The Oakland Education Week in Review: 2/4-2/11

All the Oakland education news fit to link- lots of strike coverage, and the background, looking at Oakland schools making a difference with Black and Brown kids, parents stand up for the “opportunity ticket” more on school closures, all that and much more please read, share, and get involved

• Oakland:
  • Oakland sued for certifying education tax measure without two-thirds of vote
  • Results of Oakland teachers’ strike vote to be announced on Monday
  • Oakland Tech High School students hold walkout
  • Oakland public schools have great needs but inadequate funds
  • My PE Experience as a Trans Student; Swim Class, Changing Rooms and Sometimes Ignorant Adults
  • Oakland teachers vote to authorize strike
  • Antonucci: Oakland and Los Angeles — a tale of two teacher strikes
  • A Black Cultural Corridor Takes Shape on Oakland’s San Pablo Avenue
  • Buying My Way Into an Oakland Public School: An Ally in Equity Addresses Privilege, Opportunity, Race and the Need for an “Opportunity Ticket”
  • SoBEO Black Educator Appreciation 2018 | Outstanding Educator Award – Oscar Wright
  • Oakland teachers vote overwhelmingly to authorize a strike and win city council support
  • Oakland Unified restores sports programs with donations
  • OUSD Press Conference Feb. 6, 2019
  • Letter: OUSD’s Opportunity Ticket helps impacted students
  • Growing SEEDS in district and charter schools: RISE Community School
  • What’s so Special about “Special” Education?
  • Oakland school district braces for up to 150 layoffs in administration, services
  • Oakland Unified Announces Contingency Plans For Teachers Strike
  • Greeting the New Year with Renewal and Resolve: A Message for 2019
  • Budget deficits, school closures, and a looming strike at Oakland Unified
  • Friday Five: Weekly news for Oakland charters
  • Congratulations, ACOE Winter Class of 2019! @ San Leandro Performing Arts Center
  • Oakland students march in support of teachers in labor negotiations
• California:
  • For the first time in six years, California names its lowest-performing schools — & here are the 110 district and charter schools in LAUSD that require intervention
  • Gov. Newsom asks to review impact of California charter schools on district finances
  • How to improve California’s education, housing affordability
  • California quietly publishes list of 781 lowest-performing schools
  • Reducing gun violence, charter school accountability, top voter concerns in education, poll says
  • Walters: Bitter irony in loud complaints from California school officials, teachers unions
• Other Stories:
  • Five things we’ve learned from a decade of research on school closures
  • Ally to Accomplice Series: What happens to Black children after the strike?
• How You Can Help/Resources:
  • Black Lives Matter at School: Teaching Materials

Oakland:

• Oakland sued for certifying education tax measure without two-thirds of vote
  • A group of property owners has sued Oakland over the City Council’s certification of a tax measure that failed to reach a standard two-thirds threshold at the polls in November.
• Results of Oakland teachers’ strike vote to be announced on Monday
  • The union that represents Oakland teachers said on Friday that teachers are wrapping up four days of voting on a strike authorization proposal and the results of the vote will be announced on Monday afternoon.
• Oakland Tech High School students hold walkout
  • Oakland Tech High School students held a walkout to support teachers who are in labor negotiations.
• Oakland public schools have great needs but inadequate funds
  • Oakland Unified School District has been in the headlines a lot lately, as we navigate the challenge of bringing a high-quality school to every neighborhood. We’re working hard to tackle the tough issues that stem from inadequate funding and are compounded by factors unique to our city.
• My PE Experience as a Trans Student; Swim Class, Changing Rooms and Sometimes Ignorant Adults
  • Being transgender and trying to comfortably take a PE class is nearly impossible. So much of it revolves around gender, whether it be the changing rooms, teams, or simply passing the class.
• Oakland teachers vote to authorize strike
  • An overwhelming number of voting teachers authorized the Oakland teachers union to call a strike if salary negotiations break down with the school district, which already is facing another major disruption in the form of a $30 million budget deficit.
• Antonucci: Oakland and Los Angeles — a tale of two teacher strikes
  • Members of the Oakland Education Association voted to authorize a strike by a margin of 2,206 to 105, the union announced Monday. A fact-finding report is not due to be issued until the middle of the month, so a potential strike probably cannot be launched until after President’s Day.
• A Black Cultural Corridor Takes Shape on Oakland’s San Pablo Avenue
  • Soon, the California Hotel will be at the center of a new cultural hub that will include a music venue, recording studio, restaurant, black culinary collective and a youth-focused music education program.
• Buying My Way Into an Oakland Public School: An Ally in Equity Addresses Privilege, Opportunity, Race and the Need for an “Opportunity Ticket”
  • So who are the majority of kids in Oakland that already have an “Opportunity Ticket” to go to the OUSD school of their choice? It’s clear: kids like ours whose families can afford the most expensive homes, most of whom are white.
• SoBEO Black Educator Appreciation 2018 | Outstanding Educator Award – Oscar Wright
  • “First and foremost, he was a Black man, speaking for Black children…everything Mr. Wright did is for kids.”
• Oakland teachers vote overwhelmingly to authorize a strike and win city council support
  • Following in the footsteps of Los Angeles teachers, the Oakland teachers’ union on Monday announced that its members have voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike, after unsuccessful negotiations over pay hikes, class sizes and additional support staff.
• Oakland Unified restores sports programs with donations
  • Oakland Unified managed to keep all of its sports programs running this year despite having to cut funding for about half of them amid a multimillion-dollar budget crisis. Since news broke in August 2018 that the district was cutting 10 after-school sports programs –affecting about 500 students — donations started pouring in. As of February, the district had garnered around $400,000 in donations — including a $250,000 donation from the Oakland Raiders.
• OUSD Press Conference Feb. 6, 2019
  • Superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammell held a news conference to announce to the media her plans for the District both in the short term and for the coming years.
• Letter: OUSD’s Opportunity Ticket helps impacted students
  • This seems to be the only proposal that focuses on these students and tries to turn school closures into an opportunity by giving them higher priority in the school enrollment process. In addition to prioritizing those students most impacted by school closures, this proposal leverages the current crisis as an opportunity to address the racial and economic disparities that characterize Oakland schools by reducing the primacy of residential neighborhood in school enrollment priority.
• Growing SEEDS in district and charter schools: RISE Community School
  • Three in five Oakland children enter kindergarten without the social, emotional, language or literacy skills they need to succeed. In 2014, the Kenneth Rainin Foundation launched SEEDS of Learning, a professional development program that provides educators with a structure, strategies and tools to build social, emotional, language and literacy skills in young children.
• What’s so Special about “Special” Education?
  • Fixing “special” education means making it unspecial, eliminating the false divide between “special” education and general education and focusing on good training and classroom practice that meets the needs of all children.
• Oakland school district braces for up to 150 layoffs in administration, services
  • Oakland Unified School District could lay off nearly 150 employees in an effort to address the struggling district’s budget deficit, in a multifaceted plan laid out by the superintendent Wednesday.
• Oakland Unified Announces Contingency Plans For Teachers Strike
  • With a possible strike authorized by teachers in Oakland looming later this month, the head of the East Bay school district spoke on Wednesday morning about how officials are getting ready.
• Greeting the New Year with Renewal and Resolve: A Message for 2019
  • As we embark on these next few months, supporting the health and well-being of students and working to ensure our children have equitable access to opportunities will remain our top priorities. We also look forward to continuing dialogue with new state leadership around increased funding for public schools, as we seek to once again be among one of the top educational systems in the country.
• Budget deficits, school closures, and a looming strike at Oakland Unified
  • Members of the Oakland teachers union just voted to authorize a strike. The school board voted to close the first of what it expects will be a number of schools — to help keep costs down. These are tough times for Oakland Unified.
• Friday Five: Weekly news for Oakland charters
  • We have some great content to share with you this week: a must-read opinion piece about the “unofficial Opportunity Ticket” — owning a home in a good school’s attendance area; OUSD Superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammell’s press conference this week on the district’s community of schools policy; the list of the state’s lowest-performing schools was published this week for the first time in four years; and much more.
• Congratulations, ACOE Winter Class of 2019! @ San Leandro Performing Arts Center
  • “You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” Congratulations, ACOE Winter Class of 2019! @ San Leandro Performing Arts Center
• Oakland students march in support of teachers in labor negotiations
  • Dozens of high school students in Oakland walked out of class today to show support for their teachers, who are on the verge of a strike.

