Thread: Assimilation, indoctrination and values:

Assimilation, indoctrination and values: Where should public schools draw lines?
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/schoolm ... .html#more

By Bob Sipchen (Monday's Column, Feb. 05, 2007)

"Do your students say the Pledge of Allegiance?"

That was the question I posed in several ways to Marcos Aguilar, a founder and now the Tlayecantzi or "school guide" at Academia de Semillas del Pueblo Xinaxcalmecac.

You see, it's charter school renewal season in Los Angeles and Semillas del Pueblo ("Seeds of the People"), a 318-student, K-7 charter in El Sereno, is one of 18 schools whose contracts will soon get a thumbs up or thumbs down from the Los Angeles Unified School District.

There are plenty of good questions someone might ask in trying to determine whether one or another of these independently run schools is entitled to taxpayer money.

"Are the students learning anything?" would be a good one.

But what about the trickier, more philosophical, some would say irrelevant: "To what extent do you impart the values of American democracy?"

That's where I was going with my pledge question. It proved a circuitous route.

You probably remember Semillas del Pueblo. Aguilar and his wife, Minnie Ferguson, founded the public charter school in 2002 with 139 students and a mission to "provide urban children of immigrant native families an excellent education founded upon their own language, cultural values, and global realities."

Last May, a KABC radio talk-show host made a big deal of the school, accusing it of fostering separatism and bigotry. Dimwits phoned the school with threats. A reporter for the radio station was assaulted and had an interview tape stolen as he left the campus. Police arrested a suspect in September, and he is scheduled for arraignment tomorrow.

Long before the arrest, I had been calling, e-mailing and dropping by the school to see for myself what was up, but my requests for interviews and visits went nowhere.

Now that Semillas del Pueblo is up for renewal, the founders, trustees and many supportive families who send their children to the school are clearly worried. So, with Caprice Young, who heads the California Charter Schools Assn., greasing my way (her group has been supportive of the school and is evaluating whether to let it stay under its umbrella), I finally made it past the reception desk.

Aguilar and Ferguson and other trustees bloomed as activists during their college days in the Chicano rights movement of the '60s and '70s, and continue to express provocative views.

Two years ago, for instance, in discussing Semillas del Pueblo and its single-minded devotion to "indigenous" children, Aguilar told an interviewer for an online UCLA education publication: "The whole issue of segregation and the whole issue of the civil rights movement is all within the box of the white culture and white supremacy…. And ultimately the white way, the American way, the neoliberal, capitalist way of life will eventually lead to our own destruction."

A website for the hyperventilating Mexica movement (www.mexicauprising.net) posted Aguilar's remarks along with a letter from the school protesting the "hate speech" against it, further enflaming blogland.

In my brief tour of the school last week, I saw nothing to suggest that such stridency has trickled down to the colorful learning areas, which sprawl one into another over two floors in accord with the school's collaborative teaching philosophy — Hueheutlamachilistle — "the way of our ancestors."

Throughout the school, the students appeared happy and engaged. A class of younger children greeted us haltingly in the four languages the school teaches: Spanish, English, Mandarin and Nahuatl — an indigenous tongue.

With ceilings that could be 25-feet high in the main area, the school roars with children's voices — a pleasant roar. On my other attempts to visit, I'd glimpsed a similar scene, and also watched the children and teachers — most of whom wear bright red T-shirts — pound drums and dance on the small asphalt playground.

So far, the school's test scores are lousy — but pretty much on a par with other schools in the area's poor, Spanish-speaking neighborhoods. Sixth-graders' test scores, however, have shown marked improvement, Young, of the charter schools group, says.

As my tour progressed, we picked up an entourage, and by the time we arrived in a conference room, guided by a nice public relations person, a dozen people, some dressed in colorful native clothing, had gathered, including the school's visiting Zuni elder storyteller.

Parents said they loved the way the school involved the community and encouraged creativity. One mother spoke of being mistreated and discriminated against when she was a public school student. She said her child thrives at Semillas del Pueblo because it's safe and honors the dignity of indigenous culture. The white father of a child whose mother is Latino said the school teaches respect for all cultures and peaceful conflict resolution.

The school's philosophy draws from mystical influences, such as Nahui Olin — "the four forces or movements" — but Semillas del Pueblo is also training its teachers to adopt the early grade variation of the International Baccalaureate Organization, a respected program used by schools worldwide "to teach children world citizenship and encourage them to be active learners, well-rounded individuals and engaged international citizens."

