Education

Mayor Speaks at Fundraiser to Support Pro-Charter School Board Candidates

Published

9 years ago

March 10, 2016

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa were keynote speakers this week at a $250-a-person election fundraiser for Great Oakland (GO) Public Schools, which protesters say is an organization that backs school board candidates who are pro-charter and uncritically supportive of pro-corporate policies in the Oakland Unified School District.

The “Education Evening with the Mayors” fundraiser on Tuesday at Impact Hub in downtown Oakland was organized by the GO Public Schools Oakland Advocates’ Families & Educators for Public Education political action committee –“to help elect great school board members.”

Standing at the entrance to the event at 2323 Broadway, dozens of protesters passed out a flyer that criticized GO, saying, “Oakland students deserve a functioning school board.”

“GO Public Schools sells itself as a benevolent, pro-public school group, but it is a part of an interconnected network of well-funded organizations in Oakland that are undermining our public schools by directing much needed resources away from our neighborhood schools and giving them to privately managed charters,” according to the protesters’ flyer.

The teachers’ union, the Oakland Education Association (OEA), is also raising concerns about the participation of Mayor Libby Schaaf in a fundraiser that is designed to build support for GO’s school board candidates.

“I think it does not bode well that the mayor of our city is getting directly involved in the election of an ideological school board,” said OEA president Trish Gorham. “We have seen this in the failure of Mayor Jerry Brown’s involvement in appointing school members. We don’t want to return to that kind of mayoral interference.”

Erica Derryck, spokesperson for Mayor Schaaf, strongly denies that GO seeks to elect pro-charter school board candidates.

“GO Public Schools is not pro-charter, it’s pro kids,” said Derryck in a response to the Post.

“Mayor Schaaf believes there is nothing more important for our city than delivering a great public education for our children,” said Derryck. “Mayor Schaaf supports an organization that is focused on educating voters on school board elections because they are so critical.”

GO describes itself as a “coalition of parents, teachers, principals, and community leaders from the hills and flatlands, East, West, and North Oakland, charter and district public schools who share a vision of an Oakland where all children receive the schooling and support they need to live successful, fulfilling lives.”

GO’s participation in local school board elections goes back to 2012 in an election that was covered by the Oakland Tribune in an article titled, “Big Money in Play in Oakland School Board Campaigns.”

The teachers’ union jumped into the 2012 election for the first time in 20 years, funding a political action committee to spend $20,000 on three candidates, according to the Tribune.

GO Public Schools collected $123,000. Most of the money came from two individual donors, including the San Francisco-based venture capitalist and philanthropist Arthur Rock, who gave $49,000, the Tribune reported.

The California Charter School Association also donated $50,000 to the GO PAC.

The Tribune quoted Henry Brady, dean of UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy who observed that, “The polarization of the American political system is now getting all the way down to local politics.”

“Districts are grappling with … sharply different views on school board governance and the role of publicly-funded, independently run charter schools,” said Brady.

“I think there’s a big ideological fight out there right now with how schools should be controlled,” he said.

Support for GO includes $200,000 in 2014 from the pro-charter Walton Foundation (connected to Walmart). For several years, the Rogers Private Family Foundation paid the $200,000-a year-annual salary of GO’s former Executive Director Jonathan Klein.

Gary Rogers of the Rogers Family Foundation, who helped create GO Public Schools, is well known for his support for charter schools.

A Rogers Family Foundation Education Strategy document states:

“Our goal is to facilitate the conditions, partnerships, and direct school investments that will result in creating new and redesigned high-quality schools with the collective capacity to serve 10,000 students by 2020.

“Our tactics will be to stay the course of growing small-but-mighty, high-performing charter schools, making big bets on trusted and successful charter management organizations.”

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Actor, Philanthropist Blair Underwood Visits Bay Area, Kicks Off Literacy Program in ‘New Oakland’ Initiative

These community activations were coordinated with the San Francisco-based non-profit program “Room to Read.” Ray said he is also donating his time to read and take pictures with students to encourage their engagement and to inspire them to read more. The inspirational book “Clifford Ray Saves the Day” highlights Clifford Ray’s true story of saving a dolphin.

Published

4 weeks ago

February 18, 2025

Oakland Post

Blair Underwood (left) and Barbara Lee (right). Courtesy photo.

By Paul Cobb
New Oakland Series
Opinion Part 3

The Post mentioned three weeks ago that a number of our local luminaries were coming together to support the “New Oakland” movement. As this current national administration continues to eliminate our “legacy” institutional policies and programs left and right, most communities find themselves beyond “frozen” in fear.

Well, esteemed actor, long-time Bay Area supporter, and philanthropist Blair Underwood returned to Oakland this week to speak with city leaders, community trust agents, students, the Oakland Post, and local celebrities alike to continue his “New Oakland” initiative.

