In this compelling interview, Dr. Micia Mosely discusses the evolution of the education system, emphasizing its shift towards a business-oriented model that prioritizes profit over equity. She sheds light on the challenges facing Black education in Oakland, where systemic oppression and gentrification have fragmented the community. Dr. Mosely highlights the impact of testing practices and the school-to-prison pipeline, while also recognizing pockets of hope within the educational landscape.
The interview has been edited for clarity.
Great School Voices: Greetings. Greetings. Hello. Hi. My name is Keonnis Taylor. Greetings. I am here with Doctor Micia Moseley, the founder of the Black Teacher Project, and I am so, so excited to welcome you here. Doctor Moseley, how are you today?
Dr. Micia Mosely: I’m wonderful. I’m wonderful. Happy to be here.
Great School Voices: Good, good. Well, I know that your time is precious, and we have a few things to cover, so if you don’t mind, we can jump right in.
Dr. Micia Mosely: Okay, sounds great.
Great School Voices:
Awesome. Now, you know that I am a huge fan of your work, but for the people, why don’t you tell us who you are, what you do, and how you raise the bar for youth?
Dr. Micia Mosely:
All right. Well, I’m Doctor Micia Moseley. I am the founder and director of the Black Teacher Project. I am a lifelong educator. What I do is complex in this context. I lead a program that is really focused on the leadership and sustainability of black teachers and supporting black teachers to transform schools into communities of liberated learning.
Great School Voices:
Okay.
Dr. Micia Mosely:
Practically speaking, inside the nonprofit industrial complex, that often means that I’m spending a lot of my time raising money, raising awareness, trying to help people understand that black teachers have a power and an ability to transform things beyond what we may think. Part of how I work to raise the bar for youth is to help them get exposed to black excellence. And this is youth across the board. Traditionally, people think that black teacher’s main purpose is to manage black youth. And I say manage. Very specifically, they’ll say role model. They’ll say inspire. But often, inside of oppressive school systems, they mean manage. And what we want to do for young people is help them understand how to learn from black adults, how to be guided into an experience that is different from replicating oppression.
Dr. Micia Mosely:
So we raise the bar by giving them access to that beautiful black excellence.
Great School Voices:
I love it. That is such a beautiful answer and just so clear that you bring such a passionate and dynamic perspective to education. So, can you tell us more about your background and your journey to the Bay Area through education?
Dr. Micia Mosely:
I’m originally from Brooklyn, New York, and, you know, I started high school wanting to be a lawyer. Shout out to Law and Perry Mason and Matt Locke and all those tv shows where they had the big. You know, it’s like, isn’t it true? Yeah, none of that. But it was through my experience at Brooklyn Technical High school that I really wanted to teach at the time. We were, and I think still are, the largest high school in the country. It’s the type of school you have to take an exam to get in. And it is a public school. But at the time, were a third black, a third Asian, and a third mix of everyone else. And so that experience of being a part of black academic excellence inside of racial diversity changed my life.
Dr. Micia Mosely:
Being with teachers who cared about me, who affirmed me, many of whom were different from me. I didn’t have a whole bunch of black teachers, but they saw something in me and cultivated it, helped me understand that’s what I want to do for other young people. And so I went to college, got a credential in my undergraduate time, and I had an opportunity to move to the Bay Area from the east coast to teach. And 22, I was like, man, if I don’t cross the Mississippi now, I may never do it. Y’all know how it is out here. You come to the Bay Area, and it just sucks you up. You’re minding your own business, and then you turn around nearly 30 years later, and you still here.
Great School Voices:
Literally.
Dr. Micia Mosely:
Got me. But moving out here to teach in San Francisco. At the time, I was teaching in a relatively new school. We were about a year old. That was during the era of reconstitution, where you close one school, paint it, change the name, start a new school, new staff, and we actually just had a reunion. We had Thurgood Marshall Academic High School; was a school where I taught. And there’s a special place at a special time, serving mostly black and brown students in Bayview Hunters Point. And I learned so much about blackness looks different out here than it does on the east coast. Because I had that experience of racial diversity and academic excellence, I wanted to bring that to my students.
