While the battle has raged over the OUSD school police and what happens if we get rid of them, a third of our public school students already exist without a district force, the charter public schools. They have some mixed and important lessons that OUSD should learn from, and plan for. Charters do not have…
State of Black Education
The Debt Oakland Owes McClymonds and How We Can Start Paying it Off
Where we put out money is a statement of our priorities. And no community in the East Bay has paid a higher cost of progress than West Oakland. While the region and State’s commerce flows over and through it, from the Port, to BART, to the highways that connect the suburbs with jobs. West Oakland…
What I Learned from Reading Nearly 500 Complaints to the FCC, What We Can Do
“Consumer has a disabled son at home. He needs his service to get information to and from the teachers for his son. Consumer called proactively to let them know he wouldn’t be able to pay on the 17th until he got his stimulus check from the government. Due to COVID-19 he is unemployed and is…
Oakland’s Youngest Literary Critic’s First Author Talk, and His Lessons from “Beyond Grit and Resilience”
“Black students, despite the barriers, can overcome challenges and become more than society thinks they can.” “I would recommend this book to anyone who thinks they can’t do something because of an idea that was molded into them by people that think less of them.” This is a powerful interview from one of our Oakland…
Never Back to “Normal” if Black Lives Matter
What we are seeing is not new, the cameras are. Alongside the jackhammer repetition of modern media, where each new viewing opens the wound anew. Whether that will prick the American consciousness awake is a question yet to be answered. But for Black folks, we can’t go back to “normal.” Normal was literally and figuratively…