World News Group has an annual Hope Awards competition where people nominate groups doing good in the world. One of the nominees that impressed me this year was the Oaks Academy in Indianapolis.
This is the article from the World Magazine I read biweekly:
INDIANAPOLIS—When The Oaks Academy in Indianapolis opened in 1998, its
home was a former public school building in a crime-ridden neighborhood
called Dodge City that was full of vacant lots and abandoned houses.
The school’s founders wanted to help families in need by going deeper
than after-school tutoring and summer camp. Putting Oaks in a tough
neighborhood helped fulfill that vision, and the founders wanted a tough
curriculum. Soon 53 students, almost evenly divided between black and
white, were memorizing the preamble to the Constitution, diagramming
sentences, and working on Latin conjugations.
Students, prompted to be all they could be, responded with hard work.
Outside the school, change also came. The Oaks helped attract
adventurous middle-class families who rescued broken-down houses and
built some new ones on the vacant lots.
Over the years crime decreased, the neighborhood improved, and the
school grew to 665 students—half are low income, one-fourth middle
income, and one-fourth higher income. Racially, of every five students,
two are African-American, two are white, and one is biracial, Asian, or
Hispanic.
The school curriculum incorporates a biblical worldview but does not
shout it. “We are Christ-centered,” says administrator Bruce Crawford:
“Christ modeled for us how to love one another in community and in
fellowship. It’s not just in chapel, but all day long. We’re trying to
live out our faith and not just adopt the Christian label.”
For example, The Oaks highlights Bible verses in a subtle way. When
the building was a public school, school officials had relegated small
stained glass windows, displaying John 8:31-32, to the basement of a
nearby house. Neighbors found the windows, which are now in the school’s
entrance doors.
School families appreciate the classical model because students get a
challenging curriculum without the bells and whistles of the latest
grand experimental educational schemes. They develop discipline through
memorization. They learn to follow stories as second-grade teachers read
aloud The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. They read classic texts:
Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, John
Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, John Milton’s Paradise Lost.
Many schools, according to The Oaks CEO Andrew Hart, grow “cynicism
among teachers and parents about a flavor-of-the-month approach in
public education.” He compares that with the “timeless and predictable”
classical model, featuring “a robust, thoughtful curriculum that will
not be changed every two years.”
Students at The Oaks wear uniforms: khaki pants, white shirt, and tie
for the guys; tartan jumper and white blouse for the girls. Parents
don’t have to worry about the wardrobe, and students aren’t making
fashion statements or showing off family wealth. Amid economic and
racial diversity, parent Lori Chandler appreciates the literal
uniformity: “Everyone wears a uniform. It puts everybody on a level
playing field.”
She and her husband Mike live in a fast-growing suburb, Fishers, with
strong public schools that their children attended in early grades. “We
desired a school where our children got to know teachers and students
who are not like them,” she said, explaining their willingness to make
the one-hour commute each way, every day, for their daughter and son.
Other suburban white families also come to The Oaks out of a desire
for their children to have a broader perspective of the world than they
might receive in their local schools. The school does not celebrate
Black History Month but weaves in African-American history throughout
the year, such as in literature (To Kill a Mockingbird) or in history
(the autobiography of Frederick Douglass).
African-American families appreciate the high expectations for all
students in The Oaks culture. Jonathan and Devonia Harris, who have four
black sons, saw from public school experience a subtle attitude of
lowered expectations for their children. It wasn’t so much racial
prejudice as an unconscious assumption by teachers that young black
males would cause trouble and not do well in the classroom.
The Oaks offers a protected environment in that sense—protection from
stereotypes about African-American males in what will be a challenging
culture to live in anyway, for black or white males. Devonia Harris now
teaches a pre-K class at The Oaks and wants her children to be “in a
classroom without cultural expectations about their ability to learn.”
She recognizes that educational problems go beyond race: “We are in a
place where we are failing boys in general.”
Michael and Frances Dailey, a mixed-race couple, wanted a school close
to their family mix, but they also saw that “diversity” at The Oaks is
not an end in itself. “They don’t see it as just a big social project,”
says Michael about school staff members: “They have a purpose in mind
for the diversity. Minority kids don’t experience low expectations.”
Frances added, regarding their sons, “We want them to be aware of racial
identity, but not be wholly defined that way.”
Providentially, The Oaks started in Indiana just when the city and
state were moving from a limited set of public and private options to a
dizzying array of choices: public (with cross-district enrollment
choice), private (with vouchers for low-income families), and charters
(some online). Indiana’s state voucher program is one of the largest in
the nation.
The Oaks has benefited from the new options. More than half the
students use vouchers—yet the school was committed to economic diversity
long before vouchers came. A good donor base allows for a $2 million
scholarship program that gives 85 percent of the students some kind of
scholarship assistance.
Perhaps the biggest challenge for The Oaks now is its success and the
temptation to drift away from the school’s original goal of helping
those in need. One way of responding to that challenge: Open new schools
on sites in other low-income areas. The school tackled a long waiting
list a few years ago by opening up a second site, The Oaks Brookside, in
another low-income neighborhood on the city’s east side. “We’re a
catalyst for renewal,” says Brookside school head Kelly Altman.
The old Brookside public school building filled up quickly, prompting
the opening of a third site, another old public school, for what is now
the middle school. The Oaks likes taking over public school buildings no
longer in use in central Indianapolis, which has declining school
enrollment. The brick buildings, at least 80 years old, can be
high-maintenance but offer solid structures, spacious classrooms, and
high ceilings.
A good idea can be ruined when entrepreneurs try to grow it too fast.
Oaks leaders have tried to avoid that danger in several ways. They have
used focus groups and outside research consultants to count the cost
carefully when opening up new sites. They have not borrowed money for
expansion but instead relied on contributors, some of whom see The Oaks
as part of a larger spiritual urban renewal in Indianapolis. They also
have stepped back from building a high school so far, because the higher
grades require bigger and more expensive sports facilities.
Could The Oaks example work elsewhere? Some Chicago community leaders
have been meeting prayerfully over that question after being impressed
with what they saw in visits to The Oaks in Indianapolis. The group
includes some Indy families who have moved to Chicago. They have a
website (thefieldschool.org) and hope to open The Field School in 2017.
The Oaks led the state on the Indiana academic test this past year,
beating out better-endowed private schools and suburban schools—but Oaks
CEO Hart remembers a much bigger purpose for the school. He wants to
bring a blessing to Indianapolis, in accord with Isaiah 61:3-4: “They
will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the
display of his splendor. They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore
the places long devastated; they will renew the ruined cities that have
been devastated for generations.”
