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I am pretty sure that the school is for the underclass/lower class. In those cases, yes, in order for people to get along even to the point that they stop disrupting the learning process you practically have to beat the tribalism out of them.
Multiculturalism is not necessary for a disruptive learning environment (CVUHSD in LA is ~75% Hispanic and tests even worse than the average LA high school) nor is it sufficient (plenty of wealthy zip codes with a lot of immigrants where the kids is definitely learning, even if they have their own dysfunctions).
Yep. It's non selective and draws its pupils from a known poor area full of poor people. It's not somewhere I'd want to send my future children too (it would stifle them) but its policies and ethos are excellent for turning little shits (who have nothing in them to be stifled in the first place) into decent if unremarkable members of society, I want to see 100x of these schools all over the country.
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Yeah, I went to a "multicultural" school mainly made up of the children of middle-to-upper-middle class people from across the globe. Russians, Chinese, Nigerians.
None of this shit was needed, because people mostly self-segregated and figured out a way to live within that* and teachers simply didn't tolerate shit, it's not like they couldn't find someone else to pay those extortionate tuition fees. My first assumption hearing this was this was a no-excuse school for the problem kids (I wonder if this is a "win" or not for Wax's model: the 'no-excuse' school still faced attempts to destroy it on grounds of difference, just as she claims income-integration schools do, yet it survived)
* Though maybe the next generation will lose the segregation aspect and have more conflict as a result...
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