The Washington Post’s education columnist, Jay Mathews, takes a look here at Oakland, Calif.’s American Indian Public Charter School and its controversial principal, Ben Chavis.

Controversial because of his tough-talking demeanor that one teacher likened, in this Oakland Tribune story, to that of basketball coach Bobby Knight. (That same story about Chavis was headlined, “Madman, Genius, or Both?”)

Here’s the thing about Chavis, who is Lumbee from North Carolina: He gets results. By one measure, the American Indian School’s middle school grades rank fifth among all of California’s middle schools and first in Oakland. That’s tough to ignore.

Chavis credits a method that keeps kids with the same teacher through several grades, as opposed to the standard method of having different teachers for different grades and subjects. There’s a school of thought that the best teachers are ones with expertise in their fields.

But the experience at the American Indian Charter School would seem to belie that. What do you think?

Oh, and if you want to know more, Chavis has a new book, “Crazy Like A Fox: One Principal’s Triumph in the Inner City,” written with Carey Blakely, the teacher who helped him start the school.

Gwen Florio

Tags: American Indian Public Charter School, Ben Chavis, buffalo post, Education, Lumbee, Native American news, “Crazy Like A Fox: One Principal’s Triumph in the Inner City”

We’ve featured some pretty great sports stories this year, but this one might go down as the coolest of the year.

The Red Cloud Indian School’s basketball team – shown above after winning last year’s Region 8A championship – will scrimmage at halftime of the Denver Nuggets game Saturday in Colorado, the Rapid City (S.D.) Journal reports.

The invitation to the team from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation to play in front of a capacity crowd at Denver’s Pepsi Center came from the Nuggets administration as an incentive for outstanding academic grades in the classroom and sportsmanship on the court.

“Words cannot express the gratitude that my teammates and me have for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” senior Jeremy Blacksmith says. “It means the world to us, to have our hard work and dedication recognized by the esteemed Denver Nuggets organization. And we’re thankful to the Red Cloud administration for supporting this special moment in our lives.”

The team will also share a meal with the Nuggets, visit their official headquarters and practice facilities, and hold a practice on the court. The Nuggets are play Partizan Belgrade in a preseason game Saturday.

Go, Crusaders!

Gwen Florio

Tags: buffalo post, Denver Nuggets, Native American news, Pine Ridge In, Red Cloud Indian School

The city of New York has taken them to court. A judge recently shut down some smoke shops on Long Island’s Poospatuck reservation. The issue? Whether tribes can continue to sell cigarettes without collecting taxes on those sales to non-Natives.

The tribes have done so for years. You know, sovereignty and all that. But now New York, feeling the effects of the lingering recession, is looking for new sources of revenue.

The latest twist is reported here, in the Albany Times Union, whose Capitol Confidential blog says that a Long Island senator has set an Oct. 27 hearing on the issue.

In a release announcing the hearing, Sen. Craig Johnson (D., Nassau) says that “the failure to secure this badly needed revenue continues as other states – most recently Florida – have been able to reach tax collection agreements with their local Native American nations.

“This committee wants to be helpful in crafting a solution to this problem, but first we – and the public – need to be apprised of where the state and the nations stand.”

According to the state Office of the Budget, forcing tribes to collect the taxes could fill New York’s coffers with an additional $65 million this year.

We’ll keep posting about this as it unfolds.

Gwen Florio

Tags: buffalo post, Native American news, Poospatuck Indian Reservation, Tribal smoke shops