Shutting Down Cesar Chavez Charter School Would Be Error

Beautiful!! It embodies every reason we chose to enroll our children at Cesar Chavez Charter School. The school has our family's 100% support. Thank you teachers and staff for being there for our community.

The superintendent and school board need to stand up to an awful system that standardizes public education into a one shape fits all dumbed down factory. Tell the state to shove it.

The primary argument for the kind of "bilingual" education at Cesar Chavez school is that it will prepare students to deal with the rest of the world. But much of the rest of the world, especially in India and China, is learning English. While many of our schools, not just Cesar Chavez, are obsessing "with an anti-bias, culturally affirmative curriculum", overseas students are learning algebra, calculus and computer science. Far from being a school of tomorrow, Cesar Chavez seems bogged down in the 1960s.

As to standardized tests, there would be no questioning of their value if all ethnicities performed equally well on them.

I welcome the opportunity to correspond with anyone who still does not understand after reading this beautifully written and eloquent article, that Cesar Chavez is truly a wonderful school. Standardized tests are one small and much too emphasized indicator of the education our children are receiving there. I am one of many parents who chose Cesar Chavez not by chance, but on purpose. Our children's lives are being enriched in ways that do not always translate into test scores. I am hopeful that the impending decision to re-new our charter will take that into consideration.

Cesar Chavez Charter School is in fact the school of the new millenium. Acknowledging the true cultural reality that exists in our fair town of Santa Barbara (which is essentially a 50-50 split between Latina/o and Anglo students), and meeting students right where they are in terms of language and ability is literally the only way that we can offer a fair and visionary version of education.

Measuring schools based on test scores is a metric developed by industrialists who considered our children as "products" in their factory model of thinking.

Michelle Howard

That mindset belongs in the movie "Brazil," but not in our schools.

"We must seek a meaningful definition of performance with regard to education."

Whatever worked in the past can work in the future. As the saying goes "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". (Grammatical irony noted)

What makes me skeptical about this letter is that the authors would have us think that the kids in this school are somehow incapable of being able to measure up to the standards of decades past.

Will these children be able to do well on S.A.T. scores when they come of age? Would they be able to compete academically with children from economically developed countries? Will they have a sufficient grasp of grammar, spelling, basic math, science, and other disciplines in which comprehension was expected in decades past? If the answer is "yes" to these questions, then I say more power to them, but when I hear such catch phrases as "culturally affirmative" and "anti-bias", I start to think this school is more about feel-good social engineering than preparing kids for the challenges that they face when they grow up. I would truly like one of the people who read my post to tell me what is culturally biased about our educational methods. (Excepting the veneration of slave owners and those who practiced racism and oppression)

Needless to say, I hope my fears are unjustified, and I respectfully call upon the authors or any other qualified person to address the points I've raised.

With all due respect to the students, staff, and parents of the Cesar Chavez school, I've seen their location on the same campus as another elementary school as problematic from the start. The two schools are based on opposing language-based philosophies, and the problems of sharing resources has led to issues. For example, Cesar Chavez uses the school cafeteria for lunch and also for its programs. This means that all Franklin students (between 500 and 700) have to eat lunch, as do all Cesar Chavez students. Because the lunches are staggered by grade levels, the outcome is that my child might get about 5-10 minutes to eat lunch before having to leave the cafeteria.

Cesar Chavez doesn't have its own library, so they use the public library branch. Some older patrons don't like to use the library when there are large groups of youngsters because they find the atmosphere noisy.

The S.B. school district didn't plan well when it sited the Cesar Chavez school. I have been surprised that a new school with attendant greatly increased traffic and infrastructure use never seemed to require any planning by the city when I can't add a half-bathroom to my house without getting a permit and going through a complex process.

I have heard rumors that the Cesar Chavez school might be relocated to the Cleveland campus because the student population is down there. I wonder if that is still being considered?

Also, one reason why Cesar Chavez school performance may be down is because it is a brand new school and it hasn't had a chance yet to gel and work out all the kinks and bring that vision to all its students in a settled form.

So far no one has responded to my question.

Something very interesting that Michelle Howard said:

"and meeting students right where they are in terms of language and ability is literally the only way that we can offer a fair and visionary version of education"

In terms of language, if one is immersed in the language and culture of the land, they become fluent after a short period of time and language simply is not an issue. I don't need to cite any studies to know this as I know this from my personal experience of interacting with the many people I've known who have come here from all over the world, initially struggled to understand English, and become fluent in the language.

In terms of "ability", the very use of this word shows what is at the core of the problem which is the fact that however well meaning people are, they simply see Mexican immigrants as less capable of assimilation into American culture. When parents are catered to in their language while seeing other immigrants being expected to learn English and the kids see this as well as being told that they themselves are differerent, it's no wonder why "self-esteem" is a word used when speaking of Mexican-American children.

There are those of course who matter-of-factly will argue that eugenics play in to this issue. For those of you who are not familiar with this, eugenics is the ideology that some races are inherently more intelligent than others. I got into an argument with a woman about this one time and explained to her that environment--not genetics--is what determines literacy and intellectual development.

"Environment" isn't merely whether a kid comes from a Blue Blood background vs. a working-class immigrant background, but how that child and their parents are perceived by those with whom they interact. HIgh expectations (as we see in Asian and Jewish cultures) equal better-educated kids. While one will argue that the people crossing the border from the south are the least educated of Mexico, their lack of *formal* education does *not* preclude their ability to assimilate into our culture.

Mexican immigrants have had to face a triple-whammy: One, flat out racism from American racists; two, exploitation by better educated and/or assimilated Mexicans, and finally, the over-protective mentality of those who simply cannot separate their emotions from reality. The third group is like a person who adopts an abused child and decides to never discipline the child since they feel bad about what said child has endured and then when the child grows up to be anti-social, they blame it all on the childs early upbringing.

As the saying goes "catch a man a fish, and you feed him for a day, teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime". The feel-good politicizing of the education system has been a patent failure, and will continue to be as long as rebellious attitudes toward education--be they borne of good intent or a simple desire to bring down the system--persist.

As long as we have a two-tier system of education and standard for immigrants, the idea will continue to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

In order to correct a few errors:

Fact:
Approximately 30% of Cesar Chavez students' home school would be Franklin. Therefore, it seems unlikely the school would be resited to Cleveland (20%).

Fact:
Corresponding to the above fact, the school's presence has very little impact on traffic, because a significant percent of the students are from the area.

Fact:
Cesar Chavez students do not eat lunch in Franklin's cafeteria. CCCS students receive lunch from the cafeteria and eat outside.

Fact:
Considering that one of the current standards in education is the No Child Left Behind Act, was signed into law by President George W. Bush on January 2, 2009, the assertion that students are "unable to stand up to the standards of decades past" is inaccurate. This is an assumption made by the author.

Fact:
The No Child Left Behind Act ties funding to federal standards, which ironically, centralizes educational standards, results in government bureaucracy, and replaces local control.

Fact: Spanish is one of the six official languages of the UN, along with French, English, Arabic, Russian and Chinese.

Caesar Chavez students still use the Franklin School cafeteria for programs and to receive their lunch, so yes, they do affect cafeteria usage. I see the students there, as I see their big cheetah sign.

Also, saying that 30 percent of students come from the Franklin "pool" requires an extrapolation that is speculative. Those students may well have applied to other public schools or attended private schools.

Did I mention that traffic is affected and parking is problematic at times (especially on street sweeping days)? It is.

Cesar Chavez has had a significant impact upon the schools onsite and the neighborhood. This is pertinent but something I don't hear being addressed.