Education

Opinion: Closing Oakland Schools Hurts Students, No Matter How You Sell It

Published

8 years ago

July 14, 2017

The Oakland school district is likely to propose the closing of more schools using a term borrowed from corporate America called “rightsizing.” The Business Dictionary calls rightsizing: “The process of a corporation reorganizing or restructuring their business. The term rightsizing is often used by companies instead of downsizing because it sounds less drastic.”

Adopting corporate vocabulary for public institutions is a problem, but the bigger problem is that closing schools has no educational justification. The most definitive national study of school closings indicates that they do not save money or improve student education.
University of Maryland researcher Gail Sunderman and UC Berkeley professors Erin Coghlan and Rick Mintrop produced a report “School Closure as a Strategy to Remedy Low Performance” for the National Education Policy Center.

They document that closing schools is not good for either student performance or non-cognitive well-being, and they begin their recommendations with this statement: “The relatively limited evidence base suggests that school closures are not a promising strategy for remedying low student performance.”

Four important points emerge from the study that was published in May of this year:

Some have argued that closing schools where students do not have high test scores will help those students to do better. The evidence indicates that the opposite is true.
Student performance declines in the year after the closing is announced, even before the school is actually closed. There is also an increase in dropout rates.
Performance declines further at the new school to which the student is assigned. Even if the new school is a better-performing school than the one from which the student was transferred (which is often not the case), performance improves in the second and third year but not more than it would have improved if the student had stayed at the original school. The studies also found modest negative spillover effects on the students attending the schools receiving the new students.
Closings have a differential negative impact on Black students. In urban school closures 61 percent of the impacted students are African-American although African-American students makes up only about 31 percent of urban school populations. And in some districts such as Chicago, Black teachers are also more likely to be affected.
Students do not feel that they are being “saved” from a “failing” school. They experience the closings as oppressive.
Closing schools does not save money.

In the case of Detroit, for example, the study concluded that the district achieved little or no savings, because of the extra costs associated with moving the additional students lost to the district and the renovation costs for upgrading schools, some of which were themselves later closed. The notion that schools should have a minimum size is not born out by a look at the average private school, which is smaller than the average public school.

Wealthier people do not, by and large, choose large anonymous institutions for their kids. Why should we?

So why would the Oakland district do something which is not helpful to its students?

The following are speculations: First, the school board may not have this information. (I plan to encourage them to read the study.) Second, it seems that the school board is being pressured in policy by the same entities that have led Oakland astray persistently. The Fiscal Crisis Management and Assistance Team (FCMAT), for example, is a quasi private body of consultants, operating out of Bakersfield, which was involved in the take-over of the school district years ago.

Further, a number of Sacramento politicians are heavily funded by corporatized charter schools and may be willing to see public schools close because districts are required to offer closed schools sites to charters.

The recommendation of the NEPC study on school closings is simple – Instead of taking the costly step of closing needy schools, invest in them.

Kitty Kelly Epstein, PhD, hosts Education Today on KPFA and tweets from @educate2day941.po

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Five Years After COVID-19 Began, a Struggling Child Care Workforce Faces New Threats

Five years ago, as COVID-19 lockdowns and school closures began, most early educators continued to work in person, risking their own health and that of their families. “Early educators were called essential, but they weren’t provided with the personal protective equipment they needed to stay safe,” said CSCCE Executive Director Lea Austin. “There were no special shopping hours or ways for them to access safety materials in those early and scary months of the pandemic, leaving them to compete with other shoppers. One state even advised them to wear trash bags if they couldn’t find PPE.”

Published

1 month ago

March 24, 2025

Oakland Post

UC Berkeley photo.

UC Berkeley News

In the first eight months of the COVID-19 pandemic alone, 166,000 childcare jobs were lost across the nation. Significant recovery didn’t begin until the advent of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) Child Care Stabilization funds in April 2021.

Today, child care employment is back to slightly above pre-pandemic levels, but job growth has remained sluggish at 1.4% since ARPA funding allocations ended in October 2023, according to analysis by the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment (CSCCE) at UC Berkeley. In the last six months, childcare employment has hovered around 1.1 million.

Yet more than two million American parents report job changes due to problems accessing child care. Why does the childcare sector continue to face a workforce crisis that has predated the pandemic? Inadequate compensation drives high turnover rates and workforce shortages that predate the pandemic. Early childhood educators are skilled professionals; many have more than 15 years of experience and a college degree, but their compensation does not reflect their expertise. The national median hourly wage is $13.07, and only a small proportion of early educators receive benefits.

And now a new round of challenges is about to hit childcare. The low wages paid in early care and education result in 43% of early educator families depending on at least one public support program, such as Medicaid or food stamps, both of which are threatened by potential federal funding cuts. Job numbers will likely fall as many early childhood educators need to find jobs with healthcare benefits or better pay.

In addition, one in five child care workers are immigrants, and executive orders driving deportation and ICE raids will further devastate the entire early care and education system. These stresses are part of the historical lack of respect the workforce faces, despite all they contribute to children, families, and the economy.

