Viewpoints: Education board can save these great schools
Published: Saturday, Jul. 27, 2013 - 12:00 am | Page 11A
One of the best elementary schools in California isn't in San Francisco or Beverly Hills. It happens to be located at 171 12th Street in Oakland, of all places, next to a trash-strewn lot and across the street from one of the most hideous parking garages I've ever seen.
About 650 elementary school kids attend American Indian Public Charter School II in what used to be a Wells Fargo Bank office. In the 2011-12 school year, the students scored a remarkable 981 out of 1,000 on the state's academic performance index, ranking fourth in the state. No wonder parents from across the downtrodden city clamor to get their children enrolled there.
Yet by the end of this coming school year, odds are AIPCS II and its equally high-performing sisters, American Indian Public Charter School and American Indian Public Charter High School, will lose their charters and be forced to close. More than 1,200 students will be scattered to inferior public schools across Oakland Unified School District, which itself may be on the cusp of returning to state receivership for the second time in a decade.
All that's left between American Indian's kids and bureaucratic oblivion is a reprieve from the