Dr. Micia Mosely:
So there was a way that my journey was always a dance between me bringing what I had to offer and learning from my students and colleagues. And so, unfortunately, after a few years, I hit the burnout wall, like many teachers do. But because I had gone from undergrad straight into teaching, I also found myself having these great relationships with my students, but not quite seeing that translate into the academic excellence I wanted for them and the hopes and the dreams of what I wanted. And so, I ran away to grad school, is the way I describe it, to have a better understanding of what was I up to. Because I love history, I love social studies, but it wasn’t just teaching that there had to be something greater.
Dr. Micia Mosely:
And I knew that if I became doctor Moseley, I would have access to the ability to change things in a way that I didn’t before. And it was true. I’m not saying anything now that I wasn’t saying 25 years ago, but people listen differently now. So, I ran away to Berkeley, got my PhD. In that process, I was working on the diversity project, which was a partnership between UC Berkeley and Berkeley High School, focused on racial diversity. So, you know, this is the late nineties. So just language wise, we go from multicultural to diversity to equity. You know, for folks who are newer, you may not. Some of those may seem like antiquated terms, but it’s always us trying to understand what we’re up to. So, in the diversity project, I was focused on professional development, and that became my passion.
Dr. Micia Mosely:
How do I help other teachers really take a stance around teaching and learning that benefits all kids and specifically changes the experience for black and brown kids who are traditionally underserved? How do we talk about race in real ways that is not about a blame game, but some accountability. And so being able to be in academia and have a practical experience in a high school was also just a huge gift for me. And it helped me understand that you don’t have to separate research and practice. They should actually be talking to each other from there. I went to help start small schools in Oakland because I understood the power of personalization. Even though my high school was the largest high school in the country, we had programs to help us feel seen.
Dr. Micia Mosely:
And I had firsthand experience with what it means to know that your teachers, your administrators know who you are, care about you, that they’re going to hold you to a high standard, not just to jump through hoops, but to help you become a lifelong learner. And that experience followed me in grad school, followed me as I helped to start these small schools. And then I had to take a little bit of a break and move back to New York for a minute to get some perspective. And I worked in a college access program, the Posse foundation, which now has a Bay Area chapter.
Great School Voices:
I know Posse.
Dr. Micia Mosely:
Yeah. At the time, I was a national training specialist. This is before we opened the Bay Area chapter.
Great School Voices:
Amazing.
Dr. Micia Mosely:
The college access program. And what it helped me understand is we keep saying, get kids college ready. College ready. But our notion of what that means is limited. I’m going to pause because there’s a fire truck, because it’s Oakland and people trying to be safe. All right, so we think about academics, but we don’t help people understand. We’re doing. We’re creating all these changes in k twelve. But colleges look the same. Colleges are still on the inclusion tip. Come to our universities and colleges and be like us. They’re not on the belonging tip, where we’re going to change because you’re there. Come and conform. And so, a lot of young people will make it to college and be lost because they’re used to a learning experience that is really about them as human beings.
Dr. Micia Mosely:
And then they go to university, which is often about them as a number. So, posse helped me as I came back to k twelve work. Understand? Hey, when we talk about college ready, there’s a whole different kind of ready we got to get. Get folks prepared for. So, still doing work in equity and diversity. And finally, I was like, you know what? I’m really about this professional development life. I really want to help teachers, but actually my heart is with black people. And I will also do these professional developments. I’d be working with, like, the teacher of color group and racial affinity groups. But eventually there’d be the meeting after the meeting, and I would find myself in these small group. In these small groups with black educators talking about whatever we’re talking about. And finally, I was like, why are we in this?
Dr. Micia Mosely:
I need to take what I’ve learned over these decades in the field and really focus it on black people. And the precipitating event was I was leading a professional development for a middle school in San Francisco. And I hear, hey, Miss Moseley, how you doing? And I’m like, why are people being formal if you’re going to be formal? It’s Doctor Mosley. Who is this? It was one of my former students who was a teacher, Linda Bellinger. And she had been pushed out of teaching at a school in Bayview Hunters Point, where she grew up in her grandmother’s house, where I taught her to anti blackness charter school that had white dominant culture. And she. They weren’t feeling her as a black teacher, even though she’s from that neighborhood and has key insights as to what those students need.
