The Big Nut to Crack

Dear Ms. Mitchell,

I am writing to you from Oakland, California where I am longtime public school parent and public school activist. I have a deep interest in urban public school issues and read a great deal about them. Today I discovered your recent piece about Arne Duncan on an education blog called “This Week in Education.”

I want to let you know that I am grateful for your article and for posting the video of your interview with Mr. Duncan. I am particularly appreciative that you asked him why his focus is on test score data rather than on quality of life issues at schools, such as improving school climate, focusing on children's social and emotional issues, and developing ways to counter early expressions of urban violence. From my point of view, his response clearly demonstrated a simple lack of understanding.

I firmly believe that today’s education reformers are missing the mark because they are not addressing these things first. And I also believe that perhaps the reason for this is because they have never personally experienced the schools attended by children of the underclass, nor are they much willing to tap into the substantial body of knowledge of people who have. Too many of them have attended private schools and Ivy League colleges, and are only willing to send their children to the same. They're in charge of education for the masses, but are very much out of touch.

There is no doubt in my mind: the conditions relating to urban violence, and how they impact urban school climates, are the most pressing problems in our nation's inner city schools. They are the main barriers to better student performance and higher teacher retention. And as charter schools draw off the strongest families in our cities, the concentration of students from less-able parents – who are also the ones who present the greatest challenges – is becoming higher and higher at the traditional public schools.

Honestly, despite all the money and energy being thrown at urban school reform, we’re really not seeing much of an effect, because the path which has been taken is not correct. Frank public recognition of the biggest problem, and finding ways to address it, is nowhere to be found in typical ed-reform discussions.

The best source I've discovered for learning about the behavioral dynamics in the inner-city setting is Elijah Anderson, sociology professor at Yale, formerly of the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of "Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City" and is also the editor of an insightful new book, “Against the Wall: Poor, Black, Young, and Male.” Both President Obama and Arne Duncan – as well as policymakers and America's citizens – would learn a great deal from Anderson’s work.

And on a related note, last winter I read a blog comment by a professor at Chico State University (Tony Waters on Bridging Differences) in which he referred to America’s “incarcerated class.” His phrase immediately rang true for me. The tragic and exponential rise in African American incarceration rates over the past decades is both causing, and resulting in, damage to many, many children. An increasingly tragic cycle is being produced.

This is a comment I posted yesterday on The Education Report:

On nearly every post here at the Education Report, people will eventually make comments that relate to the chronically intolerable/near-intolerable conditions caused by student misbehavior and its effects. Has anyone else noticed?

The in-hospitability of urban public school climates is NOT solely an OUSD issue, it’s present nationwide. The amount of student misbehavior that schools are expected to cope with these days is a big, widespread problem and has come about as a result of complicated and tragic societal forces, and decisions that seemed right at the moment but produced negative effects over time.

Does anyone know an entire school district with similar demographics that’s managing these challenges extremely well? Which specific schools in Oakland have this issue totally under control? How much do the student, teacher, and principal demographics influence their practices? How much can the techniques be replicated at other sites, and how can that be done?

Do some schools boast about their accomplishments, but then operate by rules or in conditions that can’t be transferred on a wider basis? Is the exclusive enrollment practiced by charters (like refusing to deal with the types of students in Special Day Classes or those who are more defiant) the only way to go? If so, where then should those many more difficult students be educated? Just how much of the difficult student behavior can be suppressed? What are the legal and civil rights issues that need to be considered?

I once heard a sociologist refer to America’s “incarcerated class.” Looking at the African American incarceration rates over the past decades, and thinking about the families those rates affect, maybe he’s onto something. So is it time yet to publicly admit that we probably have an established caste system in the US, and that the problems we’re talking about just might be connected to that?

The issue about school climate is THE “big nut” to crack. Finding strategies to deal with this difficult issue should have been placed at the very top of the urban educational reform list.

Unfortunately, educational reformers from the corporate world — who don’t understand or care about what is really going on in the trenches — are in control right now. They’ve been leading us down the path where everyone fixates on test scores, and scapegoats teachers, etc. because those are strategies that will eventually lead to the corporate world making a buck. Education entrepreneurship in a wide number of forms (tutoring, test materials, coaching, etc.) is now a huge, and growing, billion-dollar business, which developed from specific intent. In the 1980’s these people realized that the billions spent on public education was an untapped well of profit, so they made their political connections and have taken charge ever since. And so far we have let them.

If both OUSD and the City of Oakland would set its main focus on improving school climates, and if the school board and our superintendent addressed it at every turn, we could become a model for the rest of the nation — we’re a district of manageable size. But they will need firm pressure AND help in the form of fresh ideas and feedback. Constant put-downs and abandonment of the public schools don’t do anything to help our community as a whole.

How about more people writing letters to demand that the district turns its attention to school climate? How about asking the district to form a task force &/or department that compiles research, generates ideas, makes recommendations, monitors progress, and keeps up an exchange with the community? How about demanding that charter schools take their fair share of more challenging students? How about asking charters to use some of their innovation potential and extra funding to develop special programs for managing the more difficult students?

At any rate, these are the issues education reform needs to be dealing with, and I am certain you know this, too -- because of the questions you chose to ask Arne Duncan. How sad that his best response was “It’s crazy, it just doesn’t make any sense to me” and that his friend, John Rogers, said basically the same thing.

If these powerful people deeply understood the message in Anderson’s work, they would have been able to move beyond just describing things as “crazy.” They would know that the antisocial behavior exhibited by urban youth these days is, oddly, an adaptive and very human response to chronically horrific economic conditions. To understand urban violence, people need to read Anderson's explanation about the issue of "respect."

And if more people were aware of all these things, then maybe there would be hope for developing the plan for what needs to be done next.

Sincerely,

S.H.

Expulsions, student behavior, and the shortcomings of principals

Recently I've been extremely busy with assorted, big projects at my daughter's high school. They have absorbed a great deal of my time so I haven't posted for over a month. Here's something I sent out via the Oakland Public School Parents Yahoo group this morning. It's length qualifies it for a Perimeter Primate posting.

