When charter-run schools were started they were viewed as potential laboratories of innovation. Where lessons learned would be replicated in the district-run schools. This promise has gone largely undeveloped for a host of reasons. But if we look at Oakland data, and review some research there is a gem to be found. One of the…
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Oakland Charter-run and District-run schools by the Numbers
Thank you OUSD for throwing some hard numbers into the charter school debates. While I missed 2/22/16 Board engagement session (I was in NYC), I did look at the materials. Big takeaways; students at charter-run schools tend to perform somewhat better on state tests and be more economically disadvantaged. While district-run schools had somewhat greater…
What Has Worked in Oakland– Small Schools
I think it was Nietzsche who said that “every revolutionary tide eventually recedes, leaving only the sludge of a new bureaucracy”. In Oakland he is wrong. I had a chance to reminisce with some of the architects and builders in Oakland’s New Small Autonomous School and early charter movements this week (Superintendent Chacones, Laura Flaxman…
Keeping the Oakland Promise
You have to love the Oakland Promise Initiative, an ambitious visionary look at the supports that families and students need to be successful; coordinated early care, school based college and career pathway development and money to pay for college. Kudos to the mayor, superintendent, district, and the constellation of funders and nonprofits for making this…
Where are 17,572 Oakland students?
There is a gaping hole in the Oakland enrollment debate and it is 17,000+ kids wide. While anti-charter activists argue against inclusion of charter schools in the Oakland Unified enrollment system, we are missing the forest through the trees, and have left behind 17,572 kids in the bramble. Oakland has roughly 65,740 school aged children,…