But where does the United States fit in? Conservative blogs have blasted the school for its allegiance to a fuzzy notion of pan-native wisdom, apparently at the expense of assimilation into what might be termed traditional "American values."

As a starting point into this thorny area, I raised the question of whether students say the Pledge of Allegiance. The conversation spiraled into a rhetorical vortex where "yes" or "no" was supplanted with a scolding about mainstream public schools' failure to teach the U.S. Constitution's roots in indigenous cultures, a lecture on Europeans' slaughter of this continent's original inhabitants, a rap about the importance of "choice" as a democratic principle, assurances that the school teaches to state standards, and this: "I'm sure many gang members say the Pledge of Allegiance."

I'm not sure it means much if a school does or doesn't encourage students to salute the flag. But please don't play readers of this column for chumps. Give a straight answer, move on to a deeper discussion of ideological loyalties and let readers evaluate your reasoning.

Me, I happen to think that, while flawed, the U.S. at this moment in the 21st century is about as good as civilization has gotten for most people — and notches above most collectivist societies, indigenous or otherwise. But that's mainly because of our freedoms, our opportunities, our ever-increasing tolerance and the penchant for risk-taking those benefits encourage.

So what the heck.

If parents want to send their kids to a school that teaches the Aztecs' math system, and if the students are happy and learning to read and write as well as kids in regular schools nearby, why not let the experiment continue? Who can doubt that the mainstream has more to learn from the cultures it has merged with or supplanted?

Sure, Aguilar, Ferguson and company exude a kooky, cultic vibe. But they clearly care deeply about their students. It's not as if the district offers great alternatives in poor Latino neighborhoods. Nor are the sweet-looking kids I met likely to blossom anytime soon into an organized cadre of latter-day Aztec warriors. Even if critics' worst fears were to prove accurate, it would take a while for these students to start repossessing the homes and health club memberships of anyone whose DNA doesn't reveal a millennium of ancestral habitation on this "stolen" continent.

After all, despite their immersion into all things indigenous, other powerful influences, good and ugly, are simultaneously working on these young souls. Even as they're out there dancing beside the school's beautiful two-story Aztec mural, they can't help but glance over the chain-link to another looming message from the dominant culture: a monstrous billboard for Burger King.

comments:

Comments
Great discussion. Thanks, everyone. A couple of points:

1). Miriam: I didn't see evidence at the school that it is hostile to "American values," a tricky term as the comments suggest.

2). Mark: I'm always interested in being educated, as this column's title suggests. So I ask, sincerely: What nation does or has done a better job of serving such an ethnically, religiously, culturally and socio-economically diverse population while preserving individual liberties? As someone who has done a bit of traveling and has great respect for the world's people, is there another country in which you would rather live?

Posted by: Bob Sipchen | February 05, 2007 at 11:40 PM

There's a Donaldo Macedo book (does anybody here read education research?!?!) on criticial literacy that looks at a child trying to reconcile the line from the pledge of allegiance "with liberty and justice for all" with their life experience that, for some people, there IS injustice in America. Macedo suggests that reciting the pledge actually strips this young students of the literacy skills they need to critically challenge what they hear and read. In this light, the pledge is exposed as disturbingly Orwellian and students reciting it uncritically is revealed as actually making them LESS literate.

Let us keep this in mind when we remember the Jeffersonian ideals that led to publicly funded education. The goal was not to create a single vision of American values. In fact, I can think of few less democratic ideals! The goal was to create a public that had the critical faculties to check the power of the government. These critical faculties are in fact the most important of the checks and balances built into our constitution.

Semillas del Pueblo deserves credit for teaching these critical faculties in deep, spiritual, humanizing, global ways. It not only deserves public funding, but deserves to be held up as a model for what the best of America's values look like in practice.

Posted by: Sean Socco | February 05, 2007 at 10:34 PM

No !

Posted by: Greg Aprahamian | February 05, 2007 at 10:06 PM

I think the author and most of the people writting comments are missing the major point with this school. The purpose of this school is to promote "Azatlan" a perverted and racist philosophy that aims at reconquering the American South West. Unfortunately the ultra liberal people in Los Angeles are too blind to see what is happening. This school is run by people with a radical agenda to promote hatred of all people that are non Hispanic and hatred of the United States. They belive California and most of the US was stolen from Mexico. To be blunt they hate the USA, and they are teaching this radical philosophy to young children. This is very very wrong. We as Americans are starting to wake up to their criminal plans. They will be stopped.