The community needs to be aware that when a student is suspended from their school for a serious infraction and is then recommended by the school's principal to be "DHP'ed" (submitted to an expulsion hearing), if the Disciplinary Hearing Panel decides to expel the student, most of the time they are simply assigned another equivalent OUSD school.

Students are rarely expelled from the district, only from their original school. Very few students are sent to alternative schools. For instance, a student who has committed a serious infraction, and then is DHP'ed from Bret Harte, will be directed to enroll at Frick, or Montera, or some other middle school the following week. All school year long, these DHP'ed students play musical (classroom) chairs.

Of course OUSD charter schools will never be directed by the District to accept the DHP'ed students, nor be expected to take part in providing any of their resources to them. Even though those schools declare themselves to be "public," they are allowed to be exempt from accepting ALL students. This means, too, that problematic students of the charter schools must always be accepted back into the general system when they get kicked out of the charter. For all the popular talk about equitability, this is not equitable.

After students have been DHP'ed, they arrive at the attendance office of their new school to be enrolled by their frustrated, discouraged, ashamed, and/or angry parents. For a little while, the kids are generally subdued and on their best behavior from having been submitted to the DHP process. The schools have case managers who are supposed to follow the DHP'ed arrivals. They have varying amounts of experience and training, and are trying to manage a huge and difficult load. Because of the nature of the kids' family situations, and the magnitude of the problems that they have, this is very tough work.

Principals are required to accept these students, but are usually not happy to do so because they know the students usually bring chronically difficult behavior with them. Although the District's method sometimes works because it separates enemies from each other, it is not unusual for the DHP'ed student's negative behavior to start up once again as soon as they are comfortable at their new school and get underway with developing new enemies.

Students who are inclined to live their educational years in this way might also have strong neighborhood turf, and/or ethnic subgroup, allegiances. The rivalries caused by the tribal outlook of some of Oakland's youth are the cause of a considerable amount of the fighting.

East and West Oakland groups dislike each other. Some Latino/Black/ Pacific Islander and Asian groups dislike each other. In OUSD there aren't simply enough White kids who are so inclined. Even subgroups within each of those groups dislike each other, for instance Latinos who are either Norte or Sur, or those from 98th Ave. vs. those from Seminary vs. those from the Dirty Thirties, etc. (all East Oakland neighborhoods) . Add adolescent behavior and weak family structures into the mix and you'll get the behavior problems seen in OUSD secondary schools. You may wish to research the increase in school violence in New Orleans as a result of forcing rival neighborhood kids together when their school system was re-formed.

Having attended Bret Harte and Skyline, my children and their friends have never been part of this type of social drama at their schools and they have learned how to keep far, far away from it. This is why they have always been safe at those schools and why I believe they are better off, and more socially aware and mature than their private school or suburban school peers. I value those qualities in young people.

I've learned that the majority of the school fighting is caused by a subset of kids who mess with each other constantly and don't know how live their lives any differently. Sometimes they have parents and relatives who actively coach them and encourage it. Elijah Anderson (in "Code of the Street") explains how schools are a "staging ground" for establishing Respect, the drive behind all "street-oriented" behavior.

Because my daughters and their friends are simply outside that sphere, they've expressed to me that most fights are simply annoying, or even amusing, rather than scary and threatening. Their immense entertainment value is why kids stop everything and run like crazy toward a fight that has broken out -- blocking adult access to the combatants. Of course some of the fights can get serious and cause severe bodily harm, but most don't get to that point.

In my opinion, OUSD schools lack a comprehensive, unified and effective behavior modification approach toward student behavior. This might well be the District’s most serious failing.

Some principals have adopted the techniques of Noah Salzman, a respected education consultant, to guide the overarching philosophy and approach to behavior management at their schools. I'm sure there are other effective and tested strategies, but they are not always considered or exploited by principals, or even seem to be required by the District. It is very haphazard. Any of these approaches -- well-implemented, discussed, made transparent, data-reviewed and constantly adjusted -- would be able to control and contain a fair amount of the negative behavior. This strategy would relieve the concerns and frustrations of many parents and teachers.

There are some charismatic school administrators who are gifted with the energy and strong instinct for managing student behavior, but they are a very rare breed. Joe Salamack might be one of them. He worked as a dean at Bret Harte in the late 1990’s, then as an assistant principal at Montera, with admiration and glowing reviews by most parents and his peers. To OUSD’s loss, he was snagged by Bishop O'Dowd a couple of years ago to become their principal.

Unfortunately, some principals strongly believe in, and cling onto, their own personal philosophies about student behavior management. Those philosophies are not necessarily proactive and "best practices" driven, or derived from any serious insight or research. They are likely to be either a passive and vague philosophy, or one which is reactive and consists of repeated threats, screaming and punishment.

It's too bad that there is such a lack of sophistication on the part of some principals about these matters -- considering the wealth of human behavior research that is available. I do not believe that coaching for the principals will necessarily be able to correct their deficiencies, either. The principals need to arrive at that position of authority open-minded, sufficiently learned, and with a strong internal sense about group behavior management.

Sometimes the school's teachers have a great deal of insight and would like the principal to lead the school to adopt a strategic, effective and unified approach. And sometimes the principal is hopelessly "old school" and defensive, and the teachers' more innovative opinions are considered a threat and are squashed. The best that teachers can do under these circumstances is to manage their own classrooms effectively. A few of them create pockets of sanity -- peaceful oases for their students -- within a school wide climate of chaos. The kids always know who these teachers are.

The schools also need to be staffed with more Campus Security Officers. Ask anyone who works on any secondary school campus. Sometimes student safety at one school is sacrificed for another school. For instance, last week a CSO from Skyline was sent to work at McClymonds for two days. Then there are the sick and vacation days that come up for the CSO's (and disability days caused by the injuries they get from breaking up fights). The staffing of these valuable employees is simply inadequate.

