The famous mural, via YouTube screengrab, after the Daily Caller
Instead of citing the highly politicized content of the mural, which would make it Cuban-style propaganda, or perhaps something redolent of what the Sandinistas of Nicaragua put up before the voters threw them out in 1990, the school’s director piously cited the “violence” in the imagery as the problem. The full statement is here:
MAAC Community Charter School’s mission is to provide a safe and accepting environment where diversity of thought is recognized, valued and celebrated. There was a mural painted at the event this past weekend that does not align with our school’s philosophy of non-violence. This mural has been painted over and we have been in communication with the artists who have agreed to create a new mural that better aligns with the school’s philosophy.
It’s nonsense. A mural going up anywhere on a school grounds would normally be subject to approval by a school board and it would be normal to ask why the board of this charter independent school approved this. Someone wanted this up and backed off when the school got caught in the glare of negative publicity. The San Diego Union-Tribune asked that question and didn’t get a straight answer: the school’s marketing director said the school was “looking into” whether anyone approved it.
Let’s keep waiting on that.
A look at who’s running the school pretty well tells us what was going on. The school, whose MAAC initials stand for Metropolitan Area Advisory Committee on Anti-Poverty of San Diego County, Inc. is a project of a group of Chicano militant groups, some dating from the brown-beret era of the 1970s and earlier, and their school has been around since 2001. One name on the board stands out: Hermandad Mexicana, a Soros-funded group whose chief impact has to promote the interests of illegal immigrants. Hermandad Mexicana was the group that organized and pulled the stunt using a child to break through lines and give visiting Pope Francis a note calling for legalization of the parents of illegal immigrants in 2015. I wrote about the staging with that here.
So now they have a charter school, and that charter school claims it serves the underserved – obviously, with Chavez-style propaganda if the Trump severed head mural is any indication, just as Chavez did with the Caracas shantytown dwellers, offering goodies in exchange for political loyalty.
Charter schools get both state and federal funds, and in California, are only permitted to exist if they maintain a sufficient student ratio as well as live up to performance standards. This one doesn’t.
According to this statistic (dated to 2012, so it may be changed) they get an average of $7,131 per pupil of federal funding, plus state funding conditioned upon performance. The school has 243 students enrolled, according to its School Accountability Report Card for 2016-2017, which if the numbers are correct, would mean it gets $1,732,833 in federal funding alone.
Now let’s take a look at who’s enrolled – it’s a doozy.
According to the SARC, the school educates students up to the age of 24, and has 167 students enrolled as seniors, or, grade 12. Sixty-one are in Grade 11, a huge drop. Thirteen are in Grade 10, a more precipitous drop still, and all of two, repeat, two, are in Grade 9. There are no student rosters listed for lower grades, although the SARC forms include them as a category together with higher grades further down on the report, which could be a category placeholder.
Assuming these are all the students they have, this stands out because it suggests that most of these kids aren’t high-schoolers, they are likely adult illegal immigrants from Mexico and beyond who are the typical military-aged young men who are playing student to keep this school’s enrollment up, its funds coming, and probably to obtain Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals benefits. The Grade 12 classification is likely high because it includes 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23 and 24 year-olds.
Statistics show that, too.
According to 2016-2017 student data on the SARC (and it contradicts itself in places)
95.9% are identified a Hispanic.
70.4% are listed as socially disadvantage (the figure rises to 90% later in the report)
65% are identified as “English learners,” which would likely mean Spanish-only speakers, or unassimilated immigrants.
Combine it with the huge age gaps for the high school and it has the look of a propaganda school for young Chavista soldiers from among the illegal immigrant community.
It gets worse – look at the academic record of the place, which is the main rationale for keeping it open at all:
The SARC shows that the students, most of them young adults, not kids, all have books and the school grounds have an overall exemplary rating. Yet the performance is utterly abysmal.
English language arts / literacy for grades 3, 8, and 11 is 8%, compared with 53% for the district and 48% statewide.
Science proficiency is at 5%, compared to 49% for the district and 54% for the state.
Math is not even rated because fewer than ten students at Grade 11 are enrolled in any math, although there are some math enrollment statistics further down in the report – which would make one question then why the space was left blank.
Between 89% and 91% of the students were tested.
And 98.7% of the students were enrolled in courses required for University of California or California State Universities for admission. A mightly 0.7% completed all of them.
Which makes one wonder about this school. It’s got a facile ideological militancy of the left, it’s got a questionable student body of few high-school age students, and its academic record is abysmal.
Is this really a school that should be taking federal funds and allowed by the state to exist as an alternative to public schools?
It has the look of a front group for something else, something that doesn’t resemble education.
A charter school in Chula Vista, Calif., just south of San Diego, got its name in the news for hosting a mural featuring a bloodied severed head of President Trump.