Posted by: Greg | February 05, 2007 at 09:43 PM

What if a Public School financed with U.S. taxpayer's dollars refuses to pledge its allegiance?

In the light that I see it, as a taxpayer, allegiance to the principles of this nation are a must for any school to recieve taxpayer's dollars to finance the activities of the public school!

The answer to the question, is indeed a no brainer, in that funding provided by U.S. taxpayer's dollars should be removed from the control of any school administrator(s), who make policy at any public school that operates in this fashion, such that the policy disregards the importance of what it means to be a U.S. Citizen.




Posted by: Michael Lofton | February 05, 2007 at 09:14 PM

Hank wrote:

"Coincidentally enough, The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo which ceded the West to The United States from Mexico also guaranteed to "all Mexican citizens now present in these lands and to the heirs in perpetuity the right to the Spanish Tongue". We all know what happened to bi-lingual education in this linguistically arrogant public education system."

I read the Treaty of Hidalgo but could not find any such passage. Please direct me to the article in the treaty you are referencing. The treaty may be found at this site: http://www.mchsmuseum.com/treaty.html

Thank you


Posted by: Jessie | February 05, 2007 at 09:02 PM

"And if you can't, as I assume most of these parents can't,"

the asumption is implicative of ignorance or lack of knowledge of information that you are not allowed to have. Or would you have it made public that which american citizens (of whom you are talking about) is protected by the goverment?

To which regarding taxes, they do pay their taxes. And given that, there are alot of publicly funded projects that i object to, but this does not hinder the fact that i pay taxes. Further, it is not YOU who is paying for it. YOU have no control on such projects. More over, YOU would deny a healthy education based on your misconception that you have any say over money that you GAVE UP WILLINGLY?

It is not PUBLIC money, it is FEDERAL money. If you pay for a candy bar at the store, you don't get to say how the store owner spends it. And if you want to get in to the nitty gritty, this issue was resolved (i believe) in the second year of the current president, that whole "no child left behind" and school vouchers issue. Which as a point of fact used for religous schools, though, that has been played down.

"The giving of the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America shall satisfy such requirement."
BUT IS NOT MANDATORY. ANY patriotic exercise would do. Including not freedom of speech or lack there of.

As per the title. What's more important to education? Learning? or waisting 30 minutes to gather a group of rowdy (and believe me they are) children to stand around and pledge allegience to something that is irralivent to their education process. When they are 18 and legal, fine. But hamper knowledge for the sake of loyalty oaths?

"When the happy children of Academia Semillas del Pueblo transition to high school and face the challenge of converting from Aztec math to conventional math, will the taxpayers then have to pay for their remedial math classes?"
-did you know that they are already doing fractions? or did you simply assume that they didn't know basic math?


"What tools, talents, or skills is this school providing these children which will prepare them to compete both for positions in institutions of higher education and in the world job market?"
-Many. Much more the LAUSD does.

"The point is, taxpayers' money should not be supporting a school that is hostile to American values"
-it isn't. That's the propaganda that has been attacking the school by mostly racists. In particular, the guy that was threatening to bomb the school.

"This is nothing more than a religious school. "
-no. it's not. really.

"These teachers ought to teach these kids English"
-they do. nuff said.

"convert everyone to Spanish speakers is about as un-American as you can get."
-they don't "convert" them. Some of them just happen to know spanish more. That's like saying someone who knows Russian, was converted to Russian!?!

Finally, the "controvesy" stems from "ousiders." People who are panicked, by what they see as their losses. Where one who grew up in East Los can clearly see the positive effects of the school. And where "outsiders" don't see "apple pie." When people in the media talk about "american culture" they are generally refering to "white culture" (not taking a shot at racism here), or is it just what is seen on tv? Since the diversity is immense, one cannot properly say what "american culture" is.

-Abstrak
(born and raised in East L.A.)

