Ok, what you call the manipulative teacher is one who uses
information about local culture of the children only as an instrument
to replace that culture with the one the teacher approves of. Some
people who support bilingual ed in California, for example, do so because
they think it is the quickest bridge to English, and once crossed, can
be forgotten about.
TI am not certain if the sensitive teacher gets us fully past the
"other peoples' children" problem. Ideally, I suppose so. Factually,
to be sufficiently sensitive, it might mean that the teacher needs
to be sufficiently knowledgable about local cultures to be able (for
example) to speak to parents in their native language (never mind
the kids, where in 4-5 first language classrooms, the task is impossible).
Anyway, trying to think in so cal.
mike