Most parents have no idea that all of this is going on but anyone who steps on a campus can feel it. This submission has been long, but I hope it helps move us toward a better OUSD.

Sharon Higgins
OUSD parent (since 1993)
Former Parent Coordinator at Bret Harte (2001-08)

AND A DAY OR SO LATER...

If a crime is committed that involves juveniles, the name of the perpetrator or the victim is not usually revealed, but they are crimes that should be reported nonetheless. Every week we read about crimes committed by juveniles in the Oakland Tribune. Names are withheld.

Katy Murphy just posted a piece on her education blog about the student-on-student assault that injured one girl so badly she spent two nights in the hospital. Of course the names were withheld.

The community should be able to see evidence that some sort of crime data is being tracked by the school site. I would think that those numbers (type of crime and frequency in a given time period) could legally be revealed.

How many fights broke out that week? How much bodily harm was caused (simple or aggravated assault)? How many kids were the victims of a strong arm robbery on the campus, or on the bus ride home that month?

And as for property crimes that cost the school district a ton of money, how many times that year did the school bank get broken into with hundreds of dollars getting stolen? How much property was stolen or damage sustained b/c someone at the school didn't remember to set its alarm system (yet again), or b/c the alarm system is simply ineffective?

This stuff is going on all the time, but the only way we learn about it is if it leaks out by accident.

AND A TINY BIT LATER...

Hey folks, this is the elephant in the room that we're now just beginning to talk about in a real way. I hope the strong members of this group don't let it fade away.

I believe the scattered and closeted handling of these issues on the part of the schools and the district is a big reason, maybe the biggest, why so many Oakland parents are reluctant to use the schools, especially the secondary schools. If they use them, many parents are always slightly on edge wondering about the safety of their children. And they should be, because nothing meaningful, by policy, is dependably revealed by the school. Bad stories, true or false, just seep out.

There are few straightforward ways to find out what is really going on. Maybe things are better than parents think, or maybe they are worse.

As far as I can tell, this is also a big reason why parents feel the need to flee to the charters or the privates ("I've heard that there is a lot of fighting at THAT school."). It is why working in these schools for the long term is so difficult for so many teachers (haphazard discipline structures & lousy school climate). It is why many OUSD teachers living in Oakland won't send their kids to their neighborhood OUSD schools. It is how a fair amount of the crime problem in Oakland is constantly developing in the public schools right underneath our noses.

The problems need to be addressed in a more comprehensive way by the schools. The unadulterated numbers of incidents need to be tracked, publicly reported and thought-about, so the schools know where to begin and where they need to go. Think about that magic word "accountability."

Hey District people: If you aren't willing to step up and be strong leaders who will be innovative with these issues and attack them head on for us, can you at least create a venue that will pull people together to make a task force, or workshop, or some way to put our heads together to devise a new strategy? Then we might be able to make some progress with getting into the nitty-gritty of this in a more meaningful way. On one hand it seems hopeless, but on the other it might be possible to start heading in a direction that will make more sense.

This topic affects parents who live in the flatlands, traditional zones, and hills schools alike. Unlike so many of those who work at Second Ave., we parents live in Oakland and we are using your schools, ugly warts and all. I wish you would trust us and consider us as worthy partners, and let us help you chart a new course.

THE END.

"Sellout"

I just finished reading “Sellout: The Politics of Racial Betrayal” by Randall Kennedy (2008). As an exploration of some of the most dangerous waters that African Americans are forced to navigate, this book is extremely well-researched and fascinating. I especially recommend the book to anyone interested in gaining deeper insight into one of the non-school factors that undoubtedly influences the mindset of African-American students.

The chapters are as follows:

• Chapter One: Who is “Black”?
• Chapter Two: The Idea of Sellout in Black American History
• Chapter Three: The Idea of Sellout in Contemporary Black America
• Chapter Four: The Case of Clarence Thomas
• Chapter Five: Passing as Selling Out

Here are a few excerpts from the book.

In the Preface:

“The specter of the “sellout” haunts the African-American imagination. A long-oppressed minority situated in the midst of a dominant white majority, blacks fear that whites will fear and corrupt acquiescent Negroes who, from positions of privilege, will neglect struggles for group elevation…African Americans fear that whites will promote black free riders and defectors who sap solidarity and discourage effective strategies for resisting subordination. Every social group – from the union to the organized crime family to the nation-state – confronts the challenge of exacting loyalty to the collective in the face of self-interest, hardship, or even danger.” [This makes me wonder about the power of the race loyalty which black youth expect from one another. It makes things socially dangerous for individuals who might want to be different, kind of like an "ultra-strength" peer pressure.]

In Chapter Three:

“Angst over complacency, collaboration, and defection continues to occupy a salient place in the Afro-American mind and soul. One hears it in ceaselessly repeated phrases such as “Don’t forget where you come from” and Stay black.” One sees it in the often obsessive attentiveness with which many blacks scrutinize other blacks for evidence of “passing,” “acting white,” or otherwise showing what is denounced as an inadequate commitment of black solidarity…These efforts, according to journalist John Blake, have given rise to “the Soul Patrol… thought police who enforce conformity.” Soul Patrols, he contends, are constituted by “the legions of black people who impose their definition of blackness on other black people.” Obnoxiously intrusive, they aren’t content with choosing your friends, he complains. “They want to tell you how to think, where to live, whom to love, how to do your job.”

“Acting white” is a derogatory term meant to stigmatize blacks who are said to betray the expectations of their own racial group by assimilating the expectations of white society. This use of the term has itself been harshly criticized, since it disparages as “white” such socially useful traits as studiousness, academic ambitiousness, attentiveness to proper grammar, and respect for other conventional protocols. That there exists among certain groups of blacks peer pressure to avoid “acting white” is clear. Controversial, however, is the extent of the stigmatization for “acting white.” The contentious literature on the “acting white” phenomenon is large.” [This reminds me of the time at a school music concert when a frustrated white parent asked a black parent who was sitting nearby to stop talking so loudly with her son. The black parent indirectly responded by loudly telling her son, “Now sit there and be quiet like a good little white boy.” The exchange was loaded with explosive racial issues, and it even feels dangerous to mention it here. Of course it's just another day in Oakland where simmering racial hostility creates a tense atmosphere that prevents important things from being talked about.]

