By Jorge Lerma
OUSD District 5 Board Director
Recently, some of my colleagues on the Oakland Unified School District Board of Education have accused charter schools of promoting segregation and racist practices.
This is outrageously untrue. Oakland has long been a city committed to equity, access and choice for families of all races, ethnicities, social classes and statuses, and it’s insulting to the teachers, administrators and leaders of our public schools to suggest otherwise.
Unfortunately, in the debate around charter schools’ requests for renewal, some board members have made a tactical choice to use fear and prejudice, not to find a remedy, but to drag charter schools because of board members’ personal agendas of eliminating school choice.
Charter schools in Oakland are not serving elite, privileged students. Just about all charter schools in Oakland are located in gritty, working class neighborhoods. Most are located in the heart of the city, in the flatlands. They have diverse workforces that look like the students they serve.
Charter school students mostly come from working-class, blue-collar families where they can be the victims of segregation. And these are the families who are being villainized?
They are not setting education policy and they didn’t create the vast imbalances of resources and opportunity in our city. To suggest that the schools they are choosing, located in Oakland’s working class and marginalized neighborhoods, are practicing segregation is to only satisfy personal agendas of an anti-charter school bias.
To be clear – the American school system is built on a foundation of white supremacy. In Oakland, even with our struggles to fight institutional racism, people of color here experience discrimination in housing, employment and educational opportunity.
Our public schools do reflect this legacy. We have far too few educators and administrators of color, for example. While we are growing our number of teachers of color and one day will accurately represent Oakland’s diversity, we are not there yet.
Let’s be real about this very important issue. In OUSD, we have a choice system which encourages families to find the right school for their child. Many, if not most, public schools in Oakland lack true racial equality due to self-selection by families or because of the racial composition of the neighborhood around the school.
The questions we should be asking are if high-quality options and resources are available to all students. Why are families selecting the schools that they do?
All of our public schools in Oakland, charters included, have goals of a diverse student population and workforce, and delivering a quality education.
All schools, regardless of philosophy, programs and locations are committed to these goals but due to historical social and economic conditions and practices, our neighborhoods are not equally integrated, diverse or have the same resources.
Equity and inclusion continue to be our operational and social objective. We have much work to do.
As we build towards the future, we should do so with unity and honesty. It is disingenuous to claim “segregation” when you have no interest in “integration.”
These divisive claims are intended to sow the seeds of racial division and animosity, and to hide the real interest of these board members, which is to eliminate choice and the options provided by charter public schools.
Jorge Lerma is a current member of OUSD and is not running for re-election. He will continue to be a voice for true equity and opportunity. Please contact him at [email protected].