Posted by: Again, thank you. | February 05, 2007 at 07:55 PM

But whose values should people "meld" into? And exactly what are "American" values? And what if those values are superficial, militaristic and materialistic? Our tax dollars go to all sorts of things I don't agree with. For example, I think the Iraq War is a subversion of American values but I still have to pay for it. Those students are receiving a unique educational experience...they will have to join the rat race soon enough. Perhaps this will make them more thoughtful, ethical human beings.

Posted by: ellen | February 05, 2007 at 07:31 PM

Charter schools have turned out to be a good way to experiment with new ideas in organizing instruction, and heaven knows, we need some, not only in LA, but throughout the country. Despite our love for our traditions, they are holding back our children--all of them, not only the Latino or African American children, but all of them. Nothing substantive about public schools has changed in the past forty years to meet the new intellectual challenges of a web-based, frenetic, knowledge-worker society that is going global faster than we can think about it.

Whether kids salute the flag daily or not is truly the least of our problems. How about whether kids come to school or enjoy school or learn in school or work together in school. In fact, the collaborative model of the Aztec school you describe is something we should be copying, right along with personal attention for every student--especially in middle school and high school where teenagers regularly fall through the cracks and roll out the door in schools of 3,000 or 4,000 students.

The corporate, factory-based model of public education on which we prided ourselves in the 1940s and 1950s simply does not meet the reality of the modern world--and our kids and our society are paying the price. While the kids at the top will always find a way to succeed, the other 75% (to be conservative in my estimate) are bored or on Ritalin or struggling or doing drugs or having sex as early as 11 or 12 and then coming to school, pretending to be just like we used to be--just good old American boys and girls. That doesn't even take into account the institutionalized racism that puts students of color--any color--at the bottom of the ladder, or, to continue my metaphor, pushes them off the conveyor belt when they don't meet specs.

I have taught high school English at all levels including basic, college prep, gifted, and Advanced Placement and then worked as a school and district administrator in both California and New York for the past 25 years. The frustration that most of us in public education feel about changing the system to one that works better for every student--smaller, most personalized, more thoughtful, broader and less hypocritical in curricular scope, even targeted at each student's talents or, imagine this, focused on building synergy between school knowledge and life or among cultures--the frustration of not being able to do this because of the inertia of an out-of-date and hopelessly politicized system is nearly deadly for every one of us.

My own frustration was so great that I finally wrote a novel about public schools that looks at the personal, institutional, and national transformation that needs to take place--right now--if America is going to try to climb back up into its place as a responsible leader of the global society. Yes, I said a novel, a story with characters, the works, because I thought it might connect better with real readers than one of the 475,000 non-fiction tomes currently in print about education. If you want to read an inside story about what is holding public education back and how deep the transformation needs to go, please read my book. My novel is called ANGEL PARK, and I've had the great good fortune to get a chance at the New in Paperback table exclusively at the Santa Monica Barnes & Noble store on the Third Street Promenade at Wilshire, starting February 13th for an eight-week run (or online, of course). Read the beginning at iuniverse.com/bookstore under Publisher's Choice if you so desire. This is a dialogue that needs national exposure--moving PAST tradition, racism, power politics, and our own egos and doing something that actually will help our kids--all of our kids--learn how to be intelligent, lifelong learners who have some sense of ethics. Believe me when I say we are SO not doing that now. The trick is to learn from the charter schools, the Academia des Semillas, the Green Dot high schools, the schools that Bill Gates is funding, and stop letting the inertia of a bloated, corporate, impersonal, wasteful public education system pull all of us down with it as it continues to sink, the Titanic of American institutions.
Patricia Kokinos
Ventura, CA

Posted by: Patricia Kokinos | February 05, 2007 at 07:19 PM

Gosh darn those Aztecs! I say no to having these wahoos working in this underserved Latino community. We should select another group from the long line of interested applicants who want to work long hours, sacrifice their own personal lives, and try to teach four languages to these worthy students.

Posted by: Martha | February 05, 2007 at 06:24 PM

The issue is not what they teach but rather who should pay for it. The school sounds delightful but then one must ask what if anything the students are learning that will help them become productive in later life. Each of us to some extent relates to our ethnic, religious, national or social background, but the reality is we need to all accept the laws and values that make us Americans. Religious schools are not entitled to public financing,why should a school based on "Aztec values" qualify? The fact that the founders care deeply about their students are not germane, what is what they teach and how they teach it. We survive as a country by the melding of our backgrounds into values that we all share and respect not by promotingour differences. Look at what is happening in Europe with its inability to absorb the Moslem immiigrants and the immigrants refusal to be absorbed. NO SOCIETY CAN SURVIVE UNLESS THE LAWS AND VALUES OF ITS CITIZENS ARE REASONABLY CONSISTENT.

