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Op-Ed: Power in Oakland Schools – Who Has It?

Published

8 years ago

October 4, 2016

By Tony Daquipa

One of the biggest problems in the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) is the lack of power and influence that OUSD parents, students and community members have in the decision-making of the school district.

Even more disturbing is the disproportionate power and influence wielded by lobbyists and wealthy philanthropists, most of whom have no background or experience in education and do not even live in Oakland.

Democracy means shared decision-making: the opportunity for those being governed to participate in the making of the decisions that affect their lives.

Our public schools and our public school district, both of which are funded by our tax dollars, should absolutely be places where those who are most affected by the decisions made (students and parents) have meaningful avenues to participate in and have influence over the decision-making process.

Unfortunately, that is not the current situation in Oakland.

Today in Oakland, outside interests with no accountability to this community have more influence than the families who rely on our schools, and the district has become unresponsive to the needs of those it is supposed to serve.

Although OUSD families are best positioned to know what their students need to be successful, much of the work of the district is shaped not by OUSD families.

But by lobbying groups such as the California Charter School Association and Great Oakland (GO) Public Schools, and funders of charter schools such as Educate 78, the New Schools Venture Fund and the Rogers Family Foundation.

As an example, the current work underway to create an “Equity Pledge” between charter schools and OUSD was initiated by charter school leaders and funded by Educate78 without any opportunities for members of the public to participate, even though the “Equity Pledge” would be a public policy that would affect thousands of Oakland public school students.

It is not surprising that groups such as Educate78 have so much influence, since most of the members of the current School Board received campaign contributions in dollars as well as in kind (paid canvassers, mailers and phone bankers) from the groups named above, either directly or through their staff members.

We believe that there is an inherent conflict between the goal of these powerful outside groups, largely the expansion of privately run charter schools, and the role of OUSD, which is ensuring the success and sustainability of the public school system that is responsible for serving all students.

In theory, the idea of charter schools is not an inherently evil one. However, every new privately-run charter school that is opened means a diversion of public funds from OUSD students without also lowering the costs incurred by the district for maintaining buildings, paying staff, funding pension contributions for OUSD retirees, and providing for the full range of student needs including health, mental health, nutrition, afterschool programs and more.

Additionally, privately run charter schools in Oakland on average tend to underserve special education students, African American students and English Language Learners.

These students are more expensive to serve and are perceived as being less likely to score well on standardized tests. Unlike public schools that have to serve all children, many privately run charter schools prefer students who will boost test scores while requiring minimal support.

So not only are public funds diverted from OUSD, but over time the proportion of students that are more expensive to serve has gone up in OUSD.

These more expensive, higher need student groups are being increasingly concentrated in our underfunded publicly-run schools that are being set up to fail.

While many charter school advocates may mean well, their quest to get access to more and more public school funding and facilities, is, in effect, fast-tracking our community’s most vulnerable children down the school-to-prison pipeline.

This is the reality of market model education reform: Those students who aren’t profitable to enroll simply don’t matter.

It would be easy for someone whose child is not being set up to fail to look the other way and think, “that doesn’t affect me.”

Well, the truth is, it does. If you live in Oakland, then you are surrounded by these children.

If you are an Oakland parent, regardless of what kind of school your child goes to, you are still raising your child in a community where other children are being set up to fail. You can live high up on a hill or behind walls, but that doesn’t change the reality of what is going on around you.

There can be no security in a society where some children’s lives don’t matter.

Additionally, with seemingly daily news headlines screaming warning signals about the fiscal mismanagement and outright fraud that is apparently rampant in the charter school industrial complex, Oakland families absolutely need district leaders who are willing to focus on improving publicly-run schools for all children in every neighborhood.

The unchecked increase in the number of charter schools in Oakland has been one result of the imbalance of decision-making power in the district.

OUSD also spends way too much on central administration compared to the school sites, according to a recent report the district commissioned from Education Resource Strategies.

The doling out of lucrative, no-bid contracts and the willingness to share private student data with third party organizations are yet more symptoms of this festering problem.

Today in Oakland, there is a strong need for the school board to more fully embrace and actualize their core belief regarding sharing decision-making with the Oakland community.

In order to make shared decision-making real, the district needs to take steps to limit the influence of people and organizations that don’t live in Oakland and have a divergent agenda for education, one that in fact undermines public education in Oakland.

OUSD also needs to listen to those who are relying on them to improve and sustain our publicly run schools.

We have an opportunity to begin rectifying this imbalance of power through the upcoming school board elections.

Four of the seven school board seats (a majority of the board) are at stake. If your district seat is at stake, please vote, and when you do, please vote for candidates who have not had their campaigns funded by deep-pocketed charter advocacy groups who do not have the interests of all of our children in mind.