California:

• For the first time in six years, California names its lowest-performing schools — & here are the 110 district and charter schools in LAUSD that require intervention
  • The state identified a total of 1,640 schools that need comprehensive or targeted assistance because they are struggling to adequately serve students. They represent 16.5 percent of all California public schools.
• Gov. Newsom asks to review impact of California charter schools on district finances
  • In one fallout from the recently settled strike of teachers in Los Angeles, Gov. Gavin Newsom has called on State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond to establish a panel of experts to examine the impact of charter school growth on district finances.
• How to improve California’s education, housing affordability
  • Gov. Gavin Newsom’s first budget comes when California is the most challenging state in the country for low- and middle-income households: California has the highest poverty rate of any of the 50 states. California also ranks 49th in both housing affordability and cost of living. It ranks 50th in homelessness, 40th in the overall tax burden and 42nd in how well it is educating its kindergarten through high school-age young people.
• California quietly publishes list of 781 lowest-performing schools
  • Without fanfare or advance notice, the California Department of Education released the list of the state’s poorest-performing schools last week for the first time in four years.
• Reducing gun violence, charter school accountability, top voter concerns in education, poll says
  • The top priority overall was reducing gun violence in schools, with more than half of respondents saying it was “very important.” But voters with children as well as those ages 18-49 and those earning less than $35,000 a year rated college affordability as more important. The annual poll, conducted since 2012, was led by researchers at the University of Southern California Rossier School of Education and the independent research group Policy Analysis for California Education.
• Walters: Bitter irony in loud complaints from California school officials, teachers unions
  • LA school officials said pension costs made the strike settlement ‘unsustainable,’ but the state budget analyst said school funding is ‘outpacing growth in pension costs.’

Other Stories:

• Five things we’ve learned from a decade of research on school closures
  • At this point, we have some answers. A new study focusing on the effects of 20 school closures in Philadelphia is just the latest in a substantial body of research on what happens when a school is shuttered.
• Ally to Accomplice Series: What happens to Black children after the strike?
  • On the surface, there is clearly a need for a more humanizing system for Denver teachers, who have neither a dependable or fair compensation system. There is also a need to challenge the reform agenda that threatens to undermine the public good. But I see another dimension to this issue, of a damaged relationship between a majority white teaching force and the communities of color in Denver whose children have not yet been provided the educational opportunities they deserve. For me, it is a situation of broken covenant, broken trust and the need for repair.

How You Can Help/Resources:

• Black Lives Matter at School: Teaching Materials
  • The national Black Lives Matter At School coalition’s brilliant Curriculum Committee worked this year to bring you lessons for every grade level the relate to the 13 principles of Black Lives Matter. Here is the 2019 Curriculum Resource Guide–free, downloadable lessons to challenge racism, oppression and build happy and healthy classrooms. Enjoy!