Public schools

Our newly elected, progressive OUSD Board majority just reversed school closures. Now it’s time to get to work to realize our vision of a community led, anti-racist, people-over-profit centered school district.

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Brookfield students showed up for the vote to keep their school open! Photo credit to Corrin Haskell

On Wednesday night, in the first official act of the new progressive majority, the Oakland Unified School District (“OUSD”) Board of Directors voted to rescind planned closures of 5 elementary schools and 1 middle school program at the end of this school year. Students, parents, educators and community were on hand to witness newly elected board members Jennifer Brouhard and Valarie Bachelor join with sitting directors VanCedric Williams and Mike Hutchinson to fulfill the mandate of the 67% of voters who supported their platform of ending school closures which target schools in Black and Brown neighborhoods and destroy communities while fueling the gentrification of Oakland. 

The fight is not over. No sooner was the vote complete than the Alameda County trustee Luz Cazares, appointed to oversee OUSD’s finances, informed OUSD that they reserved the right to stay and rescind the board’s action to end school closures, because OUSD did not provide a Fiscal Impact Analysis as required by its own board bylaws prior to the vote.

District staff should have prepared that Analysis as soon as the matter was introduced by Director (now President) Hutchinson on November 30th, but failed to do so, and it appears that both Director Sam Davis and Director Hutchinson, who had each declared their intention to become board President, allowed staff to delay the Fiscal Impact Analysis until January 25th. This was done despite the urgency of needing to fix the enrollment system immediately to include the targeted schools and begin the budget development for school sites. That willingness to delay and worsen the harm to students led to Director Williams being elected president and immediately calling a special meeting for Wednesday, January 11th for a vote on the rescission resolution, which passed. President Williams’ decision to act immediately to help the targeted school communities jump start planning their futures was also a rebuke against the deliberate slow rolling by staff and politicking by board members. We are grateful for his leadership and for putting students first.

It is now up to District staff to prepare the necessary analysis so that we can avoid action by the County trustee and move on with the planning for how we support the targeted schools to repair the harm done by years of uncertainty and underinvestment. We must also rethink our solvency strategies to ensure we are no longer balancing our budget on the backs of our most vulnerable students. We must restructure our district from a top heavy, consultant-dependent “business model” to a district built from the bottom up, where we prioritize students and classrooms in true Community Schools. We must push our city, county and state leaders to support us in creating a district that serves the whole child, addressing community needs so that students are prepared to learn and excel in life. It is possible to educate students in equitably funded neighborhood public schools with staff who are valued and paid a living wage. 

OUSD receives more money per student than almost any other large school district. It is time we invested those funds in the classrooms where they belong. Let’s get to work.

What does it mean to be a “charter candidate”?

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There is a lot of talk right now in Oakland School Board Electoral Politics about what it means to be a “charter candidate”. Both Nick Resnick and Kyra Mungia proclaim that they are not “charter candidates” because they don’t support adding new charter schools, but despite that, they are supported by Charter School Leaders, Charter School Supporters, Charter School Funders, Charter Supporting PACs and, for Nick Resnick, out of town billionaires who support Charter Schools. And GO Public Schools donors. Not only are they directly funded by Charter School Supporters, they also are being supported by a new Political Action Committee (“PAC”) entirely funded by former Mayor/Governor Jerry Brown who started two high profile charter schools in Oakland and still sits as the Chairman of one of those charter schools (Oakland Military Institute “OMI”).

This PAC has not a single Oakland teacher associated with it, yet it is misnamed “United Teachers of Oakland supporting Resnick and Mungia” in hopes of tricking Oakland voters into thinking that these candidates are supported by Oakland’s beloved teachers, which they most certainly are not.

If your campaign is being pushed by all of these folks, you MUST be the charter candidate…

Don’t be tricked, choose the candidates who are ACTUALLY endorsed by Oakland’s Teachers. Make sure your vote counts by ranking BOTH of your chosen candidates #1 and #2, and not voting for Resnick and Mungia.

