantly decrease dropout rates from public K-12 schools, and have only marginally opened up society to more acceptance of underprivileged (Po’ folk) to the middle class. “Walking Tall,” “Stand & Deliver,” and KIPP stratagies, among others, have worked in many circumstances, and should be supported, not pooh-poohed by the intelligentsia — unless said experts can come up with a workable real-world solution themselves — so far, they have failed to do so. Probably because they simply don’t understand the world of the poor & underprivileged in America, and keep trying methods that ‘make sense’ to the middle class mind, but don’t really work when applied to something other than the middle class.Maybe I’m wrong, but many of the other comments do indeed give more than a whiff of folks who haven’t actually taught in, lived in, or talked to, students & parents in underprivileged communities, but instead have relied upon secondary or tertiary reports & ‘research’ by others. Well, I grew up in, and attended, an ‘inner city’ school in Los Angeles, where the ‘minorities’ outnumbered the ‘whites.’ I was assaulted twice on school grounds, there were annual riots in the ’60s & ’70s, but unlike many of my peers, I actually got out early and graduated. Many of you seem to recoil at a ‘tough love’ story — but if you talk to many parents, tough love is what they need and want from school and other community authorities — the namby/pamby efforts of many others simply have not worked. It is one reason why many, many underprivileged want choice, and support charter schools & other options — they want some real discipline, with real consequences, for students & parents. Uniforms, punishment for infractions, and yes, expulsion for serious offenses, are appropriate & can work. Is it perfect? No. Would these be tolerated in middle class bourgeois communities? No (altho’ it might be appropriate there). But life in the inner city is tough, and sometimes tough measures are required. As with many other commentary, a dose of reality would be refreshing — get real, if you really want to have real world impact on real lives.

re: #20, I got it wrong, and misread her bio at Penguin Books.And just because he has a “long record of selfless work” doesn’t make all the “imputations” any less significant (and since when does less than 10 years equal a long record?). What you’re saying is that because he’s done all this great stuff, we should ignore any questions? Accusations of pushing a teacher down stairs (after calling her a stupid bitch)? Calling a grad student a “dumbass minority” (something that immediately preceeded his retirement from AIPCS)?And there is this whole thing about student selection. Which when it comes to test scores is a BIG deal. If you’re a public school either anyone gets in, or kids get in by lottery. AIPCS never had a lottery. Like it or not, that’s the law in California. AIPCS has found a way to select its students, and thereby skew the test results.If you don’t feel like reading the book, go to the “Founder’s Corner” (http://www.aimschools.org/founder_bio.shtml) at the AIM schools website. Take a look at his Common Sense and Ten Commandments. He’s a funny guy…

Some reading comp problems here. The statement “please consider that allegation in light of his long record of selfless work in the public schools” is not a concession that Chavis “did indeed dump insufficiently bright kids.” It implies the opposite. And Chavis has a lot more than 10 years in selfless service to students. And I do, indeed, find Chavis’ trip to the bar a courageous and effectual act.

Some writing problems here. The statement, “please consider that allegation in light of his long record of selfless work in the public schools,” implies “please consider my client’s years of selfless service against a few bad instances” much more than it does “my client’s record of selfless services indicates he would never have done anything bad.” The key word is SELFLESS, which is much more in tune with the former implication than to the latter. Being “selfless” and dumping insufficiently bright kids are not at all inconsistent. As Prof. Foster points out in #8, “Remember that a good many tyrants have started out by ‘caring.’”Glad to see the continued approval of academic vigilantism, though. Like chuckkle, I’d like to see the hush come over that frat party when the Buford Pusser of the English Department comes through those swingin’ doors at the Sigma Chi house.

As a teacher who meets with every one of my freshman students nearly every week of the semester in scheduled conferences, Chuck, I can assure that if they miss classes, submit poor rough drafts, and blow off the reading, they get the riot act.