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American Indian Public Charter School or AIPCS is an Oakland, California charter middle school with predominantly low-income, minority students. AIPCS' test scores are superior to almost all public schools in the state.

History

AIPCS was founded in 1996, receiving a charter from the Oakland Unified School District. By 2001, the schools enrollment was declining and test scores were low. That year, Native American Ben Chavis, a former faculty member at San Francisco State University, became school principal. Chavis replaced most of the schools' staff, eliminated Native American cultural content from the curricula, and focused instruction on scoring highly on standardized tests. Chavis also instituted a number of unorthodox disciplinary policies.

In the years that followed, the school's test scores made dramatic improvements, becoming some of the highest in the state. AIPCS opened a second campus, AIPCS II and a high school, American Indian Public High School.

Educational approach

AIPCS employs a "back-to-basics, squared" approach to schooling. The students spend their academic school day in one classroom with one teacher. In theory this teacher stays with these students through their three years at AIPCS, but in practice high teacher turnover makes this impossible.

AIPCS adheres to the American Indian Model (AIM) schools' approach. According to the AIM mission statement, the focus of the schools is excellent student attendance, which is intended to help ensure the academic needs of students. In keeping with this, AIPCS gives cash awards ranging from $50 to $100 to students who achieve "perfect attendance" (students who do not miss a day of school)

The day begins with three hours of Language Arts and Mathematics, followed by a short lunch period. Time between classes is intentionally minimal; the school estimates that this adds a week more classroom time per year.

Students are assigned hours of homework every night, and are sent to detention if it is not complete. Struggling students must repeat grades and students are required to attend summer school.

The student dress code is dark-colored pants and white shirts. Makeup and jewelry are not permitted. There are no computers in the school, as Chavis believed they led to mischief. The school also lacks a television.

Chavis belief is that that principals need to be held more accountable for their school's performance.

Student retention is poor. Only 39 out of of the 51 students who started in 2006 completed their middle school years with AIPCS.

Physical education

Physical education at AIPCS takes place during the final forty minutes of the school day, and consists of calisthentics and running. Students do not play traditional games such as basketball, football or baseball. According to the AIPCS website, AIPCS students significantly outperform the Oakland Unified School District average on multiple measures of physical fitness, including aerobic capacity, flexibility, and multiple measures of strength.

Discipline

AIPCS disciplinary procedures are similar to a military school's. Students who misbehave in even minor ways, such as skipping an exercise on a homework assignment, are assigned an hour of detention after school. If the student commits a second infraction in the same week, he or she will get an additional hour of detention and four hours of Saturday detention.

Other discipline is more unorthodox. For example, Chavis, with parental permission, shaved the head of a student accused of stealing in front of the entire school, forced a girl to clean the boys' bathroom as punishment, and forced some students to wear embarrassing signs.

With Chavis' departure some of the more humiliating discipline has been toned down.

Conservative philosophy

We are looking for hard working people who believe in free market capitalism. . . . Multi-cultural specialists, ultra liberal zealots, and college-tainted oppression liberators need not apply.

— AIPCS teacher recruiting statement

AIPCS mocks liberal orthodoxy zealously. The school claims to be just as intolerant of unions as it is of drug dealers and the school prides itself on firing under performing teachers.

Conservative opinion columnist George Will praised the school for its "new paternalism" that could close the gap between the haves and have-nots in American education.

Test scores

In the five years since Chavis arrived, the school's Academic Performance Index had more than doubled, going from near worst in Oakland to the highest scoring middle school in the city. In 2006, the American Indian Public Charter School had an API of 967 out of 1000 possible points, eighth highest in the state and highest among schools serving mostly low-income children, which typically score around 650 on the measure. In the same year, the federal government named AIPCS one of the top 250 schools in the country.

The school's thirteen 8th graders' performance in 2009:

Note: all AIPCS 8th graders take Algebra in 8th grade, many California students do not take Algebra till a later year.

For comparison, test scores of nearby schools in

• Edna Brewer Middle School had an API of 782 and proficiency levels of English 51%, Math 53%, Science 67% and History/Social Science 50%
• Westlake Middle School had an API of 680 and proficiency levels of English 30%, Math 34%, Science 46%, and History/Social Science 23%
• Piedmont Middle School, with few low-income students, had an API of 918 and 8th-grade proficiency levels of English 83%, Math 88%, Science 81% and History/Social Science 80%

High school scores

AIPHS students have also performed very well on standardized tests with roughly 90% of students scoring at proficient or advanced levels on most subjects, with lower scores in Chemistry and Earth Science In 2009, AIPHS graduated its first senior class, all eighteen graduating seniors planned to attend college, including one at Cornell and one at MIT.