“Homogenizing Black America’s ideological diversity also tends to obscure the tragic dilemmas with which black people have grappled and which they continue to face. Was it commendable to defiantly confront slaveholders even at the cost of certain death? Or was a strategy of mere survival superior?...Was it in the best interest of blacks for antislavery activists to purchase runaway slaves and then emancipate them? Or did the interest of blacks demand an unyielding insistence that any and all transactions in slave markets be condemned as immoral?...Was it in the best interest of blacks to serve in the armed forces…even as the government segregated them and placed them under the guardianship of racist white officers? Or was the interest of blacks best advanced by making black participation conditional on equal treatment? Is racial integration the best goal or strategy for blacks? Or is inward-looking institution-building a preferable alternative?”

“When Bill Cosby criticized blacks who he felt were hurting themselves and the community,” Keith Boykin asks, “Was that an act of loyalty or disloyalty? And when Michael Eric Dyson then criticized Bill Cosby for criticizing his community, was that an act of loyalty or disloyalty?” [Does the lack of unified viewpoint, along with the desire for solidarity, somehow lead to a tolerance for harmful criminal behavior in the Black community? Which commonly heard statement is most true: “We’re angry because we don’t get enough help from the police” or “We HATE the police and we refuse to help or talk to them”?]

In Chapter Four:

“…it was feelings of racial loyalty that constituted the main basis for the remarkable uptick in black support that Thomas received during the Anita Hill phase of his confirmation hearings. A protocol of racial loyalty dictated that only in the most dire of emergencies – for example, an immediate need for self-defense – could a “good brother” or “good sister” properly inform upon a fellow black. Because Hill was deemed to have violated this protocol, many blacks initially saw her as the sellout—an impression that provided Thomas with a small but essential edge in his desperate struggle to win confirmation.” [Does racial loyalty somehow factor into the problematic “No Snitching?” custom in high crime, inner-city communities?]

Anyway, I’ll definitely be checking out some of the other books written by Randall Kennedy:

• Interracial Intimacies: Sex, Marriage, Identity, and Adoption (2003)
• Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word (2002)
• Race, Crime, and the Law (1997)

Different kinds of parents

During the seven years I worked as a Parent Coordinator at a large middle school in Oakland that served many low income kids (about 550 kids, or around 62%), I learned how some parents behave in relation to their children’s schools, and to their children’s educations in general. For instance:

· One parent urinated on the floor in a school’s restroom because she was angry with the school.

· Quite a few parents take their kids out of the country for several weeks in the middle of the school year. They do this even though their children end up missing 15 to 20 days of instruction.

· A parent blocked a residential driveway with her car while she was waiting to pick up her child. When the school’s neighbor arrived and asked her to move, the parent called her “bitch.”

· One parent came to the school, hunted down one of her daughter’s classmates on the blacktop, and then she and her daughter began to beat up that child. They did not stop when the security officer intervened. When the assistant principal intervened, the parent also hit her, broke her eyeglasses, and then sped off in a car.

· Some parents who come in to conduct school business are drunk and reeking of alcohol.

· Some parents angrily reply, “I ain’t joining no PTA!” when asked by other parents at registration if they would like to do so.

· One parent had her children stay at a relative’s house many miles away. Her 13-year-old daughter was left responsible for transporting herself to her middle school, and her two much younger siblings to their elementary school, alone and by bus. All three kids showed up at the middle school at 11 a.m. The daughter had given up with trying to get the younger ones to their school.

· Some parents think it is acceptable if their children call White teachers “bitch” but warn their children to never do the same with Black teachers.

· There are parents who tell their children that they should beat up other kids. There are parents who give the principal permission to hit their children.

· One grandparent publicly beat his adolescent grandson with a belt in the front driveway of the school. That kid was in prison two years later.

· There are parents who have no idea when the school year begins. They bring their children in one or two weeks after the school year has already started.

· One parent came to the school and was upset because their child has received an “F” in math. She screamed at the math teacher, “You’re the teacher. You’re the one that’s supposed to be teaching them!” There was a complete disconnect re: the student's responsibility.

· Some parents absolutely refuse to permit their children to see a psychologist even though their children’s teachers are advising it because they are observing possible severe emotional problems. The parents are not refusing because of financial reasons; the school provides this service for free.

· Despite information being mailed home, some parents still have no idea what grades their children are receiving.

· One parent spit sunflower seed shells all over the carpeted floor of the principal’s office when they came in to meet with her.

· There are parents who are in and out of jail and who intentionally train their children how to steal things from other people.

· Some parents who are members of violent gangs will have their children join the gang, too.

· One parent was talking very loudly at a school music performance and became very angry and confrontational when she was asked to be quiet by another parent in the audience.

· One parent provided a cell phone to her daughter and permitted her to wear a grill (teeth ornament). When that child failed multiple eighth grades classes, the parent threatened to take those things away. No consequences were ever given, though. The girl dropped out of high school after the following year.

· Some parents have homes where the TV is constantly on, but not a single book other than the Bible can be found in the house.

· Some parents just throw the school newsletter in the garbage can and “never bother to read it,” according to their children.

· A number of parents will never come in for special school meetings with teachers even though they are asked to attend because their child is in danger of being retained.

· Some parents come to the school two weeks before the end of the school year and are absolutely irate. They are angry because they have just learned that their children will not be allowed to graduate from middle school because of failing multiple classes all year long.

· Some parents are either oblivious, or in denial, about the fact that their children are gang members, even though the warning signs have been there for months and assistant administrators have had talks with them about it.