Dr. Micia Mosely:
So she moved to a new school, and this was, like, her first PD. And so, reconnecting with Belinda was the spark where I was like, you know what? I can’t let what happened to me happen to her. And I was hearing too many similar stories of her not really feeling like she could actually have the freedom to teach the way she wanted to teach. And so that connection inspired me to start the black teacher project. And that’s. We are where we are today.
Great School Voices:
Wow. That is. That’s an amazing journey. And I love that it was inspired out of so many experiences that so many other black teachers and black educators have had, which reminds me of another educator that I interviewed for grade school voices recently, whom you may know slash remember, it’s Swin. Irving Swin.
Dr. Micia Mosely:
Come on. Swin was like, just meeting Swin was like, yeah.
Great School Voices:
I just interviewed Swin, and he told me that he was involved with black Teacher project in its infancy along with you. And I just. I was so excited, obviously, due to my love for the work that you have done. And what you said reminded me of something that he said, which is that for him, growing up in Gary, Indiana, and an hour away from where I grew up in South Bend, Indiana, it really instilled in him this appreciation for having an environment in which black teachers expected excellence in academics, from students. I really do love that I just heard something similar from you.
Dr. Micia Mosely:
I just want to pick up one point around that, because I feel like it’s important to note the shifts. Like, in the black teacher project, we have four pillars, and one of them is black identity development. And one of the things I learned when I came to California, I was like, oh, black folks are different out here. You could say that again, leave it at that. But part of it has to do with the migration patterns. Yes, right.
Dr. Micia Mosely:
So when we understand black folks coming from Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas, in many cases later, right, to California, and California itself being a more recent state being developed, like, when you think about the East coast and the Midwest, the expectation of black academic excellence generationally was often held from the people who either came directly from the south or who were the children of folks who came from the south.
Great School Voices:
Absolutely.
Dr. Micia Mosely:
Because of segregation. It’s like, we can’t afford for you to not be on point.
Great School Voices:
Absolutely.
Dr. Micia Mosely:
Some of that was internalized stuff around, like looking good for the white man. But a lot of that was about doing right for our people. And over time, the notion of our people and our responsibility has gotten lost, we have succumbed to the messages from media, from dominant culture around who we are and what we’re capable of. And so, for black teachers, part of what we want to do is, like, help people get their minds right. So, when you see the babies in front of you, first of all, they’re children who are there to be taught. So, let’s stop acting like they’re adults. That’s what non-black folks do, because they’re afraid of black bodied people.
Great School Voices:
Often we know that to be true.
Dr. Micia Mosely:
We have to understand our children as children, as developmental and so. And hold them accountable, not in punitive ways, but inspirational ways. Right. To help them understand the legacy that they’re a part of. So when Swan and I have talked about that and when I think about folks, you know, who grew up in the Midwest in particular. It’s, it’s a different, because, you know, Midwest nice and southern hospitality go hand in hand.
Great School Voices:
Absolutely.
Dr. Micia Mosely:
You can come to the porch, but you’re not coming in the house and be happy you made it to the porch. Way that it’s like I’m a smile on your face. New York people be like, I don’t like you because you look like this. Right. Bay Area, they’ll just cite an author and a theorist and put a bunch of, like, multisyllabic words, and it’s like, I think you said you hate me, but I don’t even know what those words mean. So. Okay, so I just, I think that’s important to note because that notion of expectations of excellence and our kids most often comes from people who have a strong sense of self and connection to black community. That’s less intellectual and more visceral.
Great School Voices:
I cannot agree more. I mean, I mentioned growing up in South Bend. My great grandmother was the first black writer for the South Bend Tribune newspaper, and this was back and great depression. So just the expectation of excellence was just ingrained and then moving west. It was, it didn’t always feel that way in the environment that I was in, which it sounds like, is what you also observed. So, let’s move to our next question because we have some more things we want to ask you.
Dr. Micia Mosely:
All right.
Great School Voices:
What can you tell us about the changes that you have observed in the education system, the landscape of it over your career, knowing that you’ve been on both coasts and doing this for many years now, huh?
