Berkeley Tech Principal on the charter system

Victor Diaz is the principal of Berkeley Technology Academy, or B-Tech.  B-Tech is a continuation high school, and Diaz has worked in the continuation system for over ten years. He spoke with KALW's Holly Kernan about the flaws in that system, and how charter schools promise a much needed change. 

This is a web extra for the the full interview between KALW's Holly Kernan and Victor Diaz about how his troubled past led him into education, and about his non-traditional approach at B-Tech.

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KERNAN: You are an advocate for turning B-Tech into a charter school, it’s been controversial. Why a charter school?

DIAZ: I’m not trying to convert B-Tech into a charter school. There are two separate issues and both require extensive examination.

One of them is that B-Tech is a continuation school. As a model, they were designed in the early 1900’s and very little has changed with regard to them. So that’s my critique of continuation schools, and I’ve worked in continuation schools for over 10 years. I’ve worked in Boston, San Francisco, here in Berkeley…I’ve had a lot of experience in examining and being a part of continuation.

It’s through those years in working with brilliant superintendents, teachers, and having a lot of resources that I discovered that continuation schools as they’re designed are designed to fail kids. It’s a system of failure; it’s a system that’s designed for failure. And so, I believe that charter schools, given the amount of autonomy that a charter school is granted, can be a model where we can start to look at the kind of success we can have with young people before they get to the place of needing a last option.

KERNAN: And one of the criticisms generally of charter schools is that they increase segregation.

DIAZ: Well, I never said I was against a segregated school entirely, and I’m not saying I’m an advocate for it also. I think those are two separate conversations. I would love to have a school that is much more racially diverse, absolutely.  But that doesn’t mean that a school that is racially segregated cannot offer education at a very high level. My charter school is not intended to segregate itself from any population. In fact, I think it’ll be a big attraction to not only racially diverse communities, but also economically diverse families will find what we are going to offer in the charter of great excitement to them as well.