· One parent “helped” with a yearbook project, collected thousands of dollars from students, and then disappeared with the money.

· Some parents never, ever attend back-to-school night or any other school event.

· One parent asked her husband to turn off the home TV in the evening so that their kids could concentrate on homework. He absolutely refused because he wanted to watch TV.

· Two parents were completely dismissive of the fact that their daughter was getting a master’s degree. They told her that she was only wasting her time by going to college and thought she should just go get a job.

· One parent had to call the police because an ex- spouse with a drug addiction was breaking down a door to get into her house. On the morning of their first day of school, the four kids watched as their father got arrested in front of their house.

In the capacity of my work, I became acquainted with this type of behavior on a regular basis. Dealing with it, and the consequences of it, is one of the immense challenges that these schools must face. The average behavior of parents was not this extreme, but this type of behavior was not atypical. In a middle-class school, this type of parent behavior would be rare.

I would occasionally observe some low income parents exhibiting behavior at the other extreme. For instance, one mother was so bothered by a small error on her child’s otherwise perfect attendance record that she found her child’s schoolwork from that day, brought it in as proof of her child’s attendance, and insisted to have the error officially corrected.

Having observed incident after incident, and knowing that the behaviors are indicators of home values and parenting abilities, I find it impossible to believe that schools – on their own, with the resources currently allotted to them – will be able to sufficiently counter most of the attitudes that children learn in their homes and/or be able to adequately compensate for the things that parents are unable to provide.

As always, if you are interested in learning more, I suggest you read Annette Lareau (who describes the difference in parenting styles of middle class and poor/working class families and how these styles affect the behavioral outcomes of their children), Richard Rothstein (who looks at numerous other studies about family functioning as it relates to children's ability to learn) and Elijah Anderson (who describes behaviors typical in “street” (vs. “decent”) low income Black families and tells how fourth graders with a “street” orientation have already started to tune out of school).

Poetry: Arithmetic Lesson

This week the Oakland Tribune is doing a series of reports called “Oakland Homicide 2007.” The articles take a closer look at crime in my city from many different angles. To read them please go to http://tinyurl.com/59u228.

When I started working at the middle school, I immediately started to feel connected with my husband’s work as a criminal defense attorney. I knew that some of the playful 11 or 12-year-olds who would pass by my room everyday would eventually be arrested and thrown into jail. It seemed predictable that my husband, or someone like him, would be interviewing them before too long, maybe in five, ten, or fifteen years.

Because I was new to this world, it was sad to realize how much pain and suffering these children were going to experience – or inflict – in the coming years. Of course, pain and suffering often begets the same.

Lawyers must be cautious; they do not often reveal things about their work. This simple poem is a tiny peek into their world. The speaker could easily have been one of these kids' dads.

ARITHMETIC LESSON

by George Higgins

I aint gonna do another 16 months.
That bitch expects me to take another pro-
bation; what’s she been smoking? Once
she gets me there it’s time to bend over so
what’s my choice if she won’t go…
I can’t be spending time up here over this
chicken shit. You know it’s just a slow
boat to the joint so should I just let her piss
all over me? And why can’t she give me low
term instead? It is low term says who?
I been doing this longer than you been…
Okay, okay I’ll take the 16 months to
shut you up. I know there ain’t no way I can win.
Let’s just get this shit over with. You know
how much back time I got, how much I owe?

Poetry: Lake Bret Harte

If students attended Bret Harte during the years that a certain extremely negligent head custodian reigned, nearly every one of them would be able to tell you about this memorable “lake.” Located on the terrace where the kids ate their lunch, it was a body of incredibly putrid rainwater, rotten food and garbage that filled a concrete planter with a clogged drain. Being imaginative children, the students named it “Lake Bret Harte.”

Our daughter would complain and complain about the stench, but I never thought it would be as bad as she said it was until I checked it out for myself. The lesson here is to listen to your kids.

When workers from the District finally did something about the stinking hole, they just filled it up with asphalt. I always wished they had simply cleared the drain so the container could have been filled with soil and growing plants.

LAKE BRET HARTE
by George Higgins

Is not really one.
It’s not above the timberline
Lapping over lichened rocks or granite,
its gentle surf rattling stones.
It doesn’t freeze in winter
or slumber, fed by a glacial field,
nor does it wallow in the bowl, say,
above Glen Canyon Dam or Hetch Hetchy
houseboats bobbing in the shadow of sandstone arches,
although who knows all origins
man made or atmospheric?
What evaporates here may be deposited there
or piped somewhere else.
Nor did the writer Bret Harte ever sit
by its waters and calculate
a metaphor for this empty planter,
triangle shaped with six inch thick concrete walls
between steps and curb,
leading to the Cafetorium.
This isosceles triangle, a hollowed planter,
the kids say you could bury someone standing up
in this Oakland Middle School bearing his name.
While the students eat lunch
this well fills up on rainy days but never drains.
It contains the Milky Ways, the curdled cartons,
the discarded crust, decomposing batter
provided on the Black Top by a vendor.
Lake Bret Harte a name
created by the students
a lesson in irony, self taught,
their gift back to the bard
of the Oakland Hills.

January 2001

Gang Awareness Workshop: Commentary and Summary

Part 1: Commentary

On April 12, 2008, I attended a Gang Awareness Workshop in the gymnasium of St. Anthony’s Church, located near E. 15^th Street and 16^th Avenue in Oakland’s San Antonio district. Several weeks ago, this church was the site of a funeral for a 15-year-old Latino boy who was killed by the police for allegedly refusing to drop a gun. On the day of his funeral, mourners at the church were the intended targets of a drive-by shooting. A 13-year-old was shot. Gang affiliations are attributed to these incidents.

In response to this incident and the increasing presence of Latino gangs in Oakland, this workshop was organized by City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente and the OCO (Oakland Community Organization). Noel Gallo, the OUSD School Board representative for District 5, was present for a portion of the meeting. I am not aware that anyone else from Oakland's public school leadership attended. A number of parents were in attendance, mostly affiliated with St. Anthony School, a small K-8 Roman Catholic school located at the same site. Several members of the church also attended the meeting.