Dr. Micia Mosely:
The changes. Well, one I talked about in terms of the language, you know, I think how the system treats difference. You know, the system. So, let’s back up. First, we have to understand that particularly public education was always about labor. So, education was not made public until the industrial age. And then, you know, we need people to work in the factories, so we’re going to sort workers, managers, owners, and so that, like, really understanding that foundation for our education system is hugely important. And I say our education system, because learning in schools and universities came from the continent, and they weren’t about working. It was about knowledge of self. Absolutely contribution to community. So that disconnect. Right? So, then we have, like, the language of democracy and wanting to create, you know, citizens who can be helpful in the country. Somewhere mixed in there.
Dr. Micia Mosely:
You also have, we got a, you know, you got the Cold War. Now we got to do all the competing, the embrace the space, do more stem, all this kind of stuff. But the main thing that I think is most important to the current era is the de professionalization of teaching and making education a business. So even with all those other things, so when I was coming up, I’m a proud affirmative action baby, right? And so, there was an understanding of inequity and some small attempts to do something about it, but weren’t quite a business yet. But you get your Teach for Americas, you get your kips and some of the chain charter schools and the late nineties and early 2000s, education started to get bought.
Dr. Micia Mosely:
And what we’re seeing now, and Bettina Love’s most recent book, punished for dreaming, is, I mean, she lays it all out. She lays it all out and with receipts. And so, looking at this shift to a business model, to a bottom line, we go back to the separation of workers, managers and owners. But the way it’s coming out now is a fourth category of prisoners. So, we’re not even going to get you to the work. We’re just going to go straight to prison. And the school to prison pipeline, people talk about it. It’s well documented the way testing works. I’m a huge, I am actually a proponent for testing, just not the ones we have. Just not the ones we have. I think we need to have some way of being able to articulate what folks know.
Dr. Micia Mosely:
But now one of the shifts in education is we’re using testing as a punishment. We’re using testing to keep people out, not to help people learn. So even becoming a teacher, black teachers, one of the number one reasons why black teachers leave or can’t even get started in teaching is testing. And it’s not that they don’t know the material. So this becomes, this is where stereotype threat comes in, right? Where folks will feel like, well, maybe I don’t know it, maybe I’m not as smart, right, but you’ve got math majors from Ivy League institutions not being able to pass these tests. English majors, same thing. Not being able to pass these. It’s not that they don’t know the material. How is the test being, how are you trained, prepared to do well on these exams? Who are these exams geared toward?
Dr. Micia Mosely:
And so I would say the big changes have been like watching education become a business, whether you’re talking about vouchers. And I want to be clear, I’m not anti-charter person. I am critical of most charters because the spirit of charters was about communities coming together to try something different to meet the needs of their children. So, community based, small standalone charters in the early nineties were powerful places for young people to learn. This chain stand in line. I’m going to make it a rap so it sounds ethnic, even though I’m racist as I’ll get out, like, I’m not for it. I’m not for it. And so, I think everything gets conflated. And so, the. What we used to have in experimenting, what we used to have, you know, we didn’t used to do group work the way we do group work.
Dr. Micia Mosely:
Now, charters pushed for that, which means that you have to have some soft skills of how to relate to one another. But also, business pushed for it because business said, hey, we’re entering the tech era, and we need people to innovate, and we need people to talk and try and experiment. And so, you can’t just be in your individual silos. So, we saw group work really come on the scene, like, in a bigger way. In the nineties. It was a combination of business asking for it, but also alternative ways of learning. And now I could go on and on, but I would say the using tests as punishment and making education a business instead of a right. We see the difference between us and every other country. Every other country.
Great School Voices:
Let’s. Let’s localize our conversation a bit. How would you describe the state of black education in Oakland?
Dr. Micia Mosely:
Challenged with pockets of hope. So current state, we have a black superintendent. We’ve had black superintendents for some time. No one superintendent, no one school board, no one school, no one principal. Like the state of black education in Oakland is reflective of the state of black people in Oakland. Right? And challenging comes from the manifestation of systemic oppression. It comes from the anti-blackness that exists in a once strong black cultural environment. So, we will often, you know, hark back to the Oakland of old, but what we’re dealing with now is, I mean, we can talk about gentrification and the white tech bros. And all of that, but we also have to understand that black and brown people are not relating to each other the way we used to.
