Last week, the latest scores are out and so is analysis, it is open enrollment so parents looking for a school for next year should be applying– we have some views on that, a parent implores us to focus on saving students and not systems, community building in the Kaiser/Sankofa community, lots on the school board meeting, and other engagements, the rally for better funding– all that and much more, please read, share, and get involved
Oakland:
- Committees Take Center Stage Beginning This Monday: November is the Month for All to Attend and Engage
- Celebrating The Critical Importance of Black Educators and Getting More of Them in Oakland
- Colin Kaepernick celebrates 32nd birthday by helping Oakland community
- Saving Oakland Students
- Building the Sankofa/Kaiser Community; Starting with a Soap Box Racer and How You Can Join In
- CRUNCHED: Are We Closing Achievement Gaps in Oakland?
- Oaktown Jazz Workshops, a Beacon of Youth Music Programs, Turns 25
- School Board Moves Meetings to Private Room, Excluding Public
- Update on Action Steps in Response to 10/23 Board Meeting
- Oakland school board closes meeting to public, citing protests
- Bay Area students and teachers rally for school funding and Prop 13 reform
California:
- Newsletter: California interest groups near the $300-million mark in Sacramento lobbying
- Blackface classroom rap lands California teacher on suspension, school says
- A novel idea for California: requiring students to fill out financial aid forms
- Where Does Cultural Competency and Quality Fit into CA’s Teacher Credential? A Black Teacher Wonders
- State audit finds education money not serving high-needs students, calls for changes in funding law
- California spending over $13 billion annually on special education
- California is failing its students. Where is the outrage?
- Audit Shows California Fails To Adequately Identify, Support Homeless Students
- Audit backs school finance critics
Other Stories:
- Teaching Arabic on Staten Island
- Children were told to ‘build the wall’ at White House Halloween party
- New Library Is a $41.5 Million Masterpiece. But About Those Stairs.
Resources:
Oakland:
- Committees Take Center Stage Beginning This Monday: November is the Month for All to Attend and Engage
- On Monday, November 4, the Community Advisory Committee for Special Education will engage in a groundbreaking discussion about how we can best monitor the reading development of students with dis/abilities who have IEPs. Participants at the meeting will review school site data about the participation of students with IEPs in reading assessments. A panel discussion with principals who are modeling academic and social dis/ability inclusion will complement the data dialogue.
- Celebrating The Critical Importance of Black Educators and Getting More of Them in Oakland
- One relatively simple and costless reform could decrease Black dropout rates by roughly a third, increase all Black students’ expectations around going to college, increase significantly the percentage of Black students in gifted classes, while also increase student engagement for youth of all races.
- Colin Kaepernick celebrates 32nd birthday by helping Oakland community
- Former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick took time out over a weekend to mark his 32nd birthday by supporting local communities under threat.
- Saving Oakland Students
- Oakland schools are coming to grips with a budget deficit they can’t solve without closing, merging or consolidating some schools. That means tough decisions are coming.
- Building the Sankofa/Kaiser Community; Starting with a Soap Box Racer and How You Can Join In
- Community building begins face to face, and amidst the tantrums and disruptions of the Sankofa/Kaiser merger, some parents are working on building that community. It started with a simple gesture, building a soap box racer, and it is growing.
- CRUNCHED: Are We Closing Achievement Gaps in Oakland?
- Following up on my recent post on high-level takeaways from the past 5 years of SBAC scores, I wanted to dive deeper into whether Oakland has been narrowing racial achievement gaps over time. It’s good to know that Oakland has improved over the past 5 years, but are those increases evenly distributed across different student subgroups?
- Oaktown Jazz Workshops, a Beacon of Youth Music Programs, Turns 25
- Founded by beloved Oakland trumpeter Khalil Shaheed during 1994’s drastic cuts to East Bay public school music programs, the Oaktown Jazz Workshops celebrates its 25th anniversary at Yoshi’s on Tuesday, Nov. 12, with a bountiful display of its achievements.
- School Board Moves Meetings to Private Room, Excluding Public
- The Oakland Unified School District (OUSD), responding to ongoing parent and teacher protests against school closings at school board meetings , moved this week’s Board of Education meeting to a private “committee room” and plan to continue to meet in private at future meetings.
- Update on Action Steps in Response to 10/23 Board Meeting
- Last week, Superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammell provided several action steps in the wake of the October 23, 2019 Board meeting
- Oakland school board closes meeting to public, citing protests
- When the Oakland school board meets next Wednesday, it may again decide to ban the public from its meeting due to fears that protesters who have disrupted previous meetings will return.