Learn more at https://ousdparentsunited.wordpress.com/

Anthony Daquipa is a parent at Sequoia Elementary School and a member of the steering committee of Parents United for Public Schools.

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Arts and Culture

Rise East Project: Part 3

Between 1990 and 2020, Oakland lost nearly half of its Black population due to economic and social forces. East Oakland, once a middle-class community, is now home to mostly Black families living in poverty.

Published

1 year ago

October 12, 2023

Oakland Post

CEO of Black Culture Zone Carolyn Johnson, a native from Deep East Oakland is making the change she wishes to see in her community and in her people. Black Culture Zone has created a power base of Black folks making a difference in Deep East Oakland. Photo by Kumi Rauf.

The Black Cultural Zone’s Pivotal Role in Rebuilding Oakland’s Black Community

By Tanya Dennis

In 2021, 314 Oakland residents died from COVID-19. More than 100 of them, or about 33.8%, were Black, a high rate of death as Blacks constitute only 22.8% of Oakland’s population.

This troubling fact did not go unnoticed by City and County agencies, and the public-at-large, ultimately leading to the development of several community organizations determined to combat what many deemed an existential threat to Oakland’s African American residents.

Eastside Arts Alliance had already proposed that a Black Cultural Zone be established in Deep East Oakland in 2010, but 2020’s COVID-19 pandemic galvanized the community.

Demanding Black legacy preservation, the Black Cultural Zone (BCZ) called for East Oakland to be made an “unapologetically Black” business, commercial, economic development community.

Established initially as a welcoming space for Black art and culture, BCZ emerged into a a community development collective, and acquired the Eastmont police substation in Eastmont Town Center from the City of Oakland in 2020.

Once there, BCZ immediately began combating the COVID-19 pandemic with drive-thru PPE distribution and food giveaways. BCZ’s Akoma Market program allowed businesses to sell their products and wares safely in a COVID-compliant space during the COVID-19 shutdown.

Currently, Akoma Market is operated twice a month at 73^rd and Foothill Boulevard and Akoma vendors ‘pop up’ throughout the state at festivals and community-centered events like health fairs.

“Before BCZ existed, East Oakland was a very depressing place to live,” said Ari Curry, BCZ’s chief experience officer and a resident of East Oakland. “There was a sense of hopelessness and not being seen. BCZ allows us to be seen by bringing in the best of our culture and positive change into some of our most depressed areas.”

The culture zone innovates, incubates, informs, and elevates the Black community and centers it in arts and culture, Curry went on.

“With the mission to center ourselves unapologetically in arts, culture, and economics, BCZ allows us to design, resource, and build on collective power within our community for transformation,” Curry concluded.

As a part of Oakland Thrives, another community collective, BCZ began working to secure $100 million to develop a ‘40 by 40’ block area that runs from Seminary Avenue to the Oakland-San Leandro border and from MacArthur Boulevard to the Bay.

The project would come to be known as Rise East.

Carolyn Johnson, CEO of BCZ says, “Our mission is to build a vibrant legacy where we thrive economically, anchored in Black art and commerce. The power to do this is being realized with the Rise East Project.

“With collective power, we are pushing for good health and self-determination, which is true freedom,” Johnson says. “BCZ’s purpose is to innovate, to change something already established; to incubate, optimizing growth and development, and boost businesses’ economic growth with our programs; we inform as we serve as a trusted source of information for resources to help people; and most important, we elevate, promoting and boosting Black folks up higher with the services we deliver with excellence.

“Rise East powers our work in economics, Black health, education, and power building. Rise East is the way to get people to focus on what BCZ has been doing. The funding for the 40 by 40 Rise East project is funding the Black Culture Zone,” Johnson said.

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Alameda County

Help Protect D.A. Pamela Price’s Victory

Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price is asking supporters of the justice reform agenda that led her to victory last November to come to a Town Hall on public safety at Montclair Presbyterian Church on July 27.

Published

1 year ago

July 25, 2023

Oakland Post

D.A. Pamela Price

By Post Staff

Price is facing a possible recall election just six months into her term by civic and business interests, some of whom will be at the in-person meeting from 6:00-9:00 p.m. at 5701 Thornhill Dr. in Oakland.

“We know that opponents of criminal justice reform plan to attend this meeting and use it as a forum against the policies that Alameda County voters mandated DA Price to deliver. We cannot let them succeed,” her campaign team’s email appeal said.

“That’s why I’m asking you to join us at the town hall,” the email continued. “We need to show up in force and make sure that our voices are heard.”

Price’s campaign is also seeking donations to fight the effort to have her recalled.