Dr. Micia Mosely:
That now, because of gentrification, people’s proximity to whiteness, people’s desire to have what they feel like are the monetary gains from whiteness are shifting our relationships. And so, when you think about the black community in Oakland, granted, a lot of it was formed, just like in most cities, out of segregation, but it developed through those strong black communities. Excuse me, you had a development of interaction across race that allowed black people to thrive at times, not everywhere. We’re not going to forget about the role of class in all of this. But when you think about black education right now, who are the black people still in Oakland? Where do they live? Where are they sending their children? What schools are still predominantly black? We can name them. That’s true.
Dr. Micia Mosely:
And so you have a lot of black children going to schools where they are one of a few. While when you look at the numbers, the percentages of black students in OUSD and black teachers, it looks like we’re on par, right? But if you dig a little bit deeper, you’ll see that the concentration is not quite as evenly matched. And so, part of what’s happening is that the rise of anti-blackness, because of how we’ve decided to deal with racial equity, is leaving black education in a place that is pitting us against. I mean, this happened as soon, I feel like as soon as I got here in the nineties against English language learners who p’s are not all Latinx folks, right? But there’s automatic, like, we’re beefing for money, we’re beefing for services. Why do you have a office that’s dedicated?
Dr. Micia Mosely:
You know, people say, why do we have a black teacher project? Why don’t we have a Latinx teacher project? I’m like, we need one. That’s not for me to start. So, part of the state of black education in Oakland is the attack on the very notion of focusing on black people in Oakland. So, the push out folks, the people who are left, are trying to get by the black middle class is not concentrated in ways that it used to be. So, what used, you know, I never experienced, but I long for the opportunity to be in black mixed class environments and neighborhoods.
Dr. Micia Mosely:
So we already had the class divisions, and it’s exacerbated even more now so that the black folks who are sending their kids to school often don’t have access to get up somebody’s behind to make sure their baby’s getting a good education. And if they do, if you don’t say it the right way or jump through the hoops to put doctor in front of your name, you often don’t get listened to. Then black teachers are in a position where folks are like, you’re supposed to be taking care of our babies. So, the black teachers in Oakland are coming because they’re like, oh, it’s Oakland. I heard this was the town. And then they get here, and they’re like, I can’t afford to live here.
Dr. Micia Mosely:
I mean, I’m gonna do what I can for these first couple years, but then I gotta figure out how to make some money or I gotta go.
Great School Voices:
It sounds like the weights of anti-blackness has just really translated into less solidarity and more focus on assimilation and being the model minority.
Dr. Micia Mosely:
In many cases, it has. What I will also say is, and this is where some of the possibilities and some of the hope comes in, is that people are pushing back. I’ll say for us, we’re working with other black led organizations, with other organizations that are focused on black educators to understand what can we do together and working across racial difference, working with programs and organizations that are serving a diverse group of teachers with a focus on anti-racism. Right. And so, the reason why I say that’s hopeful is it’s going to take. I say this all the times, all the time. We talk about the Black Panther party as though they worked alone. And if you actually study the Black Panther party, you understand that they worked in coalition. They also worked in affinity, but they worked in coalition.
Dr. Micia Mosely:
And it is that we have to do both. And so, part of what I’m seeing now is that is more of a saying, like, okay, we need to do this affinity work. But also, let me highlight you over there. What you doing? Are you about this life? What can we do to work together? So, we’re trying to rebuild that. But Oakland’s full of a bunch of people like me. We got a lot of us who are transplants, who didn’t grow up here, who heard about what it used to be, and are trying to get it back to that. But there’s also a. There’s a. There’s a sadness. I mean, we lost.