The information was presented by members of California Youth Outreach and its founder, Pastor Tony Ortiz. It focused on Mexican gangs in particular, but much of the content would hold true for other gangs: Black, White, Asian, Central American, etc.

California Youth Outreach (CYO) reported that they currently provide services to OUSD students at the high school level, namely at the Fremont Federation (College Prep & Architecture Academy, Mandela High School, Media College Prep and the Robeson School of Visual & Performing Arts) and at the Youth Empowerment School (also known as the Castlemont Community of Small Schools which includes Business & Information Technology, East Oakland School of the Arts and Leadership Preparatory High School). They also work with students at the Street Academy and Community Day which are OUSD alternative high schools serving very high-risk student populations.

The presentation was given in Spanish. Several handouts were given, including one for the PowerPoint presentation which was also in Spanish. English speakers were given Assisted Listening Devices (headphones with receivers) so that they could hear the interpreter. For some time I have been curious about what it would be like to use these devices. At other meetings I've been to, the attendees who have needed to use them have been the non-English speakers. I discovered that they work very well as long as the channels are set correctly and the batteries are fresh.

This was an excellent workshop. The summary which I have written is based on my notes taken at the meeting and on the limited amount of Spanish that I am able to read. It is by no means comprehensive, but it is enough to provide you with some of the important points which were covered. My hope is that that the word will spread about the need to disseminate this information to members of the community, and that presentations such as these will become commonplace.

Pressure must be placed on the Oakland Unified School District and the Oakland Police Department to join forces for the purpose of informing school staff and parents about youth gangs. With the rapid turnover of OUSD staff, and the fact that many teachers are inexperienced and coming from out of the area, presentations should be provided on an ongoing basis. Also, since the parent body is constantly changing, sets of parents should receive ongoing instruction as well. I believe that, for the best preventative measures, the middle schools should be especially targeted with this important information.

Even if everyone in the community becomes informed, gangs won’t be wiped out entirely; they have been around for many years. However, there is an urgency to aggressively deal with this issue now. Gang presence is increasing, gangs are more heavily armed than ever before, and gangs are evolving and getting more organized. Taking increased action with today's youngest adolescents will make it more difficult for gangs to acquire new members. This will help to suppress the development and expansion of these organizations.

This matter is extremely serious. These local youth gangs are directly tied to established violent prison gangs. Look at the heartbreak in Oakland caused by violent acts. Look at our homicide rate and at who is involved with those deaths. Consider the fear that many residents of Oakland are experiencing. Witness the dropout rate in Oakland’s public schools. Click on the YouTube links below to observe the presence and power of the world of Mexican gangs for yourself.*

If you are living in one of the safer neighborhoods of Oakland, this problem may feel irrelevant to you. That does not mean that it does not exist, that it is minor, or that the crime that stems from gang activity won’t seep your way. This issue is far outside of the scope of any school’s PTA, although parent groups should insist that their school’s employees have been formally trained and are actively monitoring these matters.

Responsible Oakland residents need to inform themselves, then apply pressure and keep it on. Be involved and be brave, but be smart and careful, too.

Part 2: Summary of the Gang Awareness Workshop given by California Youth Outreach on April 12, 2008

Dealing with the problem of gangs requires a response from schools, parents, police, churches, and the entire community. The goals are to

1. Distance youth from gangs

2. Get youth who are involved with gangs to leave them so they can lead a better life.

Studies reveal the trend that gangs are becoming more and more structured. They are evolving towards more serious organized crime. Gangs will continue to be involved with drugs. They use the money from their drug business to buy weapons so they can continue to sell more and more drugs.

Kids think, "Why go to school?" They can easily see that they can make more money by not going to school than by staying in school. They believe they can get more out of life by joining a gang.

There have always been gangs who have fought with each other. In the past they used sticks to fight. Today’s gangs have rifles and high-powered weapons that make the violence much worse. Also, kids in gangs used to fight out of everyone else's view, in vacant lots for instance. Now they are much more bold and fight on the street near businesses, and even churches. This increases the chance that innocent people will get hurt.

Many times parents don't want to know that their children are involved with gangs. Sometimes they are too busy to be aware of it, or to deal with it. Parents wrongly think, "My child is not involved with gangs; they are just out with their friends." Workers for California Youth Outreach must constantly fight against the parents and their denial.

Schools are also in denial; they think they don’t have problems when they do. Says Ortiz, “The biggest problem we have getting this information into the schools is their denial.”

Many communities don’t identify local gangs early enough. It is very important to see the reality of what is going on, and to do something about it before it is too late and something serious has happened. People need to know about gangs and gang culture.

A criminal street gang is defined by the California Penal Code as any ongoing organization, association, or group of three or more persons, whether formal or informal, having as one of its primary activities, the commission of one or more of the criminal acts enumerated in section 186.22 (E)(1-25), having a common name or identifying sign or symbol and whose members individually or collectively engage in or have engaged in a pattern of criminal gang activity.

Gangs can be identified by certain colors that they wear, tattoos or symbols, the people with whom they associate, where they live, etc. There are three main Mexican gangs: the Norteños, the Sureños, and the Border Brothers.

Norteños are mostly from Northern California. Their symbols are the color red, the number 14 (depicted as IVX, X4, the numbers 1 and 4) and the abbreviation “Norte.”

Sureños are more from LA and are more Mexican. Their symbols are the color blue, the number 13 (depicted as XIII, X3, the numbers 1 and 3) and the abbreviation “Sur.”

Border Brothers are usually more recent Mexican immigrants. Their symbols are the colors black and white, the image of the Virgin Mary and the abbreviation “BB.”

These gangs are enemies and hate each other. They have been known to drive around and shoot at anyone they see who they think is a member of another gang. They aren’t shooting at the person – they are shooting at the color.