Posted by: Newton I. Waldman | February 05, 2007 at 05:26 PM

As to whether such schools should be taxpayer funded, who are these parents if not taxpayers. I know folks might surmise that because of the area, these people are renters and not taypayers. Grot!

55% of all property taxes in California are paid by renters (included in rental market price). Or will someone proffer that landlords are philanthropists?

Posted by: Hank Quevedo | February 05, 2007 at 05:22 PM

Where to start?

The conversation you began is a rare one and you are to be commended for your effort to understand the efforts of this group.

Unfortunately, the question of assimilation has been discussed and is mostly understood in a Western European immigrant context. Also unfortunately, the principles therein do not apply in the same manner to intercontinental immigration for several rational and historical reasons.

The discussion of assimilation can only be done through a very coarse-grained filter if we are to retain our American prejudices which, by another name, are contained in every educational mission statement for public education. This is the Zeitgeist of the national dialogue.

Looking at the issue through a fine grained filter, the question arises: what do you mean by assimilation? Cultural assimilation? Socio-economic assimilation? Psychosocial assimilation? Or merely technological assimilation?


The educational curriculum in the public schools is aimed at promoting social and economic assimilation and has made no other pretense in its history. The fact that social studies, history and other social science deify the Western norm can only mean the inadvertent ( when the Churches intervene, very intentional ) teaching of self-hatred to non-European origin children.

The current lip-service to multiculturalism is both superficial, fatuous and, in America's heart of hearts, quite insincere. For the children from indigenous societies, history, social studies and other value-weighted disciplines are alien and inimical to the healthy cognitive and affective growth of a child.

In the enunciation of "American Values", which includes democracy and capitalism, schools do not attempt to mine the inherent contradiction between predatory capitalism and the teachings of every major world religion, especially Christianity which are the sub-text of post-Dewey curricula.They have become a subtle subtext of "American Values".

As to majoritarian democracy, even children begin to sense in the classroom and in the school yard, that fifty one percent decisions always leave an unhappy forty-nine percent. After multiple majoritarian decisions, almost everyone is in some kind of unhappy minority. This makes for a melancholy society. The opposite of democracy is not tyranny but rather the many other forms of consensus never adopted but discussed extensively in the Federalist Papers.

When Thomas Jefferson sat on the river-bank with the Great Chief Deganawidah, Head of the Iroquois Confederation, Jefferson explained majoritarian democracy as a goal for the infant nation. He then asked the Great Leader earnestly how the Tribal Leaders of the Civilized Tribes governed since there was always peace and harmony among the many Tribes. Deganawidah answered humbly that, when a great decision was upon the Nations, The Chiefs would go to the people and seek a consensus. Jefferson, puzzled, asked what would happen if the decision was held up because of several or even one member. Deganawidah replied that the Confederation took that as a very simple but sacred sign that the Nations were simply not ready for a decision. Thus, the principles of capitalism and democracy are far more resilient than current curricula allow.

In the United States, many graduates of the public schools from Asian, Jewish, African and Latin American communities walk among us with our doctorates and appear by all epidermal analyses to be assimilated because they are "articulate", dress well, earn well. The surprise would be that many of these, and I include myself in this group, have no cultural (social/religious) affinity for, or appetite to pass to our children, the so-called values we are all supposed to share. We are who we are. We have not only not brought this country down ( "Patriot" politicians seem to be so much better at it) but we have strengthened this country disproportionately to our number.

It is no historical coincidence that groups subject to the most vicious "assimilate or exterminate" policies of European colonialism, including victims of the great American Holocaust of 1700-1890, tend to grasp most dearly and desperately those qualities and characteristics of our cultures which most alienated our ancestors' murderers.

For, example, from the Treaty of Fort Laramie to the many treaties that followed the sacred words of U.S. promises for usurpation of ancestral lands were rights and compensation to the Tribes " in perpetuity",which for America meant less than eighty years.

Coincidentally enough, The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo which ceded the West to The United States from Mexico also guaranteed to "all Mexican citizens now present in these lands and to the heirs in perpetuity the right to the Spanish Tongue". We all know what happened to bi-lingual education in this linguistically arrogant public education system.