The economic impact was equally dire. Even as many providers tried to remain open to ensure their financial security, the combination of higher costs to meet safety protocols and lower revenue from fewer children enrolled led to job losses, increased debt, and program closures.

Eventually, the federal government responded with historic short-term investments through ARPA, which stabilized childcare programs. These funds provided money to increase pay or provide financial relief to early educators to improve their income and well-being. The childcare sector began to slowly recover. Larger job gains were made in 2022 and 2023, and as of November 2023, national job numbers had slightly surpassed pre-pandemic levels, though state and metro areas continued to fluctuate.

Many states have continued to support the workforce after ARPA funding expired in late 2024. In Maine, a salary supplement initiative has provided monthly stipends of $240-$540 to educators working in licensed home- or center-based care, based on education and experience, making it one of the nation’s leaders in its support of early educators. Early educators say the program has enabled them to raise wages, which has improved staff retention. Yet now, Governor Janet Mills is considering cutting the stipend program in half.

“History shows that once an emergency is perceived to have passed, public funding that supports the early care and education workforce is pulled,” says Austin. “You can’t build a stable childcare workforce and system without consistent public investment and respect for all that early educators contribute.”

The Center for the Study of Childcare Employment is the source of this story.

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Activism

District Delegates to State Democratic Party Central Committee Meeting Celebrate Election Victory

Delegates and elected officials were excited for the future of the Democratic Party and making its focus on 1) creating more affordable housing, 2) supporting education, 3) helping working families, and 4) protecting the environment and addressing climate change, with a focus on practical and realistic policy efforts that could have a meaningful impact.

Published

1 month ago

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Oakland Post

Front row: Megan Imperial, Genice Jacobs, Bobbi Lopez, Courtney Welch, Janani Ramachandran, Hercules Councilmember Dilli Bhattarai, Sarah Bell, Laura Babitt, Ashlee Jemmott, and Shawn Danino. Rear row: Ben Gould, Sam Davis, Victor Flores, Zac Bowling, Nate Hanson, Teddy Gray King, Cathy Adams, Neil Tsutsui, Sam Gould, Lauren Wilson, and Nick Pilch. Courtesy photo.

By Ben Gould
Special to The Post

Winners of the February 2025 Assembly District Election Meetings (ADEM) for Assembly Districts 14 and 18 met on Sunday, March 16 to discuss priorities for the California Democratic Party convention in Anaheim coming up in May.

The winners for Assembly District 18 are Genice Jacobs, Bobbi Lopez, Shawn Danino, Ben Gould, Zac Bowling, Nate Hanson, Cathy Adams, Sam Gould, Lauren Wilson, Ashlee Jemmott, and former Oakland School Board Director Sam Davis.

The winners for Assembly District 14 are: Sarah Bell, Neil Tsutsui, Hercules Councilmember Dilli Bhattarai, former Berkeley School Board Director Laura Babitt, former Piedmont Mayor Teddy Gray King, and former Albany Mayor Nick Pilch.

They were joined by Oakland Councilmember Janani Ramachandran, Emeryville Councilmember Courtney Welch, and BART Director Victor Flores to help celebrate their victory.

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Golden State Warriors Program Is Inspiring Next Generation of Female Engineers

Breaking down barriers and biases that deter young girls from pursuing STEAM subjects is essential for creating a level playing field and ensuring equal opportunities for all. By challenging stereotypes and promoting a culture of inclusivity and diversity in STEAM fields, experts believe young girls can be empowered to pursue their interests and aspirations without limitations confidently. Encouraging mentorship, providing access to resources, and celebrating girls’ achievements in STEAM are all crucial steps in creating a supportive environment that fosters success.

Published

1 month ago

March 23, 2025

Oakland Post

Front Row: UC Berkeley Steel Bridge Team Back Row: Girls, Inc. Participants. Photo courtesy of the Golden State Warriors.

By Y’Anad Burrell

The Golden State Warriors and e-commerce giant Rakuten are joining forces to inspire the next generation of female engineers through Building STEAM Futures, part of The City Calls campaign.

Organizers say the initiative is founded on the idea that science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM) are crucial fields for innovation and progress, and empowering young girls to pursue careers in these areas is more important than ever. Studies consistently show that girls are underrepresented in STEAM fields, resulting in a gender disparity that limits potential and hinders diversity.

On Saturday, March 8, International Women’s Day, the Warriors and Rakuten hosted 20 middle school girls from Girls Inc. of Alameda County at Chase Center’s Above the Rim for a hands-on bridge-building experience. The young girls from Girls, Inc. of Alameda County had an opportunity to design, build and test their own bridge prototypes and learn the fundamentals of bridge construction from the Engineering Alliance and the UC Berkeley Steel Bridge Team.

This STEAM experience for the girls followed the first session in January, where they took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Golden Gate Bridge, learning about its design and construction from industry experts. The City Calls campaign, tipped off with the unveiling the Warriors’ new bridge-themed City Edition jerseys and court design earlier this year.