I believe that billionaire Eli Broad arranged with Jack O’Connell to get a hold of OUSD. Broad operates a training ground for district administrators and needed a place for them to be able to practice what he’s taught them. Every one of the state administrators that O’Connell has assigned, and many of their top level people, have been trained by Broad. Their group project is what “Expect Success” is all about. I don’t think their focus was ever to aggressively manage the fiscal recovery that was needed. By the way, Broad gave a significant campaign contribution to O’Connell just before all this happened. Funny, huh?

I became an irritant to them in other ways, too. For instance, I was disgusted to learn that the Student Success Guide for this year (annually given to all ninth graders) contained a photocopy of a real student transcript, complete with her personal information. I used the phone number that had been printed in the guide to warn the student that this had been done, then sent the district a nasty complaint letter. I think they had to pull all those guides, so all that money was wasted. I am sure that it was these types of things that made them want to get me out.

I had been working as a part-time “consultant” for seven years (a Parent Coordinator) when the Network Executive Officer (the principal’s boss) met with me and told me that she had read some things I had written, that I seemed unhappy with the District and that I should make plans to leave. Pressuring me out had nothing to do with the quality of my work at the school. It had everything to do with being a person who would speak out. So in my time now I occasionally write and post at http://perimeterprimate.blogspot.com/

I am a very strong supporter of public education. I have been a parent in this district for 15 years and have three more years to go. I have never seen things so bad.

We desperately need a good leader to put things straight, but I don’t see one in sight.

Remember I was briefly a sub in an urban school district a lifetime ago. I can say that I found very little to complain about there. The administration backed all the teachers to the hilt and routinely suspended and expelled behavior problem students (for even being tardy, much less referral form the classroom). The students concentrated on class and not on their social lives around the campus. There was no violence. Flunking students were transferred to alternative schools. Students never defied teachers or talked back and remained on the campus. (The tardy policy was more severe than I’d ever grown up under.) All classroom doors were closed and locked when the tardy bell rang. No admittance w/o a pass.

And I thought all this was normal. I was told that the next school district over was a complete war zone and nobody wanted to work there. I only worked a semester before the bar results came out.

So when I taught, I had nothing to complain about and the students were pretty settled also. They didn’t complain about much either. They did their work and looked to promotion and graduation with some nervousness at having to find a future life at 18.

Apparently that’s not the way things are at OUSD. Could OUSD ever get back to this point?

Those of you using Ms. Stewart’s poem to beat your breast about the state of education in Oakland are simply revealing your own prejudices. It’s a shame that your critical viewpoints (valid or vapid) obscure your vision.

My kids have been OUSD schools for the past 15 years, nine of them at the secondary school level. I also worked as an employee at one of the middle schools for seven years until the district asked me to leave because of “things I had written” (criticizing them). Being on campus, I was often shocked and saddened by student (and parent) behavior and ended up becoming incredibly driven to learn more. I’ve been trying to sort this all out ever since.

Maybe the Eli Broad-trained Expect Success folks like Vince Matthews and his other top administrators can chime into this conversation and tell us why these crucial concepts are so infrequently addressed.

You know, many of the people working in OUSD’s top administration aren’t from Oakland, aren’t sufficiently familiar with serious urban issues, have no ground level experience in these schools, aren’t willing to send their children to these schools, don’t want to get sued, etc.

These new approaches really should be coming from the top down. Otherwise, any efforts that school sites make won’t be supported when the inevitable conflicts arise.

By the way, Elijah Anderson’s new book “Against the Wall: Poor Young Black and Male” will be released imminently. Because I admire his work, I recently contacted him to tell him so. He sent me the introductory chapter to read. Once again, he has hit the nail on the head.

Everybody is not a victim just because they are black. And some of those domestics were a LOT sharper than you give them credit for.

You have little to worry about now. All the domestic jobs that were once taken by blacks are largely taken by other ethnics now and the blacks can’t even get an interview. I for one notice when industry by industry is being ethnically cleansed. I don’t like it. Honest work is always a good thing. Be concerned when opportunities are no longer open.

Cranky’s comment seems to indicate that the Media Academy is on the issue of code switching but still tries to validate the street standards. My own thinking is to tell the kiddies that they will have to choose one day soon between staying street or moving on up to decent. The school can’t make the choice for them. What the school will do is to try to get them exposed to “decent” enough so they still have a chance to cross over. The school can also show the charts and studies of “street” mortality tables and standard of living vs “decent” mortality and lifestyle.

My prefered method is to bring in a lot of guest speakers talking about their life choices and lifestyle. Often it’s never occurred to students that people who seem to have things once had nothing. They commonly think that either you’re born with money and skill or not.

Anybody there know how this is going?

Anderson has identified two types of families that dwell in the inner city and refers to them as “street” and “decent.” When outside of their homes, kids from “decent” families are under pressure to present themselves as “street” in order to earn respect from the “street” oriented kids. This enhances their safety but also places them at risk. Big problems arise when the “decent” kids loose track of where they should be, and end up falling deeply into “street” behavior.

Also, kids with a “street” orientation have a difficult time code-switching to anything else because their exposure to any other realm is highly limited or nonexistent. Schools are the only place where the “street” kids can learn these other behaviors. I think this is one of Nextset’s major points.

“Street” language and behavior in schools should be constantly suppressed. Schools need to deal with this consciously, overtly and head on. Alas, I have never heard any of these issues formally addressed by OUSD.

On the other hand, hours of Professional Development have been spent training teachers how to organize their “white boards” (today’s black boards). They learn strict guidelines for where the date, the day’s agenda, assignments, etc. are to be placed on the board. Their classrooms are inspected to find out if they are putting all these things in the right place and the teachers are confronted if they are not compliant.

Here’s another bit of advice for OUSD. I recently learned that one of their secondary school principals didn’t even know what P.T.S.D.* meant! With kids being subjected to so much violence in their homes and neighborhoods, perhaps that concept should be taught in Professional Development, too.

*Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

What is the school’s status on the standardized verbal tests? What is the trend of the scores over the years? Does OUSD have plans to work on those scores? What reading and how much is required in grades 5-12?