As a member of the so-called “charter movement” I have to tell you: there is no such thing. Seriously, the “charter movement” is a movement in the same way a bowel movement is a movement (anyone with a capable infrastructure, some inputs, and a little luck can have one—garbage in, garbage out, eat your fiber…
Month: March 2016
What We Know and Don’t Know about Oakland’s Charter Sector
I hear a lot of things about charter schools in Oakland, some good, some bad, some ugly. And while there are some hard numbers available from the OUSD Board’s engagement session, around both student demographics and performance, we are missing some critical data that ultimately informs how we think about what those numbers mean. The…
Superintendent Wilson’s Recap on OUSD’s Priorities and the Recent Coverage
I excerpted this from the OUSD Newsletter, it’s worth the read Our Focus Remains: Every Student Thrives! Dear OUSD Community: The New York Times recently wrote an article about our efforts to improve public education for all in Oakland: Oakland District at Heart of Drive to Transform Urban Schools. It’s generated a lot of important feedback, and…
What Did We Learn from the UCLA Charter School Discipline Study?
Charter-run schools need to address head on disproportionate discipline—situations where subgroups of students consistently suffer higher rates of punishment—and so do district-run schools. Those were my big takeaways from the data in the recent UCLA study which drew on data from 2012. The summary data table is here: The headlines I saw covering the study were…
Make America and Oakland Great Again
If only we could go back to that golden age before charter schools destroyed public education in Oakland. Oh the days, when all the neighborhood schools were well funded and performing perfectly, when poor Black children and rich White ones sat side by side in equality. Where language minorities were respected and received high quality…