The Oakland Education Week in Review: 12/2-12/9

Last week- celebrating Black educators, a look at school diversity, Integration in Oakland? Some interesting work at Castlemont, a really important article on skyrocketing housing costs in the most affordable neighborhoods, will schools get more state aid? all that and more, please, read, share and get involved

Oakland:

California:

Other Stories:

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Oakland:

  • Celebration of Black Educators
    • Please join the State of Black Education in Oakland (SoBEO) to break bread, share a drinks and celebrate some of Oakland’s Black heroes and sheroes. Doors open at Kingston 11 at 430, we have a quick program with our honorees starting at 5 and will be celebrating with community until 7. There will be light snacks, drink tickets for folks who arrive earlier, and a great opportunity to hear from and connect with community. Spaces are limited so please register now.
  • CRUNCHED: Diversity in Oakland Schools
    • At the November 20 OUSD Board of Education meeting, I was heartened to hear our board members discussing and asking about data. One data point that they asked about was whether students in the charter schools up for renewal reflected the diversity of the students in Oakland. For this blog post, I’ll be looking at diversity in all public schools in Oakland. How reflective is any one Oakland public school of the overall public school student population in our city? 
  • Should Oakland Schools Finally Try to Integrate?
    • OUSD, like the city itself, is highly segregated. But unlike Berkeley, Oakland has never attempted to desegregate its public schools.
  • Update from Jody London, District 1 School Board Director
    • The newsletter this month is short – an invitation to a meeting next week on the future of our schools and our district, a remembrance of long-time Facilities leader Tim White, information on upcoming Board meetings, and an update on several charter school renewal petitions.​ 
  • Castlemont SUDA Open House
    • Please join us December 20 to see how our Castlemont SUDA young people are envisioning the future of a vacant lot at 73rd Avenue and Foothill Boulevard.
  • Black Student Union Cultural Arts Night
    • Envision Academy high school’s Black Student Union is hosting a cultural arts night for the community on December 12th from 5-7pm at 1515 Webster St Oakland, CA! Envision families and members of the community are welcomed to attend. Join us in celebrating the Black talent at Envision Academy!
  • Health care giant funds mental health therapists in East Bay schools
    • Oakland-based Blue Shield is bankrolling a $10 million program to put more mental health counselors in nine East Bay schools, stepping up its philanthropic efforts in the area after moving its headquarters there.
  • CRUNCHED: 5 Years of SBAC; 4 Views on Differentiated Assistance
    • A couple posts ago (before the posts on charter renewal and school diversity), I looked at SBAC results overall citywide and by subgroups. In this final post on the 2018-19 SBAC trends, I’ll be looking at school-level 5-year trends. To accompany this post, I created this Tableau dashboard that lets y’all dig deeper into individual school results. We also talked to representatives from OUSD, ACOE, Aspire, and Pivot Learning to get four perspectives on how key organizations are using this data to support differentiated assistance for schools.
  • Who Betrayed the Opportunity Ticket; How Hills Parents Won and Flatlands Parents are Losing
    • Black parents in Oakland do not have access to quality schools.  1% attended a school above the state average and making progress, 2/3rds attend a school below average and going backwards.  We are locked into those schools by enrollment rules, segregated housing and the legacy of discrimination. 
  • HOUSE POOR: How price hikes hurt the most vulnerable
    • An exclusive analysis shows the Bay Area’s poorest ZIP codes endured the largest percentage increases in rents and mortgages. Residents say there’s nowhere to go.

California:

  • Will schools get more state aid?
    • To the denizens of the state Capitol, the onset of the holiday season also marks the beginning of the state budget cycle. Gov. Gavin Newsom and his budget staff will soon decide the hundreds of individual appropriations that will make up the 2020-21 budget he will propose in early January, touching off five months of public hearings, backroom negotiations and horsetrading before the final version is enacted in June.
  • California’s schools stagnating, failing black students
    • The Nation’s Report Card on education is in and the news isn’t great —with most states receiving low marks in the latest round of National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) exams that measure student achievement. California’s scores were largely flat compared to 2017, the last time NAEP was administered, except for a troubling decline in 8th grade reading, from 263 to 259, that mirrored the nationwide trend.  But the news is much worse for the Los Angeles Unified School District.
  • California should stop short-changing kids. Here’s how to help
    • From criminal justice reform to environmental stewardship to humane immigration policies, California’s leaders make the state a model of effective governance for the federal government and other states.
  • How California measures academic success is changing at some of the state’s largest districts
    • Los Angeles Unified on Wednesday is expected to become the latest California school district to publicly share data showing how its students improve year to year, a move the district expects will provide deeper insights into how individual schools are helping students progress academically.
  • LAPD officer allegedly caught fondling corpse
    • An officer with the Los Angeles Police Department is under investigation after his body camera allegedly caught him fondling the body of a dead woman.
  • Interactive Map: Understanding Teacher Shortages in California
    • A district- and county-level analysis of the factors influencing teacher supply and demand
  • Inglewood Unified School District: The Canary in the Coal Mine
    • According to the California Education Code, all California school districts will have to submit a first interim budget report by December 15. This report compares the school district’s ongoing fiscal condition to what was projected in the budget they submitted in July. The report includes the latest student enrollment and attendance figures, data on staffing, year-to-date accounting, and projections of expenditures and cash flow.
  • San Francisco 49ers’ Richard Sherman clears over $27,000 in schools’ cafeteria debt
    • San Francisco 49er Richard Sherman is making his mark off the football field by paying off thousands of dollars in school lunch debt for public school students.
  • Homeless crisis at California colleges hurts Hispanic and black students most, report says
    • California’s Black and Hispanic college students are most likely to face homelessness while in school, according to a new California Student Aid Commission analysis.

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