#OUSD #nobillionaireboughtboard #vote

Why Elections Matter: the End of Common Enrollment in Oakland

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In Oakland, school board elections have become big business. Since 2012, billionaire backed SuperPACs have spent nearly $2 million to elect candidates to rubber stamp the school privatization policies that they are pushing. Common enrollment, school closures, portfolio “community of schools” policies, and charter school expansion have all accelerated since 2012 and have put Oakland’s public schools and the primarily Black, Brown and low income students they serve at risk. This is all part of a well-funded privatization movement which harms our most vulnerable students by literally pushing them out of classrooms and into closets. 

In 2020, families, teachers and grassroots organizations came together and won 3 of the 4 open School Board seats, and last night we had our first real evidence of how important local elections are, with the passage of the Enrollment Stabilization policy by a narrow margin1. This policy will do the following:

  1. Support schools with marketing and outreach, including a district level designated employee and possible stipends for parents at low income schools;  
  2. Allow school sites to create their own enrollment stabilization plan; 
  3. Encourage school board members to celebrate and support their district schools; 
  4. Direct the superintendent and staff to encourage parents from charter or private schools that are closing to enroll in OUSD; 
  5. Make the enrollment process more accessible in a variety of ways; and
  6. Prohibit the use of OUSD resources to market or support competing schools such as charter or private schools. OUSD will no longer share the School Finder tool with charter schools, nor will they be listed on our enrollment map, the enrollment office will not offer competing school information to families, competing schools cannot come to district enrollment fairs, etc.

This policy eliminates the shared enrollment information system created by former Superintendent Antwan Wilson, with funding from local privatization organizations GO Public Schools (which also funds school board elections through its SuperPAC) and Educate78. In 2015, Superintendent Wilson asked the OUSD school board to adopt a “common enrollment” system where district and charter schools would be included together in one electronic enrollment platform. Parents United worked with parents and teachers to push back on the proposal, which is part of the “Portfolio Playbook” used to undermine public schools nationwide. Parents and teachers held house parties with school board members and ran a public information campaign, and ultimately the Board did not approve Common Enrollment in Oakland. Although Superintendent Wilson lost the common enrollment fight, he effectively backdoored the policy into existence by unilaterally including charters side by side with district schools in our school enrollment guide and electronic finder tool. The adoption of this Enrollment Stabilization policy last night undoes the harm of common enrollment and is one of the reasons why school board elections are so critical to the success of neighborhood public schools that serve all students.

Common Enrollment House parties January 2016

ALL of the comments against the policy change last night were couched in the incorrect assumption that only charter schools are quality schools. The data shows that is not true, but more importantly it exposes the lie that we are just one happy district/charter “community of schools” and that families are making individual decisions based on what is best for their child — coming in and out of the district and charter systems as needed. The truth is, charter schools generally market themselves as being better than district schools and when it comes time to move from one grade span to another, this narrative of “district schools are bad” means only 9% of charter students enroll in a district school for the next grade level2. 

Hands on learning at a quality neighborhood district school

That is not an accident. The charter industry guides students and families to choose another charter school for middle or high school rather than exploring public school options. Charter schools want access to the district’s enrollment system (particularly at the elementary level), but they don’t otherwise support the public school system. They blur the lines between public schools and “tuition free public charter schools” when it suits them, but every single commenter against the Enrollment Stabilization policy accused OUSD of trying to “hide” the quality options (or charter schools) and force families to choose substandard (or district) schools. Truth is, families will still be able to get the information they need to enroll their student in either a district school or a charter school as they choose, and the charter school industry will still repeat the lie that charter schools are inherently better than district schools. The big difference in enrollment will be at the elementary level, and that is why the charter school industry and privatization organizations are so upset about the loss of Common Enrollment in Oakland. 

  1. The policy passed 4/28/2021 by a margin of 4 ayes (Directors Gonzales, Davis, Williams, Hutchinson), 1 nay (Director Thompson) and 3 abstentions (Student Director Ramos and Directors Eng and Yee)
  2. www.ousddata.org