The Oakland Education Week in Review: 11/18-11/24

Last week–the latest polling on Oakland education, the NAACP’s literacy campaign, a brother bring computer science to the masses, looking at charter renewals, the success of the AAMA, Afrocomicon, all that and much more, please read, share and get involved

Oakland:

• Celebration of Black Educators with the State of Black Education in Oakland
• Quality and Resources over Politics, A Consensus View- The Latest Oakland Survey Results on Education
• NAACP Reading Interview on KPOO 11 16 19
• He’s working to diversify the tech industry, one Oakland student at a time
• How Will OUSD Make Decisions on Charter School Renewals?
• Get Involved in Schools and Communities First
• Study: OUSD program succeeds in boosting Black male student achievement
• Audit: Oakland Promise used city funds without proper approval
• McClymonds, Laney football standout dies after yearlong battle with cancer
• AfroComicCon offers a platform for diversity in pop culture

California:

• California Middle School Put Sex Hotline—Instead of Suicide Hotline—on Student ID Cards
• A model of mismanagement
• California is poised to confront high proportions of underqualified teachers in low-income schools
• Opinion: Can These Powerful Black Leaders Join Forces to Close the Achievement Gap for Black Children?
• Drop the SAT and ACT as a requirement for admission, top UC officials say

Other Stories:

• Improving How Colleges Grade
• The White Nationalist Websites Cited by Stephen Miller
• The View Inside NYC’s Latest School Segregation Protest: Why Students Walked Out Monday for 1,800 Seconds — and Say They’ll Do It Again Every Week Until De Blasio Acts
• Wilkins: Charter School Leaders of Color Engage Families to Bolster Student Success. Some Practices That All School Leaders Can Adopt
• 114,000 Students in N.Y.C. Are Homeless. These Two Let Us Into Their Lives.
• A Group of Teens in Baltimore Launch their own Bottled Water Brand

Oakland:

• Celebration of Black Educators with the State of Black Education in Oakland
  • 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.
• Quality and Resources over Politics, A Consensus View- The Latest Oakland Survey Results on Education
  • The numbers are in from the latest Chamber of Commerce survey on voter attitudes and despite all the special interest rancor you hear at Board meetings, the average voter in Oakland is pretty clear about what is wrong and where they want the focus—hint, it’s about quality and resources, not the type of public school.
• NAACP Reading Interview on KPOO 11 16 19
  • 89.5 KPOO interviews a representative of the Oakland NAACP’s Education Committee. Topics include:
    • 1. NAACP’s local Priority (Reading)
    • 2. Kid’s Reading Status
    • 3. Why can’t Johnny Read?
    • 4. Dyslexia: “The MIT disease”
    • 5. Prison Reform: First Step Act and Reading
    • 6. How to Get Involved
• He’s working to diversify the tech industry, one Oakland student at a time
  • Kennan Scott knows the isolation people of color often experience working tech jobs. As a civil and transit engineer in Oakland firms, he was usually the only black engineer in the office. Now, as the manager of computer science at the Oakland Unified School District, Scott is doing something about it.
• How Will OUSD Make Decisions on Charter School Renewals?
  • If you’ve been following Oakland education, news about merging, expanding, and consolidating district schools has been front and center. There are also big decisions on the horizon that will impact over 2,500 students who attend the public charter schools that are seeking renewal from the OUSD board this fall.
• Get Involved in Schools and Communities First
  • Join Equity Allies to learn more about:
    • Organizing petition gathering at pick-up and drop-off and large school events.  
    • Bringing a speaker to your school.
    • Moving a PTSA endorsement as a strategy for educating and engaging the parent community. 
    • Organizing a couple of house parties as a way to help fundraise, educate and build parent leaders committed to the campaign.
• Study: OUSD program succeeds in boosting Black male student achievement
  • Researchers at Stanford University and the University of California, Irvine released a study last month regarding an Oakland Unified School District program focused on boosting achievement for Black male students. The study showed that the program has led to an increase in graduation and retention rates among participating students over the last dozen years.
• Audit: Oakland Promise used city funds without proper approval
  • Oakland Promise — Mayor Libby Schaaf’s multifaceted initiative to significantly increase the number of college graduates from the city — improperly used City Hall office space and used city funds without proper authorization, according to a new city auditor’s report.
• McClymonds, Laney football standout dies after yearlong battle with cancer
  • After battling bone cancer for a year, McClymonds High School and Laney College football star Ramone Sanders died Friday. The 20-year-old had graduated from McClymonds in 2018, becoming a father later that year. He helped lead the McClymonds football team to back-to-back championships, and had hopes to one day play in the NFL.
• AfroComicCon offers a platform for diversity in pop culture
  • One relatively unsung product of its liberal sway is the founder of the annual AfroComicCon, Oakland’s Michael James. Now in its third iteration, AfroComicCon is a three-day event showcasing comic books and pop culture related to (but assuredly not limited to) the African Diaspora.The event is held in the cities of Oakland and neighboring Emeryville, California and aims to be an inclusive entity as opposed to other, similar conventions geared towards special groups and demographics. It is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization affiliated with the Oakland Technology and Education Center.