Demographics

The AIPCS student body of approximately 180 students is comprised of the following ethnic groups:

• 46% Asian
• 23% African-American
• 22% Latino
• 3% American Indian/Alaskan Native
• < 2% Caucasian, Pacific Islander, Filipino

Approximately 97% of AIPCS students are "socioeconomically disadvantaged"

Admissions controversies

California Charter schools are required to either accept all applicants, or, if they have more applicants than capacity, to hold a lottery to determine entrants. AIPCS has never held a lottery and was denied a charter to open a new school in the fall of 2008, in part because AIPCS was "unable to describe" their selection process. In 2009, AIPCS staff stated they have never needed to hold a lottery because they have never had more applicants than seats.

However, in 2006, an African-American parent filed a complaint stating that AICS told her there was no room for her son and refused to place him on the school's waiting list, even while it was accepting applications from white students. Chavis' allegedly told a Caucasian parent that her son would be placed at the top of the school's waiting list because there were too many "darkies" and Asians enrolled in the school. If true, AIPCS violated federal and state laws, which prohibit public schools, including charters, from discriminating by by race.

Betty Olson-Jones, president of the Oakland Education Association, a teachers' union, said that "AIPCS had a reputation among the local public schools as being very interested in kind of recruiting kids who are going to do well, and getting rid of kids who won't,". AIPCS denied this was the case, but half the 6th grade students performing poorly in 2007 had left the school before graduation.

Opinions

California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger visited the school at least twice. During a 2006 visit, he said of the school, "... the reason why I’m here at this school specifically is because this is a perfect example. First of all, a perfect example of great leadership, that Dr. Chavis has less money per student than other schools have, and he has raised the test scores in the last five years to make it the best school in Oakland. And this is really an extraordinary accomplishment."

Debra England of the Koret Foundation, a local group that has awarded over $100,000 to American Indian, said "They really should be the model for public education in the state of California. What I will never understand is why the world is not beating a path to their door to benchmark them, learn from them and replicate what they are doing."

The mother of one student said it was "evil" for the school to punish her son for staying home to watch the inauguration of President Barack Obama on television, and she stopped sending him to the school. The student later came to visit AIPCS and acknowledged missing the school.

The parent of another student removed her daughter from AIPCS after Chavis demanded the student repeat algebra even though she received a B in the course. She described Chavis "frickin' nasty" and filed a complaint with the AIPCS board, which she said the board never responded to.

Chavis said "I don't care what the critics say, because the critics aren't turning schools around."

Chavis controversies

While principal, Chavis made a number of controversial statements

I tell the students, if you don't do your work, people are going to call you a lazy Mexican. You're black, they expect you to be an idiot," said Chavis, who is Native American. "I use it to motivate the kids."

— Ben Chavis

Chavis also tended to call all non-Caucasian students, including African Americans, "darkies." Chavis explained "I use 'darkie' every day, I use it in the context that I'm Indian and I'm black. I'm a darkie."

Chavis allegedly called a Mills College graduate student a "a fucking black minority punk" after he showed up fifteen minutes late to a meeting at the school, calling the student "worthless piece of (expletive) people have been making excuses for" He also allegedly asked one of AIPCS female students if a male student "was still trying to suck your titties". Chavis says that he called the grad student a "dumbass minority," and said "he was an embarrassment to his race." He denied the "suck your titties" comment.

Chavis also allegedly pushed a teacher down a flight of stairs while calling her a "fucking bitch", "stupid bitch", etc., allegedly called his own niece a "slut", a "lying bitch" and threatened to kill her.

References

1. American Indian Model school's mission statement
2. Johnson, Chip (August 23, 2004), A charter on success in Oakland, San Francisco Chronicle
3. "Most principals are lazy, and when schools aren't performing well, we blame the parents and the kids when we should blame the principal. The principal is the coach," Ben Chavis, A charter on success in Oakland, Chip Johnson, San Francisco Chronicle
4. AIPCS Physical Fitness Results, 2007-2008
5. ^ Landsberg, Mitchell (May 31, 2009). "Spitting in the eye of mainstream education". Los Angeles Times.
6. Will, George (August 21, 2008), Where Paternalism Makes the Grade, Washington Post {{citation}}: Text "news" ignored (help)
7. ^ Gammon, Robert (June 6, 2007), Chavis is in Hot Water, East Bay Express {{citation}}: Text "news" ignored (help)
8. Edna Brewer Middle School Accountability Report Card for 2007-2008
9. Westlake Middle School Accountability Report Card for 2007-2008
10. Piedmont Middle School Accountability Report Card for 2007-2008
11. American Indian Public High School STAR report for 2009
12. AIPCS School Accountability Report Card for 2007-2008: http://www.aimschools.org/pdf/SARC_2007-2008_AIPCS_English.pdf
13. Governor Schwarzenegger Visits American Indian Public Charter School in Oakland, gov.ca.gov, October 24, 2006
14. ^ Hard Line, Top School, San Francisco Chronicle, December 16, 2005
15. Murphy, Katy (July 26, 2007), Madman, genius or both?, Oakland Tribune {{citation}}: Text "news" ignored (help)

• Orphaned articles from November 2009
• Education reform
• Charter schools
• Middle schools in California