After a public outcry, the school acted quickly to cover it up, and got the “artist” (Sasha Andrade, who has no record at all on the Internet of creating any art) to change it, apparently under protest.
The famous mural, via YouTube screengrab, after the Daily Caller
Instead of citing the highly politicized content of the mural, which would make it Cuban-style propaganda, or perhaps something redolent of what the Sandinistas of Nicaragua put up before the voters threw them out in 1990, the school’s director piously cited the “violence” in the imagery as the problem. The full statement is here:
MAAC Community Charter School’s mission is to provide a safe and accepting environment where diversity of thought is recognized, valued and celebrated. There was a mural painted at the event this past weekend that does not align with our school’s philosophy of non-violence. This mural has been painted over and we have been in communication with the artists who have agreed to create a new mural that better aligns with the school’s philosophy.
It’s nonsense. A mural going up anywhere on a school grounds would normally be subject to approval by a school board and it would be normal to ask why the board of this charter independent school approved this. Someone wanted this up and backed off when the school got caught in the glare of negative publicity. The San Diego Union-Tribune asked that question and didn’t get a straight answer: the school’s marketing director said the school was “looking into” whether anyone approved it.
Let’s keep waiting on that.
A look at who’s running the school pretty well tells us what was going on. The school, whose MAAC initials stand for Metropolitan Area Advisory Committee on Anti-Poverty of San Diego County, Inc. is a project of a group of Chicano militant groups, some dating from the brown-beret era of the 1970s and earlier, and their school has been around since 2001. One name on the board stands out: Hermandad Mexicana, a Soros-funded group whose chief impact has to promote the interests of illegal immigrants. Hermandad Mexicana was the group that organized and pulled the stunt using a child to break through lines and give visiting Pope Francis a note calling for legalization of the parents of illegal immigrants in 2015. I wrote about the staging with that here.
So now they have a charter school, and that charter school claims it serves the underserved – obviously, with Chavez-style propaganda if the Trump severed head mural is any indication, just as Chavez did with the Caracas shantytown dwellers, offering goodies in exchange for political loyalty.
Charter schools get both state and federal funds, and in California, are only permitted to exist if they maintain a sufficient student ratio as well as live up to performance standards. This one doesn’t.
According to this statistic (dated to 2012, so it may be changed) they get an average of $7,131 per pupil of federal funding, plus state funding conditioned upon performance. The school has 243 students enrolled, according to its School Accountability Report Card for 2016-2017, which if the numbers are correct, would mean it gets $1,732,833 in federal funding alone.
Now let’s take a look at who’s enrolled – it’s a doozy.
According to the SARC, the school educates students up to the age of 24, and has 167 students enrolled as seniors, or, grade 12. Sixty-one are in Grade 11, a huge drop. Thirteen are in Grade 10, a more precipitous drop still, and all of two, repeat, two, are in Grade 9. There are no student rosters listed for lower grades, although the SARC forms include them as a category together with higher grades further down on the report, which could be a category placeholder.
Assuming these are all the students they have, this stands out because it suggests that most of these kids aren’t high-schoolers, they are likely adult illegal immigrants from Mexico and beyond who are the typical military-aged young men who are playing student to keep this school’s enrollment up, its funds coming, and probably to obtain Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals benefits. The Grade 12 classification is likely high because it includes 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23 and 24 year-olds.
Statistics show that, too.
According to 2016-2017 student data on the SARC (and it contradicts itself in places)
95.9% are identified a Hispanic.
70.4% are listed as socially disadvantage (the figure rises to 90% later in the report)
65% are identified as “English learners,” which would likely mean Spanish-only speakers, or unassimilated immigrants.
Combine it with the huge age gaps for the high school and it has the look of a propaganda school for young Chavista soldiers from among the illegal immigrant community.
It gets worse – look at the academic record of the place, which is the main rationale for keeping it open at all:
The SARC shows that the students, most of them young adults, not kids, all have books and the school grounds have an overall exemplary rating. Yet the performance is utterly abysmal.
English language arts / literacy for grades 3, 8, and 11 is 8%, compared with 53% for the district and 48% statewide.
Science proficiency is at 5%, compared to 49% for the district and 54% for the state.
Math is not even rated because fewer than ten students at Grade 11 are enrolled in any math, although there are some math enrollment statistics further down in the report – which would make one question then why the space was left blank.
Between 89% and 91% of the students were tested.
And 98.7% of the students were enrolled in courses required for University of California or California State Universities for admission. A mightly 0.7% completed all of them.
Which makes one wonder about this school. It’s got a facile ideological militancy of the left, it’s got a questionable student body of few high-school age students, and its academic record is abysmal.
Is this really a school that should be taking federal funds and allowed by the state to exist as an alternative to public schools?
It has the look of a front group for something else, something that doesn’t resemble education.