- Bay Area students and teachers rally for school funding and Prop 13 reform
- Youth activists, who since 2018 have been flexing their political muscle with rallies against gun violence and for action on climate change, took on a new cause Saturday morning in the Bay Area: a partial repeal of Proposition 13.
California:
- Newsletter: California interest groups near the $300-million mark in Sacramento lobbying
- Any way you slice the numbers inside the latest reports on lobbying California’s state government, it’s clear that the influence industry is big business. And it’s getting bigger by the day.
- Blackface classroom rap lands California teacher on suspension, school says
- A Northern California high school teacher has been put on leave after a video went viral online showing a staff member in blackface performing a rap on Halloween.
- A novel idea for California: requiring students to fill out financial aid forms
- Beyond all the debate about the types and sizes of financial aid for college, one fact matters most for students and parents: You can’t get grants and loans unless you apply for them…That’s why the Val Verde Unified School District in Riverside County became a pioneer in California two years ago in getting more families to complete the application that helps gain access to state, federal and campus aid.
- Where Does Cultural Competency and Quality Fit into CA’s Teacher Credential? A Black Teacher Wonders
- A guest post by Oakland teacher Marquise Evans, aka “Quis,” on the challenges of getting the technical teaching credential and how little it tends to mean for students
- State audit finds education money not serving high-needs students, calls for changes in funding law
- In its first detailed examination of former Gov. Jerry Brown’s landmark school funding law, the California State Auditor sharply criticized the Legislature and State Board of Education for failing to ensure that billions of dollars have been spent on low-income children and other students targeted for additional state money.
- California spending over $13 billion annually on special education
- Despite the massive investment, special education students lag behind almost all other student groups on a range of measures, such as average test scores and graduation rates. They also are suspended from school and are chronically absent — which means absent from school for 10 percent or more of the instructional year — at higher rates.
- California is failing its students. Where is the outrage?
- There has been radio silence from California’s public education leadership after the recent release of the National Assessment for Educational Progress scores, otherwise known as the Nation’s Report Card.
- Audit Shows California Fails To Adequately Identify, Support Homeless Students
- An audit released by the California State Auditor on Thursday showed that the California Department of Education and local education agencies (LEAs) fail to identify and support students experiencing homelessness.
- Audit backs school finance critics
- A half-decade ago, Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature overhauled California’s school finance system with the avowed goal of closing the “achievement gap” separating poor and English learner students from their more privileged classmates. School districts with large numbers of “at-risk” students would be given billions of extra dollars to improve their educations. From the onset, however, the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) drew criticism from education reform and civil rights groups.
Other Stories:
- Teaching Arabic on Staten Island
- Walking down the halls of Lavelle Prep Charter School on Staten Island, you hear the typical energy and excitement of a bustling New York City school. One surprising sound is that of students learning and speaking Arabic. For the past 2 years, Lavelle Prep has been enrolled in the Teachers of Critical Languages (TCLP) program granted by the U.S. Department of State. According to the TCLP website, the program “is designed to increase the study and acquisition of important world languages in U.S. schools.”
- Children were told to ‘build the wall’ at White House Halloween party
- Walking down the halls of Lavelle Prep Charter School on Staten Island, you hear the typical energy and excitement of a bustling New York City school. One surprising sound is that of students learning and speaking Arabic. For the past 2 years, Lavelle Prep has been enrolled in the Teachers of Critical Languages (TCLP) program granted by the U.S. Department of State. According to the TCLP website, the program “is designed to increase the study and acquisition of important world languages in U.S. schools.”
- New Library Is a $41.5 Million Masterpiece. But About Those Stairs.
- On Sept. 24, the Queens Public Library welcomed patrons to their new location: a $41.5 million “architectural triumph” of a library. However, in the midst of glowing reviews about the architecture of the building, a wave of critiques about accessibility has followed as patrons have begun using the space. Now, parents, caregivers, people with disabilities and their allies are challenging the library to make its new building more accessible.
Resources:
- A few considerations for choosing a school in a time of glaring inequity; A parent’s perspective
- It’s that time of year again — some anxious parents tour schools, wondering what the heck they should be looking for, others don’t even realize tours are a thing. It’s all become tragically consumeristic rather than democratic. A few things to think about that might help you navigate it all
What do you think?