It was titled, “Internal Review Identifies Operational Deficiencies within OUSD: Ongoing investigation reveals faulty systems and insufficient oversight.”

True, the details and the documents materialized in response to our public information request (and a fair degree of source-pestering on my part), but OUSD did go public with its investigation first.

Brown should give the money back to the children of Oakland. Shame on her!!!

Good job, Noel!

They do earn some transparancy points; however, I believe you requested the information under the Freedom of Information Act. I don’t believe, please correct me if I’m wrong, they contacted you to print the information they had been working to verify and correct.

Some of my biggest fears about OUSD have to do with admitting wrong when they are “outed.” What I would prefer from OUSD is that they have an audit department and come clean at the next regularly scheduled board meeting after an irregularity is found. In my book, a year of fully disclosing irregularities over $1,000 would restore the majority of my trust.

They score a third of the points for transparency, another third for punishing the perpetrator(s), and the final third for publicly acknowledging their mistake and showing how the problem will not occur again.

Or, like Jim said, they get max points for not getting into shady deals in the first place.

OUSD always undermines the public trust. I also think they did not foresee the public backlash being so intense.

Turner

OUSD gets transparency points for not cutting a deal.

Jim Mordecai

In your mind, does OUSD earn transparency points by scrutinizing these payments (albeit, after the fact) and letting us know about this investigation, rather than quietly cutting a deal?

Or, in the pursuit of transparency, did the district merely undermine the trust of the public (who would otherwise be ignorant about the whole affair)?

No, it isn’t public frustration with oversight but the lack of oversight that is of most concern after years of Republican see no evil, hear no evil deregulation as the public treasury is robbed.

And, No on Measure N. Measure N with its $18 million give-away to charter schools without oversight or strings attached. $18 million that tests scores that have no more validityare as bills submitted to OUSD for payment.

Charter schools are the other, the ideal of not having to deal with the corrupt system that exists. But, people are people, and although our existing democratic institutions such as school boards are flawed, replacing democratic, elected school boards with CEOs and deregulated privatized corporate charters is the wrong answer for frustration with the current system.

Catherine:

I support your demand for transparency as the road to establishing trust in OUSD.

But this is a very complex situation and difficult envrionment to establish trust. You have the forces of State take-over influenced by business model of Eli Broad. You have a school board that has been trained in the group-think outlook of the Aspen Group trainers trying to regain leadership of a district with a huge debt in a State going bankrupt. And, you have an internal battle for the post State take-over of administration of the district lead by the gang of 5 calling self defined as the “Strategy team” made up of Roberta Mayor (Board selected Superintendent/grafted ex-officio member of the gang), Leon Glaster (post retirement short term advisor), Laura Moran, Brad Stam, Kirsten Vital. Really school board and Superintendent are not part of the inner gang of three Vital, Stam, and Moran. Sort of Oakland’s leadership troika.

I believe democracy is the worse form of governance except all the others including charter schools that need to be regulated or the experiment abandoned as ungovernable under present law.

Jim Mordecai

G.Bird: I agree that poor oversight is a problem at OUSD. But, I think it’s as a result of their focus on politics instead of education. OUSD leadership is a game of one-upping the next person. The problem at OUSD is not lack of money, lack of dedicated teachers or a lack of qualified personnel. The problem is the leadership. From the State Administrator to the Board members, they have all lost sight of the fact that they are trustees of public education in Oakland. That’s why we are where we are today.

I don’t think charter schools are the way to resolve this issue. Let’s deal with the OUSD leadership issue then go from there.

Turner