This is not an April Fool’s joke.  I attended a powerful, informative, and productive meeting of an official OUSD committee.  I repeat-not a joke. Before I dig in, let me describe it.  I was a few minutes late, but got to the room at Skyline and saw an attentive circle of probably 25-30 folks.  They…

Oakland Unified’s initial efforts to stem its budget crisis have failed, and unless we learn some lessons from this experience it will get a lot worse before it gets better.  According to the East Bay Times’ recent article “Oakland school district spending ‘limits’ backfire, $10 million in cuts still needed” OUSD’s plan to cut spending,…

This is a cross post from a CA teacher Erin Fitzgerald-Haddad I never intended to be a public school teacher. Growing up, I’d gone to private school. When it came time to send my kids to school, I didn’t hesitate to send them to private school. Then, in my 30s, I started thinking about starting a…

“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them”–Frederick Douglass “We had to do it, our kids were first, no matter what it…

The way that Oakland Unified allocates facilities is bad for kids, schools, and likely the district’s bank account.  We have all heard about the “too many schools” problem, but here I am talking about Proposition 39 which mandates that districts make “reasonably equivalent” facilities available to public charter school students. This is an annual ritual…