This week, he kicked off his “Guess Who’s Coming to Read” literacy program in some of Oakland’s middle schools. Clifford Ray, who played the center position of the 1975 World Champion Golden State Warriors, donated close to 1,000 books. Ray’s fellow teammate Charles “The Hopper” Dudley also gave Converse sneakers to students.

Underwood also spent quality time with the Oakland Ballers ownership group and visited the amazing Raimondi Park West Oakland community revitalization site. In the 1996 TV film Soul of the Game, Underwood played the role of the legendary first Black Major League Baseball player Jackie Robinson and commended the Ballers owners.

“This group of sports enthusiasts/ philanthropists needs to be applauded for their human capital investment and their financial capital investment,” Underwood said. “Truly putting their money and passion to work,” Underwood said.

Underwood was also inspired by mayoral candidate Barbara Lee’s open-minded invitation to bring public-private partnership opportunities to Oakland.

Underwood said he wants to “reinforce the importance of ‘collaborative activism’ among those most marginalized by non-empathic leadership. We must ‘act out’ our discomfort with passionate intentions to create healthy change.”

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McClymonds High Names School Gym for Star Graduate, Basketball Legend Bill Russell

William “Bill” Felton Russell was born on Feb. 12, 1934, and died on July 31, 2022. He achieved fame as a U.S. professional basketball player who played center for the Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association (NBA) from 1956 to 1969. He was the centerpiece of the Celtics dynasty that won 11 NBA championships during his 13-year career.

Published

4 weeks ago

February 18, 2025

Oakland Post

Bill Russell and Brian McGhee in McClymonds High School Gym, 2011. Photo courtesy of Brian McGhee.

By Ken Epstein

West Oakland’s McClymonds High School, “the School of Champions,” this week named the school’s gymnasium in honor of one of its most famous graduates, basketball legend Bill Russell (class of ’52).

Russell is widely known as one of the greatest basketball players of all time. In 2011, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civil honor, from President Barack Obama for Russell’s contributions to basketball and the Civil Rights Movement.

The McClymonds’ naming ceremony was held on Wednesday, the same day as Russell’s birthday. Oakland leader Bill Patterson, a longtime friend of Russell’s, was scheduled to cut the ribbon at the reopening of the gym, which had been closed for several months for renovation. Russell’s daughter Karen was scheduled to attend the ribbon cutting.

Russell’s name and signature are now printed on the gymnasium floor.

Patterson was working at DeFremery Park when he met Russell. “I befriended him as a boy and during his years at University of San Francisco” said Patterson. “We stayed friends for the rest of his life.”

Said McClymonds Principal Darielle Davis, herself a McClymonds graduate, “We are excited to honor Bill Russell for his sports accolades and because he broke color barriers. He is part of our legacy, and legacy is really important at McClymonds.”

Brian McGhee, community schools manager at McClymonds and former football player at UC Berkeley, said that Russell meant a lot to him and others at the school. “He was a beacon of light and hope for West Oakland,” he said. “He did a lot for sports and for civil rights.”

Starting in 2018, Ben “Coach” Tapscott worked with Patterson and other McClymonds grads, community members, and former coaches to encourage the Oakland Board of Education to endorse the naming of the school gym, which finally happened recently.

“We worked hard to make this happen,” said Tapscott. “He’s an important part of McClymond’s history, along with a lot of other famous graduates,” he said.

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Tony Thurmond Urges Educators to Stay Focused Amid Federal Funding Battle

In a statement and a letter to California’s local educational agencies (LEAs), Thurmond praised efforts to reduce chronic absenteeism and close achievement gaps, particularly for socioeconomically disadvantaged students. “Now is not the time to be distracted by external efforts to demean and divide,” Thurmond wrote. “Please continue to stay the course with local programs that are producing results. Our students need consistency, support, and community more than ever.”

Published

4 weeks ago

February 17, 2025

Oakland Post

Tony Thurmond. Courtesy of Tony Thurmond’s Facebook page.

By Bo Tefu, California Black Media

California Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond has urged educators to remain focused on student achievement following a court ruling that temporarily blocks the Trump administration from freezing federal funding for schools, health care, law enforcement, and disaster relief.

A U.S. District Court judge in Rhode Island issued a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) on Jan. 31, halting federal efforts to pause funding while a lawsuit led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta and 22 other state attorneys general moves forward. Thurmond, a declarant in the case, welcomed the decision and reassured educators that funding for critical school programs remains in place.

“Now is not the time to be distracted by external efforts to demean and divide,” Thurmond wrote. “Please continue to stay the course with local programs that are producing results. Our students need consistency, support, and community more than ever.”

Thurmond emphasized that state officials will continue advocating for stable funding to ensure schools can maintain and expand programs that help students succeed.