Sometimes, kids who are not in the gangs will have friends who are in gangs. When they are hanging out together, the good kids can get hurt. Parents must know who their kids are hanging out with.

There are different reasons why kids join gangs. Tony Ortiz explained it is because certain things are going on in their family, in their community and at their school. He says that sometimes parents are “making a living but forget to make a life.” Parents don’t always make time to see what (non-material) things their kids need. He reminds parents to remember that the most important things are the relationships, not the material things.

Five reasons why kids join gangs:

1. Protection: Early gangs were organized by kids to give protection to each other at school and after school. The friends will help them out because the parents are not there.

2. Stimulation: It is euphoric to be involved with a gang and the kids get an adrenaline rush. Kids feel that the activities they once did are boring to them now.

3. Identity: Membership in a gang gives kids who aren’t educated, don’t have enough money, or who live in the wrong part of the city a chance to be something special.

4. Recognition: Kids make friends in the gang who will recognize and accept them for who they are. The things that parents want for their children are not always the things the kids want for themselves. Also, parents need to give recognition to their kids when they do things right. Stressed parents don’t always do this.

5. Opportunity: The reason kids will take these risks is because they can get money for doing so. Membership in a gang gives kids the opportunity to get nice things like iPods and expensive clothing. Sometimes parents see their kids with these items, and know they did not buy them. This is a red flag that is warning the parents about something!

Signs of participation in a gang:

-Nicknames: The first thing the kid adopts is a nickname. Usually this is derived from a special characteristic that they have -- physical, personal or psychological, real or imagined. Many Latino parents give their children nicknames, but if parents learn that their children’s friends are calling them by a nickname that is not familiar, it might indicate involvement in a gang. Parents also need to pay attention to the quality of the nicknames that the friends use, and to ask their children about it.

-Hand signs: Hand signs are used to greet other members of the same gang, to challenge a rival gang member, to intimidate people who aren’t in the gang, etc. The hand signs vary but they usually form letters or numbers. This is often called “throwing gang signs.”

-Graffiti: Graffiti identifies gang territory and declares allegiance. It challenges rivals. If you see a lot of graffiti in your neighborhood, there will be gang activity.

-Tattoos: Many people have tattoos these days, but sometimes tattoos affirm a person’s affiliation to a gang. For instance, someone affiliated with the Norteño gang may have one dot on one hand (stands for 10) and then four more dots on the other hand (to represent 14). They earn the dots by completing tasks for the gang. At school, kids might draw on their hands with a pen and then wash it off when they get home. If they are doing this, they are thinking about gangs. Parents and teachers need to ask, “Why do they want to put those things on their body?” Sometimes members will burn symbols into their skin with a cigarette.

-Verbal codes: These are gang expressions. Some have been adopted by mainstream culture.

-Photographs: Gang members love to take pictures of each other. We need to be looking for certain things in the pictures that kids take of one another. For example, if the people in the photos are throwing gang signs.

-Music: There is music that Norteños make, and there is music that Sureños make. The kids can download this music on their iPods and listen to it all day long. Then the messages in the music get imbedded in the kids' brains and those ideas get reinforced. This influences their emotions. See the links below to listen to some of this music.

-Technology: Web sites exist which feature and promote the gangs. Parents need to look into what is going on in their children’s rooms and on their computers.

-Age: Participation in gangs is now starting in elementary school. Kids as young as seven or eight-years-old are being taught how to throw gang signs.

Signs that a child might be involved in a gang:

• Dropping grades – for instance a child who was getting A’s and B’s in 6^th grade, but now is in the 7^th grade and has plummeting grades.
• Switching to different friends
• Missing school and cutting class
• Staying out late
• Drug and alcohol use
• In possession of unexplained money and expensive items
• Gang graffiti symbols in their room, on their clothing, and on their school papers and notebooks
• Strongly favoring one color to wear
• Using gang hand signs
• Attitude problems with parents and/or other authority figures
• Getting excited about gangs
• Moving away from family
• Sudden changes in music or clothing tastes
• Body modifications like tattoos, wounds, burns and other marks

The overall pattern of behavior is of a child needing to display an attitude which is defiant of authority figures.

Ideas for parents:

Insist that you meet their friends and the parents of their friends. You need to know who your kids are spending time with. Be alert to the possibility that the parents of the friends might be gang members themselves.

Inspect your children’s bedrooms and understand that you have the right to do so. If they resist, say to them, “I pay the rent so I go where I want in this house.”

Set limits to behavior and conduct. Be consistent. In some Latino families, the mom will say, “Go ask your dad,” and the dad will say, “Go ask your mom.” Parents need to be in agreement with each other.

Parents need to go to school and talk to their child’s teachers and counselors. They need to know when the report cards are coming out so they can watch for their child's grades.

It is all a matter of being on top of these things and then knowing what to do.

*These YouTube links demonstrate what kids might be listening to. For the full effect, read the extensive comments that viewers have made. Also, be sure to notice that there are many, many more videos to choose from. The content of the music and the imagery reveal the mentality that the uninvolved community and law enforcement must face.

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlJtlvCIpf0&feature=related
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8cpwrpR3po&feature=related
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZKBhQLkJdc&feature=related
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scy2irhG2ic&feature=related
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67KHxEQGl3o&feature=related
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD37_ipfCHw&feature=related

California Youth Outreach can be contacted at (408) 280-0203 or look online at www.cyoutreach.org. For CYO services in Oakland, call Henry Woods at (510) 377-5121 or email him at hwoods@cyoutreach.org.

