This LA Times piece tells the story of American Indian Public Charter (and its two sibling schools) in the "hardscrabble flats of Oakland;" schools that are--according to the story's provocative title--"spitting in the eye of mainstream education." At the "small, no frills independent public schools," it explains, students, nearly all of them poor, wear uniforms and are subject to order and discipline similar to that of a military school. Liberal orthodoxy is openly mocked and underperforming teachers are fired, the article says.
On a scale of one to 1,000 on California's "Academic Performance Index," which is used as a measuring tool for schools, American Indian Public Charter School scores 967, according to the piece, when the statewide average is below 750 and about 650 for schools with mostly low-income students.
The story goes into a lot more detail, so check it out. And if you'd like to dig even deeper to find out more about this school, check out David Whitman's book "Sweating the Small Stuff." Whitman dedicated nearly 30 pages to American Indian Public Charter as one of 6 highly-effective "paternalistic" schools he examined. It's definitely an interesting read!