In some Oakland schools it’s not uncommon for parents to use physical punishment as a primary or only means of correcting and shaping their children’s behavior. I’ve observed more instances than I can count wherein a child initiates a fight and is disciplined by the school. In response the recalcitrant child’s parent comes to the school and threatens staff and other parents.

It’s easy to preach from an ivory tower or ivory neighborhood. Don’t be duped by Peter’s implied vision of, “it takes a village” social Shangri-la! Raising your child may not be your only responsibility to society, but how you do it will have the greatest consequence for society.

For some (including me), it’s a parent’s responsibility is to teach and model a form of conflict resolution that doesn’t rely on physical or verbal aggression. Not all Oakland parents would agree, as evidenced by what is observed in different Oakland school neighborhoods.

A school with a large or growing diversity of parental behavior expectations is not a diversity to “celebrate” or tolerate if it adversely impacts the realization of our expectations for our children. In deciding on a school placement it is important to consider your child first, NOT what someone else considers a valid “contribution to society.”

If a changing school environment means it’s time to change your child’s school and city, it’s not, as Peter implies, “color coding” or “the reason for most problems in this city.” Neither is it “self centered,” or something you should be shy or ashamed about doing. And it is certainly not “begrudging” to other parents who have hard wired behavioral expectations for their children that differ from the hard wired expectations you have for yours.

If someone begrudges your right to do what you believe is best for your child that’s his right. It’s your right to do it anyway, and not be subdued by some Rooster’s cacadoodle do do!

Is it not to segregate the schools by class? or to flee Oakland altogether for a more homogeneous community? I ask respectfully fully acknowledging that as a 25 year teaching veteran of OUSD and a K-12 OUSD alumni no less, that you have considerable insight into the situation.

I must say that I have been following your posts with some interest. From what I can glean (through the sarcasm and bitterness), you advocate personal responsibility. That the flatland schools and their communities must take it upon themselves to change their cultures in a way that supports education as a priority. That efforts of outreach from the hill community will ultimately reach a dead end and fail. If this is true, then I do mostly agree with you. I do believe however, that race (and racism) is a part the discussion. Please correct me if I’m wrong. I do want to learn, not argue.

To me it’s about dominant cultures, and subcultures. It’s about values, and the fact that different cultures, and subcultures, transmit different values. It’s also about skills, including parenting skills, and how they are learned, or not, and exactly which skills one is talking about. Did you know that there is a whole range of skills that are needed to survive in one culture, or subculture, as opposed to another?

It’s also about history. It’s about H. J. Kaiser having recruited and relocated enormous numbers of very poor and uneducated slave descendants from Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Arkansas to work in his shipyards and steelmaking plants during WW II. Did you know that Oakland’s African American population soared from 8,462 in 1940 to 47,562 in 1950?

It’s about the evaporation of thousands of jobs during the postwar years when the many major local industries closed down, one by one. Did you know that the site of Eastmont Mall used to be one of the many automobile manufacturing plants in our city, and that Oakland was once known as the “Detroit of the West”? What do you think happened to all the children of parents who lost their jobs at those plants after they were closed and weren’t fortunate enough to find another?

It’s also about the rising poverty and crime caused by the postwar joblessness in Oakland. And it’s about “white-flight” leading to increasing segregation. Did you know that Walnut Creek’s population soared from 9,903 in 1960, to 39,844 in 1970, and 53,643 in 1980? Where do you think all those people moved from?

And it’s also about what happened in the 1960’s when Oakland’s city government, white-dominated naturally because Oakland used to be white majority, went to the Deep South once again to tap for labor when faced with a police shortage. At a time when the population of Oakland was changing from white to a black majority, did you know that white police officers were recruited from Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Texas and Louisiana to join the force of the OPD? How do you think that worked out? What do you think led young Oaklanders to form the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense in 1966?

I simply believe that there is much more to learn about that would help us understand what we are experiencing today. I believe that if we understand the cause, then we could move a little closer to begin to heal it.

Finding a powerful substance to add to the water to fix it all just isn’t going to happen, and is a scary idea anyway.

It’s normal for people with common values and life objectives to group together to better insure those values will be passed on. The hill parent who observed a decline in school playground etiquette as children from other neighborhoods integrated into her child’s school makes a strong point.

It’s NOT the job of one group to teach or impose their values on others in response to the social engineering agenda of the few or the many.

As school parents We DON’T need to, and shouldn’t be required to, “dig down through deeper issues and look at the foreign body that is contributing to that large and painful festering wound that constantly exudes its foul and toxic pus, and continuously inflames our fair city.” We all just need to put OUR KIDS first and make sure they get the best education possible, absent contradicting distractions. If that can’t happen in Oakland we need to go ELSEWHERE!

It has surprised me how quietly the deadline for this huge decision has arrived so quietly.

I am extremely active and engaged with issues going on in OUSD, but the first time I knew about this proposal was from reading this blog entry last week. Thankfully, Steve Weinberg brought it to our attention and Katy Murphy relayed it to us here.

It occurs to me that, in its stealth manner, this matter is being strategically hurried along. It can be quietly inserted at this particular time because it is overshadowed by the Hillcrest issue and it is during a time of the year when people are busy with their holiday business and not paying as much attention to school issues as they normally would. It’s sad to say, but this is sometimes how things work.

Already the responses to my posting from yesterday are arriving.

One person publicly challenges the School Board members by saying, “Aren’t you just a little bit embarrassed at segregating the more white and high income families above 580 to the wealthiest and whitest middle school in Oakland?”

Another person responds to that posting by saying, “You must be kidding! By changing the boundaries many more Redwood Heights families will remain in the school district rather than go to private schools. SO, the question would be whether OUSD wants to lose more students year after year.”

And on and on we go.

As residents of one of the most diverse cities in the country, maybe someday we will get closer to seriously evaluating our personal attitudes about race and class. Maybe our insights would include a frank self appraisal, that we would be willing to express to others, about the degree to which, and under which circumstances, we would allow our children mix with the children of Others. Also, what might be true about the fears of mixing?

Maybe most of the constant gripes about, and ongoing battering of, Oakland’s public schools aren’t really about the schools at all.

We need to dig down through these deeper issues so terribly much and take a look at the foreign body that is embedded there. It is certainly contributing to that large and painful festering wound that constantly exudes its foul and toxic pus, and continuously inflames our fair city.