If any of this is to be used other than for your information, I asked that it not be truncated for editorial purposes.

Good Luck.

Posted by: Hank Quevedo | February 05, 2007 at 05:07 PM

I sympathize with your annoyance at Marcos Aguilar's mealy mouthed
equivocation when you asked about The Pledge. But to use that
question as a means of determining the extent to which that school--
or any school--may "impart the values of American democracy" couldn't
be more wrongheaded. Any thoughtful parsing of The Pledge will
reveal how perversely contrary its ideas are to the Constitution as
well as what our nation should be. The more one knowledgeably
deconstructs The Pledge, the more embarrassing it becomes as a
statement to the world about our values.

Posted by: C.J. Wright | February 05, 2007 at 04:57 PM

I read your article on whether we should give our tax money to schoolls (this charter school) who do not support the USA answer is NO. However I have a thought for you let there be a line item on all tax returns where an individual can give direct their tax money to where they want if it is one of these schools so be it not my tax money. In fact I would like to see this done for all tax money lets see what would happen. Can you think of a fairer way?
Bill

Posted by: Bill | February 05, 2007 at 04:36 PM

In a word: NO. I think that your story painted a lovely picture of young children learning Aztec rituals and science and otherwise enjoying their controversial education. If that was the test for public funding, then we would have to fund wicken children joyously learning spells, or voodoo children joyously learning ritual killing, or any other children "joyously" learning some other course of non-mainstream education. I have no problem with parents making these choices for their children, assuming that such choices are not abusive and are within the law. The problem I have is asking ME to fund these personal choices. That is one of the purposes of private schools, to allow a school to offer non-traditional, or to use your phrase, "controversial" agenda. Public school and public school funding is for traditional education. If you want something else for your child, like learning to count based upon the Aztec system, then PAY FOR IT YOURSELF. And if you can't, as I assume most of these parents can't, get someone else to fund it who has an agenda such as yours and the big bucks to pay for it. Don't look to me. As I understand it, this school has some backing from organizations with money. Maybe even a Hollywood "star" or two might kick in. But don't look to the taxpayers to kick in for this agenda, which I find objectionable on so many levels. I wish that my sister, who has four sons, could have used PUBLIC MONEY to fund her son's religious school education. But she didn't and neither should these people. The answer is NO, unless you wish to open up the public coffer to people like my sister. And I doubt anyone would want to do that!
My two cents!


Posted by: Roberta | February 05, 2007 at 04:12 PM

Sounds like an interesting school, and like you asked your pledge of allegiance question of a budding politician as much as of an administrator. He clearly had good focus on his talking points, at the expense of responding to your question. That may or may not be a bad thing.

Isn't that focus the way it's been for decades when speaking with politicians and political wanna bes?

Back when I was attending public school in California, the question was why should we be forced to engage in rote memorization of a collection of syllables at the beginning of every day, and never discuss the meaning of the words they composed. It seemed a stupid approach to the issue then, and it seems that way to me now.

If you want to prepare these or any students for the future, then the single most important thing they need to learn is to think, and to think creatively. Making sure that they repeat the Pledge every morning makes it just a collection of sounds that they are flogged with each day, and flogging in any sense doesn't help anyone learn anything.

If these kids are doing as well on the standardized tests as the other schools in the neighborhood, have at it! The barriers between nations are coming down, and the better equipped our citizens are to dealing with the multi-cultural nature of our emerging world, the better for us all.

Posted by: Michael Sprague | February 05, 2007 at 03:03 PM

The law is the law:

CALIFORNIA EDUCATION CODE
SECTION 52720
In every public elementary school each day during the school
year at the beginning of the first regularly scheduled class or
activity period at which the majority of the pupils of the school
normally begin the schoolday, there shall be conducted appropriate
patriotic exercises. The giving of the Pledge of Allegiance to the
Flag of the United States of America shall satisfy the requirements
of this section.
In every public secondary school there shall be conducted daily
appropriate patriotic exercises. The giving of the Pledge of
Allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America shall satisfy
such requirement. Such patriotic exercises for secondary schools
shall be conducted in accordance with the regulations which shall be
adopted by the governing board of the district maintaining the
secondary school.

