Old-school methods

Re “3Rs, no games, rigid standards,” May 31

With its focus on rote learning, obedience and standardized test-taking skills, the American Indian Public Charter School is perfectly preparing its low-income students to succeed -- in the rapidly disappearing manufacturing and service sectors.

This school may seem impressive when defined by test scores and classroom management, but running submissive students through their paces in a factory setting for seven years is a throwback.

Exactly what type of capitalism does the staff expect to find waiting for these students?

Melissa Wantz

Ventura

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As a teacher, I’m appalled by the pedagogical approach of American Indian Public Charter School. The rigid standards and discipline do not evoke a school to applaud but a school to decry.

It illustrates clearly the problems with focusing solely on testing. You create brilliant test-takers but not the creative and critical thinkers we need.

Our liberal democracy survives because of free, and sometimes messy, thinking, not a neat and tidy robotic simplicity.

Dean Furnish

Tujunga

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Reading this story, I was pretty impressed with the school until I read that students have no access to televisions or computers.

And punishing a student for wanting to watch the presidential inauguration? Bizarre and incomprehensible.

This school is ignoring some crucial elements toward preparing students for life in the 21st century: namely, the outside world. I don’t care how high their API scores are.

Norma Stewart

Arcadia

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It’s great that the American Indian Charter School challenges students to do their best academically, but at what cost?

As reported, this publicly funded school operates outside day-to-day district oversights, and that’s the problem.

It seems Ben Chavis has created a school designed to spawn insensitive and intolerant “free-market capitalists.”

To become a student or a teacher, you must subscribe to his political tenets that vilify “liberals” and denounce “the demagoguery of tolerance.”

A first-rate education should also be about developing a child’s humanity: their ability to be inclusive, empathetic and understanding.

For this reason and many more, I’d have to give the charter school a solid “F.”

Jim Hornbeck

Valley Glen

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You know your public school system is in trouble when tax dollars go to support an institution devoted to the rote like Oakland’s American Indian Public Charter, designed by Ben Chavis, who has a background in real estate instead of education.

Just as embarrassing is the quality of instruction.

One of the teachers apparently tells her students that appositives are “nouns that modify other nouns.”

No, in my book, appositives point out the same person or thing, as in, say, “Ben Chavis, the bigot.”

Harry Gordon

Long Beach

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How exciting that a school of low-income students finds success in Oakland.

As a teacher of elementary and middle school for 23 years, I know that high expectations and strict adherence to behavior policy are de rigueur to accomplishing anything in the classroom. However, it takes more than that.

Your key phrase is the students at that school are “academically motivated.” I can tell you that maybe half of my eighth-graders actually care about school and want to learn.

Until someone comes up with the magic bullet to motivate, there is little hope that public schools can be as successful as this charter.

Sandy Mishodek

Running Springs

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It should come as no surprise that a school that holds students accountable for their actions, gives structure and teaches the fundamentals of education puts out high-performing students.

Without being given limits and expectations, students (and adults) flounder until they hit a tough point where they must quickly mature.

If we can teach the lessons of personal accountability in the safe environment of school, we will produce more outstanding adults who will make good, solid choices later.

Michael Schulteis

Lake Forest