Schools Get New Marching Orders

O A K L A N D, Calif., Nov.29 -- The campus is little more than a few Quonset huts on a decommissioned naval base, but to the seventh- and eighth-graders who drill here, the Oakland Military Institute might as well be West Point.

Dressed in black warm-ups, they move in formation along the narrow strip of black top that serves as a parade ground. The squad leaders bark out the orders, as their classmates stomp, strut or shuffle their way through the drills.

Left, right. Left, right. Left, right. Halt.

Recess has a whole new rhythm.

"I like the marching around," says one 13-year-old girl with freckles. "I just think it's fun."

The OMI, as it's called, is one of a growing number of charter schools that have looked to the military for a new educational structure. It is a public school run with help from the National Guard — help that often comes in the form of push-ups and yelling from a drill instructor.

"This is a school that has one mission: that is to qualify kids for the University of California or better," says the school's unlikely champion, one of California's best-known progressives, Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown.

‘Success Is Our Mission’

"Success is our mission. Failure is not an option," he says, sounding more like "Old Blood and Guts" Patton than Governor Moonbeam, as some wags dubbed him when he tried to make California the first state with a space program in the 1970s.

Although it remains to be seen whether OMI can accomplish that mission, Oakland's other public schools have failed miserably. The district is almost a model of how disastrous public education can be. One out of four high school kids drops out. Three out of four read below the national average. Only one in 10 go on to college.

OMI, by contrast, has few discipline problems. Attendance is strong, because the students are motivated.

Kelly Velasquez, a returning eighth-grader, says, "The kids don't act up as much, so you learn more."

Her friend and classmate Jacqueline Torres nods enthusiastically. "I used to be a D student," she says. "Now, I'm a B."