Posted by: JosephRST | February 05, 2007 at 02:10 PM

Re: What if a school Refuses to pledge its alligiance?
2/5/07

Seems to me that you got a very reasonable response to
the silly question of whether or not the children say
the Pledge of Allegiance. You got an informed response
highlighting many aspects of history glossed over or
left untaught in most public schools. You got actual
information detailing the school's philosophy and
outlook. Yet you seemed upset you didn't get a
simplistic yes or no response, even though that yes or
no response would have told you absolutely nothing
about the school.
As to your assertion that, "the U.S. at this
moment...is about as good as civilization has gotten
for most people-"... is stunning in its obviously
unsupportable triteness.
Whether you consider health, societal violence,
environmental stewardship or political participation
by its citizens, the U.S. lags behind many other
nations around the globe. We do lead the world,
however, in the percentage of citizens incarcerated,
and starting unprovoked wars.
I won't even begin to list the incredible array of
problems concerning our money-driven political process
and its ensuing greed and corruption. The sad shape of
our national media. The dangers facing our civil
liberties and Constitution. Or the fact that we engage
in a completely unsustainable and earth destroying
lifestyle that no one other than those "crazy"
environmentalist want to talk about.
So, in answer to your biased main question, "Should
taxpayer money be spent on schools with controversial
agendas?"...my response would be a qualified yes. For
I believe that the creative solutions that may
ultimately save the U.S. and this planet, will more
likely emanate from schools like the one in your
article, than from the majority of schools where
children blindly recite the Pledge of Alligiance,
learn that Christopher Columbus discovered America and
that the destruction of civilizations and theft of
land was merely Manifest Destiny.

Thanks,
Mark

Posted by: Mark P. Mealey | February 05, 2007 at 12:31 PM

Most children who enter school speaking Spanish at home tend to drop out of high school at high rates, or do poorly on most academic tests, sunless they are properly educated in their eaerly years. A school that stresses cultural and political differences's does a disservice to iits students, and to American society as a whole, by instilling prejudice. I think all students should have some knowledge of and respect for indicenous societies, but the miain subject should be preparing them to speak English well, understand science, and respect America's democratic values. The fact that they may be 'happy' in their school, is nice, but not enough. And no, I'm not a conservtive by any means, and have volunteered to teach in minority only schools.

Posted by: James Tugend | February 05, 2007 at 12:23 PM

The primary purpose of tax-supported education is to prepare children to become productive adults. When the happy children of Academia Semillas del Pueblo transition to high school and face the challenge of converting from Aztec math to conventional math, will the taxpayers then have to pay for their remedial math classes? And will this late start in learning conventional math exclude these children from careers that require advanced math skills?

P. V. Mooney, Los Angeles

Posted by: P. V. Mooney | February 05, 2007 at 10:51 AM

An interesting article. I guess the first question I would have to ask is, "What tools, talents, or skills is this school providing these children which will prepare them to compete both for positions in institutions of higher education and in the world job market?"

I think it's extremely important to study and understand the past, but it's even more important to face the future. I read Pat Reber's comment, and couldn't help rolling my eyes over the bit that parents other than "conservatives" should have the right to choose the school their child will attend. They do have that choice Pat. All they have to do is come up with the money to pay for it and get the child to the education level required by the school for entrance.

20+ years ago when my family moved to a small town in the Santa Cruz mountains, one of the local learning institutes was The University of the Trees (a K-12 facility). We went to an open house. Their curriculum included daily classes on Astral Projection, Levitation, etc. It also had one hour per day dedicated to "reading, writing, and arithmetic" so that they met some state or federal requirement.

Upon leaving this open house, I was quite pleased that this school received no state or federal funding. After all, how much of a job market is there for someone well versed in Astral Projection?

Posted by: George VanWinkle | February 05, 2007 at 10:00 AM

This reporter is very naive about the threat of this sort of thing to our democracy, and so are most of these comments. The point is, taxpayers' money should not be supporting a school that is hostile to American values. There is no country in the world that has survived with groups with separate loyalties and cultures pulling away, we need some minimal level of cohesiveness to co-exist. If they want their Aztec school, let 'em pay private school tuition like everyone else.