California:

• California Middle School Put Sex Hotline—Instead of Suicide Hotline—on Student ID Cards
  • A middle school in Lancaster, Calif., made national headlines on Wednesday after it accidentally printed a sex hotline telephone number on all student ID cards in place of what was meant to be a suicide prevention hotline. It’s unclear how the mistake was discovered, but administrators at New Vista Middle School said the phone number had two digits transposed. Teachers have collected the IDs and will reprint them. “We are very sorry for this error and we are working hard to correct it,” said a statement.
• A model of mismanagement
• California is poised to confront high proportions of underqualified teachers in low-income schools
  • The most inexperienced and least qualified teachers continue to teach in schools with the highest-needs students in California ­— even though those students require the most expert teachers, and research has shown that the effectiveness of classroom teachers is the biggest in-school factor contributing to students’ achievement.
• Opinion: Can These Powerful Black Leaders Join Forces to Close the Achievement Gap for Black Children?
  • When California Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond announced the English language arts and math results of the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) test last month, we found out that African-American students’ scores lagged behind the much higher marks their white, Asian and Hispanic peers obtained.
• Drop the SAT and ACT as a requirement for admission, top UC officials say
  • The chancellors of UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz, along with the University of California’s chief academic officer, say they support dropping the SAT and ACT as an admission requirement — stances certain to fuel the growing national movement against the tests as an unfair barrier to college entry for underserved students.

Other Stories:

• Improving How Colleges Grade
  • High school and middle school teachers who grade more equitably see students less stressed, more motivated, and having higher achievement, but often are concerned that they won’t be preparing their students for college faculty’s grading systems. “Are we just setting them up?” they wonder.
• The White Nationalist Websites Cited by Stephen Miller
  • Newly released emails show President Trump’s chief immigration adviser was a young Senate aide who promoted his anti-immigrant views by referring to the sites.
• The View Inside NYC’s Latest School Segregation Protest: Why Students Walked Out Monday for 1,800 Seconds — and Say They’ll Do It Again Every Week Until De Blasio Acts
  • Monday morning, Teens Takes Charge led dozens of students from New York’s Chelsea Career and Technical Education High School and NYC iSchool in a walkout touted as a “strike for integration.”
• Wilkins: Charter School Leaders of Color Engage Families to Bolster Student Success. Some Practices That All School Leaders Can Adopt
  • Achild’s educational foundation begins at home — no matter what that house may look like. Socioeconomic class and racial identity do not determine how committed parents are to their child’s success, because families and dedicated school leaders come in all colors and tax brackets. But let’s be real: Being white and wealthy does open doors for engagement of students’ families that have been traditionally closed for too many who look like me. Today, this engagement gap is an increasingly heavy burden on the shoulders of students and families of color.
• 114,000 Students in N.Y.C. Are Homeless. These Two Let Us Into Their Lives.
  • By day, New York’s 114,085 homeless students live in plain sight: They study on the subway and sprint through playgrounds. At night, these children sometimes sleep in squalid, unsafe rooms, often for just a few months until they move again. School is the only stable place they know.
• A Group of Teens in Baltimore Launch their own Bottled Water Brand
  • Five black teenage entrepreneurs from Baltimore, known as “the squeegee boys,” have created their very own company that sells bottled water. They call it the Korner Boyz Water, according to BlackBusiness.com.