Her history-making election as the first African American woman to hold the office had been a surprise to insiders who had expected that Terry Wiley, who served as assistant district attorney under outgoing D.A. Nancy O’Malley, would win.

Price campaigned as a progressive, making it clear to voters that she wanted to curb both pretrial detention and life-without-parole sentences among other things. She won, taking 53% of the vote.

Almost immediately, Price was challenged by some media outlets as well as business and civic groups who alleged, as she began to fulfill those campaign promises, that she was soft on crime.

On July 11, the recall committee called Save Alameda for Everyone (S.A.F.E.) filed paperwork with the county elections office to begin raising money for the next step toward Price’s ouster: gathering signatures of at least 10% of the electorate.

S.A.F.E. has its work cut out for them, but Price needs to be prepared to fight them to keep her office.

In a separate sponsored letter to voters, Price supporters wrote:

“We know that you supported DA Price because you believe in her vision for a more just and equitable Alameda County. We hope you share our belief that our criminal justice system has to be fair to everyone, regardless of their race, gender, ethnicity, religion, or socioeconomic status.

“The Republican-endorsed effort is a blatant attempt to overturn the will of the voters and a waste of time and money. It is an attempt to silence the voices of those who want real justice. We cannot let these election deniers succeed.

“Will you make a donation today to help us protect the win?

“Please watch this video and share it with your friends and family. We need to stand up to the sore losers and protect the win. Together, we can continue to make Alameda County a more just, safe and equitable place for everyone.”

For more information, go to the website: pamelaprice4da.com
or send an e-mail to info@pamelaprice4da.com

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Bay Area

Oakland Teachers Walk Out

After negotiating late into the night and months of fruitless bargaining with the Oakland Unified School District, Oakland teachers went out on strike Thursday morning. “Our (50-member) bargaining team has been working for seven months working, making meaningful proposals that will strengthen our schools for our students,” said Oakland Education Association (OEA) Interim President Ismael “Ish” Armendariz, speaking at press conference Monday afternoon.

Published

2 years ago

May 12, 2023

Oakland Post

Gearing up for this week's strike, Oakland parents, students, educators and families at United for Success Academy held a press conference April 28 to explain why they are standing together for a safer building and stable and racially justified schools. Photo courtesy of Oakland Education Association.

OEA calls unfair labor practices strike after 7 months of negotiations.

By Ken Epstein

After negotiating late into the night and months of fruitless bargaining with the Oakland Unified School District, Oakland teachers went out on strike Thursday morning.

“Our (50-member) bargaining team has been working for seven months working, making meaningful proposals that will strengthen our schools for our students,” said Oakland Education Association (OEA) Interim President Ismael “Ish” Armendariz, speaking at press conference Monday afternoon.

“OUSD has repeatedly canceled bargaining sessions, has failed to offer meaningful proposals or counterproposals at a majority of the bargaining sessions and has repeatedly failed to discuss certain items,” Armendariz said.

“The days (of bargaining) have been long, and after hours of waiting, the superintendent finally showed up on Sunday night at 11:00 p.m.to meet with our team (for the first time),” he said. “(But) the district continues to come to the table unprepared, and this is unacceptable.”

“This is illegal, and OEA has filed an Unfair Labor Practice charge with the state Public Employment Relations Board (PERB). Under California law, OEA has a right to strike over unfair labor practices,” he said.

OEA represents 3,000 teachers, counselors, psychologists, speech pathologists, early childhood educators, nurses, adult education instructors and substitute teachers, serving 35,000 Oakland public school students. Other labor groups representing school employees include SEIU 1021 and construction unions.

In a press statement released on Tuesday, OUSD said it has been trying to avert a strike.

“The district will remain ready to meet with the teachers’ union at any time and looks forward to continuing our efforts to reach an agreement with OEA … We will continue to do everything possible to avoid a work stoppage.”

“Our children’s education does not need to be interrupted by negotiations with our union, especially given the major offer the District made on Monday,” other district press statements said. “We are committed to continuing to work with our labor leaders to discuss their salaries and support services for our students without the need for a strike.”

OUSD’s latest salary proposal, released this week, includes a 10% raise retroactive to Nov. 1, 2022, and a $5,000, one-time payment to all members.

OEA’s recent salary proposal asked for a 10% retroactive raise to all members, a one-time $10,000 payment to members who return for the 2023-2024 school year, and increases from $7,500 to $10,000 to salaries, based on years of experience.

In addition to pay demands, OEA is making “common good” proposals that serve families and the community, including protecting and enhancing special education programs, putting the brakes on closing schools in flatland neighborhoods, shared school leadership, safety, and support for students.