Dr. Micia Mosely:
I mean, this is not education, but it’s connected most all of our sports teams, as a huge sports fan, even what it means to treat young people to a game as a prize, you know, not here. The culture and the energy of a place and space that. That where the community is cared about. Like young people, particularly our young boys, we know they like sports. I remember when the warriors were here and the warriors were winning and what, like the idea of a young person being able to get warriors tickets? You bet. I’m a study for that exam. It sounds small and disconnected, but it’s a cultural, it’s an energy. So, if you feel like everybody’s leaving your town, if you feel like all you ever hear about is negativity, from the students to the teachers on up, it creates a funky feeling.
Dr. Micia Mosely:
And so we’re trying. We’re trying, and I have hope because we’re addressing real issues. This is the last thing I’ll say, because I think it’s important to note, as much as we’re trying to support teachers in navigating these exams and navigating what it means to even be able to teach, one of the biggest things we’re hearing is the proliferation of the use of the n word and racialized disparaging comments to black students and black teachers by non-black students without any accountability. And so, I would be remiss to talk about the state of black education in Oakland without speaking to the cultural responsibility of non-black folks to nip that in the bud because people turn around and look at black teachers, what are we going to do? I’m not using this word.
Dr. Micia Mosely:
I’m not calling black students out of their name, but you’re going to let it happen in your classroom and then look to me to fix it. So, the part of the state of black education in Oakland is this default of black folks needing to fix all things black. Like we are responsible for anything that happens to black students and everybody else, like we’re supposed to be everybody’s mammy.
Great School Voices:
You know that literally. I’m just going to shift quickly here to this question because I feel like you’re answering it, which is how does supporting teachers improve education for black and brown students? I mean, that’s it, what you’re saying.
Dr. Micia Mosely:
That’s it. We have to. So, I keep saying this as somebody who was born in the 19 hundreds and who remembers being prepared for a world that does not exist. When I was in school, I was prepared for a world that did not have the Internet because we didn’t know what the Internet was. I’m currently living in a completely different world than the one I was prepared for. We have to assume the same is true for young people in schools today. We have to be humble enough to know and notice that technology is moving faster than we can imagine. So, let’s stop with this idea of trying to replicate mini me, make mini-Me’s. As a result, what we’re doing in school is not simply about imparting knowledge. We are curating learning experiences.
Dr. Micia Mosely:
And so when we’re able to support teachers, to understand what this curation means, to understand, we’re trying to help people learn how to live together and work together in a society that wants to throw away black and brown bodies.
Great School Voices:
That’s a heavy job, right?
Dr. Micia Mosely:
And so that’s why I’m like, white teachers, this is your job. This is your job. Black teachers, brown teachers, it’s everyone’s job. And so supporting teachers, to understand, you must have pedagogical content knowledge, know your content and know how to teach your content. Your teacher and these babies can google it faster than you can say it.
Great School Voices:
Literally.
Dr. Micia Mosely:
You have to know it so that you can teach it 17 different ways and use all the resources you have. But now more than ever, the other part of your job is around a cultural practice, is around helping us create a world that works for everyone. And some of that you can’t learn in teacher school. Some of that is just about being human. So if you don’t have any true friends across race, I don’t care if you black, brown, white, if you don’t have friends who are across difference in significant ways, why are you teaching children who don’t look like you? Because you actually don’t know how to act. And we often will say that with white teachers. But I would implore black teachers, how many white friends you got?
Great School Voices:
These are questions that I’m sure many people haven’t asked or even thought about, but I think it’s so poignant to consider. Which leads me to the next question, which is, what can parents and communities do to support teachers, particularly black teachers?
Dr. Micia Mosely:
Ask questions. Support your young people at home. It does not matter if you are clear about the content that they’re learning, especially as they get older, it gets harder, right? The teenagers in my life, I’m like, yep, that looks hard, right? They learn the stuff I learned in undergrad, but you can support young people with good habits around studying and around learning. When I talk to the young people in my life, I will ask them always about school. They already know. They see me coming from a mile away. What are you learning in school? Who’s your favorite teacher and why? Like, ask them questions that gets. That allows them to reflect on their learning experience, right? What do you want to do with what you’ve learned? What problems do you want to solve? How is school helping you do that?