Posted by: miriam | February 05, 2007 at 09:52 AM

My daughter attends a charter school here in Houston. My concern is that they *do* "impart the values of American democracy". These values are that imperialism and depredation are the prerogative of so-called successful nations, that is, nations that indulge in the gradual destruction of the world with over-consumption. Also, I take it that "democratic" continues to mean capitalistic and market-oriented. Capitalism and markets are unsustainable in a finite world and are the principal causes of over-consumption. which I have made abundantly clear in a long paper entitled "On the Conservation-within-Capitalism Scenario" that is summarized at http://dematerialism.net/demise.htm . See also John Gatto's website. Let the schools teach reading, writing, mathematics, and classical music. Anything else is a violation of freedom of (or from) religion.

Tom Wayburn, Houston, Texas
http://www.dematerialism.net/
http://dematerialism.blogspot.com/

P.S. Teaching science is alright if there is anyone who understands it well enough to teach it. There is no such person in our school.

Posted by: Thomas L Wayburn | February 05, 2007 at 09:43 AM

I like the previous responder with a simple "no" answer. This situation exemplies exactly my concern with both vouchers and charters.

I happen to love bowling. So let's say I start a school with its basis in bowling--all PE is bowling. The kids study geography by learning the different bowling games played in various parts of the world--5 pin in Canada, candlepin in New England, the helicopter style common in Asian countries. We teach them averages and plus/minus scores. We teach physics and geography with ball design, core configuration, and ball movement on a lane. In my mind, a bowling school works great.

If I choose to homeschool my children, or create a private school for parents that share my philosophy, great. I put my money where my philosophy lies. But when I ask the federal and state government to hand over taxpayer dollars, it's a different story. People who believe their children's entire education should be based solely on the bible are entitled to feel that way too, but they don't ask for government money.

If the people founding this school in Los Angeles are so terribly uncomfortable with the "white" culture that runs the goverment then maybe they should seek alternative funding sources rather than take money from the organization it so despises.

Posted by: Angel Zobel-Rodriguez | February 05, 2007 at 09:38 AM

No.

Posted by: mhr | February 05, 2007 at 08:07 AM

Your article is thought provoking. I do believe that alternative views of society and how society should operate have a place in our children's schools. The important thing, which you point out is happening, is whether the children are learning and are happy in the school environment. From your article, it is apparent that there is nothing dangerous or devious going on at this school.

It is very interesting to me that so many, so-called, conservatives want to control everyone else. They have the right, as parents, to send their children to schools of their choice. Why shouldn't other parents have that same right? Oh, I get it. They have more money, power, position, etc. so they should get to dictate to the rest of us. That attitude is a distinct part of the ongoing problem in this country.

Thank you for exposing, either intentionally or otherwise, the hypocrisy of their position and their apparent xenophobic fear of the "other."

Posted by: Pat Reber | February 05, 2007 at 07:45 AM

This is nothing more than a religious school. Teaching kids about mystical influences like "the four forces of movements" is religious indoctrination. They have a right to have this school, but they do not have a right to taxpayer money any more than a Christian school should.
These teachers ought to teach these kids English so that they can take part in the larger society around them. Being American means that you blend in, and trying to segregate yourself and convert everyone to Spanish speakers is about as un-American as you can get.

Comments are moderated which might explain why most of the posts that appear are in favor of this racist school. I submitted a post that bottom line is that: the kids have crummy test scores. So obviously this school is not doing a good job at teaching them AND I questioned whether they are really getting prepared for the real world.

Contact email address for Board Members of Los Angeles Unified School District. Email them and ask them NOT to renew the contract for this charter school. Make sure you point out that the childrens test scores are low, you believe this school encourages separatism, and the cirriculum isn't even beneficial to preparing these students to be contributing citizens of THIS country. Also, refusing to have the students recite the pledge of allegiance goes against California Education Code.

(from above article)

You see, it's charter school renewal season in Los Angeles and Semillas del Pueblo ("Seeds of the People"), a 318-student, K-7 charter in El Sereno, is one of 18 schools whose contracts will soon get a thumbs up or thumbs down from the Los Angeles Unified School District.

MARGUERITE POINDEXTER LAMOTTE
marguerite.lamotte@lausd.net

Mónica García
monica.garcia@lausd.net

JON LAURITZEN
jon.lauritzen@lausd.net

MARLENE CANTER
marlene.canter@lausd.net

DAVID TOKOFSKY
david.tokofsky@lausd.net

JULIE KORENSTEIN
julie.korenstein@lausd.net


MIKE LANSING
mike.lansing@lausd.net