American Indian Public Charter School
Commencement Address

By Lance T. Izumi
Director of Education Studies
Pacific Research Institute

Thank you, Dr. Chavis. It is a true pleasure and an honor to have been invited to be your graduation speaker here today. I know that Governor Schwarzenegger recently visited and spoke at your school, so I know that I better make this a good speech!

Let me first offer my heartiest congratulations to all the graduates and their parents, grandparents, relatives and friends. This is, I know, an extremely proud moment for all of you. You have worked very hard to reach this point. All you students have studied, practiced, done homework, participated in class and taken more tests than you can remember – or really want to remember. But all this has paid off. You have excelled beyond so many people’s expectations. In fact, I know that I’m standing in front of one of the smartest group of middle-school graduates, not just in Oakland, but in the entire state of California.

For the families of the graduates, I know that Dr. Chavis’s philosophy is to make sure that family members and extended family members support his students. Having talked a great deal with Dr. Chavis, I know that if there are problems, the family and extended family is going to know about it and those problems are going to be fixed – or else! There is a horrible lie out in our land that says that families in inner cities somehow don’t care as much about their kids as families in other areas. All the families here today have proven just how untrue this lie is. You are to be commended for helping your children succeed, and I know that you will have many more proud moments in the future.

As Dr. Chavis mentioned, I am the co-author of the book Free to Learn: Lessons from Model Charter Schools. When I first started to do research for the book, I sat down and looked at all the test scores for all the charter schools in California over a three year period. I wanted to see which schools were really improving year after year. The first school I noticed was American Indian Public Charter School. Now I had never heard of your school before that time. I had no idea how you were being taught, how the school was run, or even who your principal was. So I had my assistant and co-author Xiaochin Yan call up Dr. Chavis and set up an appointment to meet and discuss why it is that your school is so successful.

Once we met Dr. Chavis, we knew why all you have succeeded so well. Your principal, as I’m sure you all know, makes one heck of a first impression. We were blown away by how he has made your school so different than any of the other schools in California. We were blown away by how he was able to get some of the best teachers in the country to work here and to teach all of you. We were blown away by how all of you performed when we visited your classrooms. Most incredibly, we were blown away by Dr. Chavis’s honesty. He is not afraid to speak the truth.

He told us that he didn’t go looking for teachers just like all the other schools here in Oakland. He didn’t hire somebody just because they went to a teachers’ college. No he hired your teachers based on the fact that they were very smart; they went to some of the best universities in the country; they knew their subject matter; and they were willing to stay with all of you for three straight years and to teach you every subject from English to math to social studies to science. You have got to be a really smart teacher to do all that, because let me tell you, there are lots of teachers in regular public schools who can’t teach a single one of those subjects very well.

Having great teachers is tremendously important, because people like me who study what succeeds in education, have found that students like you do a lot better if you have smart teachers teaching you.

Dr. Chavis also told us that he made it a point to get all of you new textbooks. He said that lousy schools have one thing in common, they don’t have textbooks for the kids. And he’s right. The state of California expects all of you to know certain things by the time you finish the sixth grade, by the time you finish the seventh grade, and by the time you graduate from the eighth grade. Well, how are you supposed to learn these things, study these things, do your homework, and practice if you don’t have a book to help you? You can’t. What is so sad is that there are a lot of schools where principals and teachers think that textbooks are old-fashioned, and so students are forced to struggle and learn without them. And you know what -- surprise, surprise -- they end up not learning, not graduating, and not doing well in life.

Dr. Chavis also is not scared to test all of you on your knowledge. He isn’t afraid because he knows you know what you have learned and you have learned it well. When you hear principals and teachers oppose testing students because they say tests negatively affect how students feel about themselves, you know that the truth is that they are worried that they have not done a good job of teaching their students, and that the tests are going to show how bad a job they have actually done.

So all of you have been the beneficiaries of Dr. Chavis’s experience of how a good school should operate; his ability to see what works and what doesn’t work; and his philosophy of success. He told us that he wasn’t going to be satisfied until all of you were beating those kids up in Piedmont and I hear that you are just about to do that! He wants all of you to succeed, because he and all of us know you all of you have the intelligence and skill and the inner motivation to do so. His faith in you has been proved by your achievements. American Indian Public Charter School is a beacon of excellence that cuts through the fog of mediocrity and failure that shrouds so much of education in California.

Ever since I wrote my book, I have been telling anyone who will listen that if they want to improve education in our state, we need to re-create more schools like American Indian. Your school cannot be just an isolated success story that politicians come to when they want to have a nice photo opportunity. We must try to make sure that the lessons that we have learned here at your school are learned at the schools in Los Angeles, San Diego, Sacramento, Fresno, and elsewhere. In fact, I’ve just written an article for the Riverside Press-Enterprise newspaper in Southern California saying that if we want to reduce high school dropout rates, we need more middle schools like American Indian. Which brings me to my challenge to all of you here today, both parents and grandparents and students, but especially you students.

Who knows better why all of you have done so well besides yourselves? Yes, I have written a book, but you have lived the American Indian Public Charter School experience for three years. You know how hard you were required to work and study, how good your teachers are, and how much was expected of you. You need to be education ambassadors to tell other people about what went right at your school. To put it in a religious context, we need you to be preachers to spread the good news and convert people to believe in what works here at American Indian. Only when more people in California understand all of this can we hope that other students will have the same high-quality schooling that all of you received.

You also need to remind people that much of what went on here at American Indian could not have happened had your school not been a charter school. As a charter school your principal had the flexibility and freedom to hire the best teachers, to schedule your classes so you stayed together for three years, to have extra teaching time, and to use the money for your school where it would do the most good. Your school doesn’t get as much money as other schools, but Dr. Chavis says it’s how you spend your money, not how much that matters. There are 7,000 schools in California, but only 450 charter schools. We need more and better charter schools, like American Indian, if California is to continue to be a great state.

You may wonder how you can speak out as a young student here in Oakland. I live and work in Sacramento, California’s capital. I want to tell you that when the State Legislature holds hearings, smart, informed and articulate young people like you are very persuasive to our elected representatives. I did a series of hearings around the state with a California state senator, Chuck Poochigian, in order to let people in different parts of the state know what works well in education. I would have loved for any or all of you to have talked to Senator Poochigian to tell him your stories and your experiences. By better understanding why your school works so well, he and other legislators can then understand how to improve other schools. That’s how we change things for the better for everyone.

In closing, I know that all of you will go on to phenomenal success in your lives. You will achieve great things in high school, college and your careers. But like all people who are blessed with good fortune, remember to give something back. You were blessed with a great education here at American Indian. You can give something back by helping to make sure that all other children in our state have a great education, too.

Thank you and, again, congratulations.

Lance T. Izumi is director of Education Studies at the Pacific Research Institute, a California-based think tank. He can be reached via email at lizumi@pacificresearch.org.