Dr. Micia Mosely:
Because we often ask kids what they want to do. Again, we’re preparing them for a world that doesn’t exist. These jobs, the five of them that are out there, they’re not going to exist. So, stop it. What problem do you want to solve? Part of your responsibility is to make the world a better place. How do you want to contribute to that? So, you know, kindergartner, maybe you don’t hit them with that right away, but really helping them reflect on their learning experience, but also talking to teachers around, what support can I offer? If you’re a community member, there are tons of schools that are always looking for internships for adolescents. One of the biggest challenges that young people face are jobs. I would go to college, but I can’t afford to. Or if I do, I need to work.
Dr. Micia Mosely:
How do you get work experience? Right. Teachers want to be able to think creatively. So, the ability to connect them with community resources, whether that’s formerly part of the school or it’s just a summer opportunity or a weekend opportunity. But to the extent that we understand what’s actually happening in our schools through the actual young people in our lives, is one, two, find out what’s going on, who is on your local school board and what are the big issues. Whether you have kids or not, pay attention to what’s happening. And, you know, there’s a way that educators and some parents are the people that really engage with school boards, but they’re accountable to all of us, and we have to be accountable to the young people that we’re serving.
Great School Voices:
Absolutely. And speaking of the school board, we know that there are some important seats that are coming up for election on the school board and, of course, in some other very important offices. And thinking about those elections, what should voters be thinking about when it comes to education?
Dr. Micia Mosely:
There is a teacher shortage, period. One of the things is to listen to people who have some ideas about what to do about that, how folks, you know, at this point, particularly during the pandemic, people were like, oh, you got a warm body, come teach. Would you do that with your surgeon? Here’s a YouTube video. Feel free to slice me open. We don’t do that, but we’re shaping the next generation. And this is what I mean in terms of the de-professionalization of teaching. So, one of the things that folks should look for, how are people talking about how to increase the number of teachers, but also the quality of teaching, both relative to, like, the content and the standards, but also the culture.
Dr. Micia Mosely:
So what I’ve been trying to pay attention to is who’s talking about accountability for some of the cultural markers of what we’re looking for in schools. So, there are tons of surveys that students take around. Do I feel safe? Do I feel seen? Is there a caring adult in the building? Let’s look at that data. Invest in making sure that those numbers look right. So, when you think about these upcoming elections, what are people talking about? Often people will talk about budgets, and we need to spend our money differently. We need to invest in this. We need to get this latest technology. When you look around the world and you’re able to see people do so much more with so much less. It reminds us that technology is powerful and beautiful and important, and that’s not the core of teaching and learning.
Dr. Micia Mosely:
It’s just not. And so how we are able to actually professionally develop the folks that are in front of our young people each and every day matters. That said, the physical buildings that they’re in matter. So, who knows? Who’s been to any of our schools and knows the leaks, knows about the rodents, knows about like, kids deserve to be in safe spaces. So, I’m looking at who’s talking about, don’t, don’t talk. Don’t. Not with the fancy words. That’s why I got this degree, so I can decode. When people talk about, they’re using all these fancy words, and it’s like, oh, so you’re trying to move around money. Are you moving it to the places that are going to value folks not just staying in the classroom longer, but actually learning how to do better?
Dr. Micia Mosely:
This is one of the last things I’ll say if I had to pick one issue, one thing to focus on. Every educator in Oakland needs to know how to teach somebody how to read. Our literacy rates are not great. Most people expect elementary school teachers and English teachers to carry that burden. If you are a science, if you’re a chemistry teacher, if you’re like me, a high school social studies teacher, chances are you maybe had a semester of a course that talked about reading, but you don’t have the actual concrete skills to recognize. This person does not know how to read very well, and I know how to help them. I’m going to still focus on my content. That’s my responsibility. But I also know how to support their literacy development.
Dr. Micia Mosely:
If every teacher in this city literally knew how to teach people how to read, we would see education for black children specifically, but for all children broadly transformed. So, what are these officials talking about? That.
Great School Voices:
Great advice and just so much appreciated words of wisdom. Doctor Misha, thank you so, so much for joining us today and really appreciate your time and you sharing with us and just what you’ve talked about in terms of the voting and how the public and communities and families can support teachers in support of our youth.
Dr. Micia Mosely:
Thank you for having me.
Great School Voices:
Of course. It’s been such a pleasure.