A great deal of information about gangs is available online. Check out the U.S. Department of Justice Community Oriented Community Policing Services (C.O.P.S.) web site at http://www.cops.usdoj.gov/Default.asp?Item=1383. Also, see http://www.safeyouth.org/scripts/index.asp

An article about how innocent people are hurt: “Teens cautious on streets where people get shot for no reason,” SF Chronicle, 1/20/07, http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/01/20/MNGP3NM6D91.DTL

Epiliogue: Immediately after this meeting I attended a beautification work day at my daughter’s high school. To document the event, I gathered a group of students together for a photo. These were nice kids who had come to school on a Saturday to help out. When the kids were in position and I was ready to take the photo, I noticed that many of them were making hand signs. I don’t know if these were real gang signs or not, but I told them, “No hand signs. I won’t take the picture if you guys are throwing hand signs.” They were obedient and put their hand signs away. As responsible adults, we need to be aware of, and to insist on, certain things from our children.

Teachers displaying status (or not)

Before teachers ever step into a classroom to lead it, they should be required to master the content of one very important chapter in “Impro: Improvisation and the Theater” by Keith Johnstone.¹ This book is the bible of improvisational theater and it contains information that is essential for helping teachers function effectively.

I became aware of "Impro" last summer on a road trip when my husband started reading the chapter entitled “Status” to the family aloud. Our two daughters immediately recognized that their observations of at least 73 teachers over the past 15 years were being confirmed by the dynamics described in the book.

I am certain that you'll be reading the chapter yourselves, but here is a sample anyway:

“…every inflection [in one’s voice] and movement implies a status… In reality status transactions continue all the time.”

“We’ve all observed different kinds of teachers, so if I describe three types of status players commonly found in the teaching profession you may find that you already know exactly what I mean.

I remember one teacher, whom we liked but who couldn’t keep discipline…

Another teacher, who was generally disliked, never punished and yet exerted a ruthless discipline…

A third teacher, who was much loved, never punished but kept excellent discipline, while remaining very human...

I thought about these teachers a lot, but I couldn’t understand the forces operating on us. I would now say that the incompetent teacher was a low-status player: he twitched, he made many unnecessary movements, he went red at the slightest annoyance, and he always seemed like an intruder in the classroom. The one who filled us with terror was a compulsive high-status player. The third was a status expert, raising and lowering his status with great skill. The pleasure attached to misbehaving comes partly from the status changes you make in your teacher. All those jokes on teacher are to make him drop in status. The third teacher could cope easily with any situation by changing his status first.”

Of course, the rules that govern how status is displayed and perceived in a school environment would also rub up against the rules that govern how status is displayed and perceived by those who adhere to the values contained in the “code of the street.”²

Recently, I was listening to a lecture about urban education by Pedro Noguera, a popular sociologist who studies the ways in which schools are influenced by social and economic conditions in the urban environment. He mentioned the importance of having individuals with “moral authority” work in the schools and bemoaned the fact that there are too few.³ I am currently reading Noguera's new book, “The Trouble With Black Boys: And Other Reflections on Race, Equity, and the Future of Public Education” (Jossey-Bass, 2008).

The transcript from his lecture states:

“The biggest shortage in many of our schools is a shortage of adults with moral authority. Moral authority is not authority rooted in a title or in a uniform, it is rooted in a relationship. Adults who have moral authority are adults who are able to get kids to listen to them, to follow their instructions, and therefore able to guide them because of what they represent in the eyes of those children. All of us know of adults who have that ability, don’t we? They are the ones you call on when the classroom is out of control, to bring order again. They are the ones who can come, adults and children now not because they are big and intimidating, but because of who they are and what they represent, there are a shortage of these adults in our schools today.”

Of course Noguera is talking about status, too.

Anyone entering the teaching profession should be consciously learning, and practicing, how their body language and tone of voice can subtly raise, or lower, their status in the eyes of their students. This is especially true for secondary school teachers who are dealing with older children who are in the process of transitioning into adults. A new teacher’s ability to manipulate the students in their classroom will determine if they are going to professionally sink or swim, and how quickly.

The manner in which teachers exhibit their level of status is a crucial concept, but seems to be rarely discussed.

Because we are primates, it will always be true that some people will display a higher status more naturally than others. However, if new teachers acquired a set of acting techniques, they could learn to project heightened levels of status when necessary.

This singular topic is probably as important as the many other things crammed into the six week training given to the Oakland Teaching Fellows combined. This program recruits young people (many in their early twenties) to fill the teaching vacancies in OUSD. The only applicant requirements are to possess a Bachelor’s degree, have a GPA of 2.75 or higher, pass two state teaching tests (the CBEST and CSET), and be willing to dive into an Oakland public school head first.

For a month an a half in the summer before they start full-time work in a school, participants learn about state standards, the foundations of teaching, and classroom management. They have discussions and activities about the challenges and benefits of teaching in a diverse educational setting. They work with current teachers in OUSD summer school classrooms, learn about lesson planning, and get a chance to help teach a summer school class. Then they are thrown to the wolves.

Learning about Johnstone's work may have helped one new 7th grade teacher, a bright and once confident young woman, who spiraled down, emotionally out of control, within the first three weeks of school and then left. Students in her abandoned classes had a string of substitute teachers for four months until they were permanently squeezed into any available spaces of other teachers with already full schedules.

Because it is so hard to find teachers who are willing to work in OUSD schools, recruiters find young people who are smart and well-intentioned, but who have never had the opportunity of being real student teachers, have had little or no personal experience in tough urban schools, and are clueless about the complexities of status and how it determines who is in control of the classroom. No wonder these teachers have such difficulty making 30+ non-compliant, cynical, hopeless urban adolescents cooperate with the State of California's educational agenda.

¹Read the many five star Amazon reviews of “Impro: Improvisation and the Theater” by Keith Johnstone (Routledge/Theatre Arts Books, 1979)

² "Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City" by Elijah Anderson (W.W. Norton & Company, 1999)

³The 2007 Konopka Lecture by Dr. Pedro Noguera, “What Does it Take to Leave No Child Behind?” was sponsored by the Konopka Institute for Best Practices in Adolescent Health, Department of Pediatrics, University of Minnesota. Go to http://www.med.umn.edu/peds/ahm/programs/konopka/lectureships/home.html