It’s one thing to criticize public figures on this blog. It’s another to insult someone who has posted a comment under his or her full name. I prefer when people use their names, for transparency’s sake, and I’m afraid such personal attacks — which, more often than not, are made by anonymous posters — will dissuade people from revealing their identities.

It’s also not very fair, since we don’t know the family connections, professional affiliations or back stories of the anonymous contributors.

In other words, let’s keep the discussions civil and free of personal insults.

Problem i got with unions is that they have handcuffed the system.When was the last time anyone has heard the union representation stand up at the OUSD podium and talk about how teachers will spend more time tutoring kids? You wont! As taxpayers- they steal your money by protecting their rolls, and not doing what is right.

The fact is charter schools may not be the answer, but OUSD is DEFINETLY not the answer/ I would rather guide my dollars to something new-charters, vouchers or what works. Charters have been around for more than a decade- yet schools in Oakland have been screwed for years- so obviously OUSD definitely wont work!
Alternative schools in Oakland have been stymied for over 30 years (rember the BPP schools?)

Why hasn’t anybody asked- why do unions and their cronies such Jim hate charters so much? Could it be because they are taking their MONEY?

The are protecting the status quo,! Hell I drive a truck for a living and simply call it like I see it and I get attacked ? The problem in Oakland is obvious when we let these professionals (I guess pimps is too street for you) set the tone for our children while they watch from a distance.

Jim silly of You to act as if the large prison numbers for black or brown populants is something new- well i hate to inform you that while you were out protesting Vietnam War or Woodstocking with other hippies- we have been swelling the prison system.

As for my religion I practice at Acts Full of Gospel Church and have a god Jim- what do you practice? I can sleep at night and know that my honest money, and raising black boys in a city that is corrupt by the people like you is an honest task that is a blessed life in comparison to my neighbors and people. People in the neighborhoods do not go to charters because they are too rigid and demanding. Do you get that? OUSD is the school of choice because its easy and they can get away with anything? So weh you go to your OEA church to practice with other unionists on Sunday- ask your congregation how that appears? Your church’s mission to protect teachers is preparing us to act like fools since we can get away with anything!

I have problems with all of those OUSD board members, nothing personal vs. Mr. Siegal, but what I cant stand is these trust funders children holding bull horns on the weekend and using Oakland students to further their daddy’s agendas. That bugs me.

All venting aside, I think it’s unfair and/or naive of you to blame unions (teachers and staff), white people, and non-ghetto residents for the failure of public schools while assigning no fault to the students and families who are the clientele.

Once again, I’m an Af-Am teacher who has been teaching in Oakland for twenty years. I have taught in three schools, and have seen a world of difference between conditions where disruptive behavior is tolerated, and where it is not.

Again, those charter schools (and private schools, for that matter) that are the most successful have strict discipline policies which are enforced consistently. I’m aware that this is not the only difference, but it is a key component to their success.

So, once again I ask the public, including you, Chauncey, to insist that we push for the same kind of practices in our traditional public schools, and stop making excuses for bad behavior which, combined with poverty and family dysfunction, is the primary cause of the imprisonment of our youth.

Companies break up monopolies? American way is that companies try to become monopolies like Microsoft windows.

But, I thought that breaking up monopolies was what government was suppose to do like back in the day when Rockefeller union busted, and used a fraction of his wealth to support Black colleges with the money he gained from exploitation of his workers.

Although we perceive the world differently, living in America we are both subject to taxation whether in a high rent or low rent district.

The struggle you and I are in is not just over history but how the public’s taxes are used. Because whether or not I live in the hills or flatlands I don’t see how my taxes should go to pay for charter schools that as ten years has shown do not overall do a better job than the local school that has more accountability to the public and less autonomy.

Perhaps you are right that when charter schools have made the hills flat and prisons empty I will have to beg your forgiveness for having the wrong thoughts and exposing them to Oakland’s youth.

I just have yet to see the evidence that charter schools is a public policy that has reduced the prison population.

Silly of me to think that get tough laws and longer sentencing have swollen our prisons while test scores have increased for all classes of students over the years.

And, even sillier of me to have thoughts that you don’t approve.

But, despite your disapproval, I don’t believe taxpayer’s money should be wasted on a charter school system that by its nature will require expensive oversight to ensure the proper use of the public’s money. Of course if the free market unregulated is your religion, the idea of the public is an alien concept. Hint: public is a bigger idea than neighborhood.

If the charter school experiment is shut down, never fear Chauncy there will not emerge a public school monopoly like Microsoft windows because private schooling still exists.

Sir, play Milton F. on your own dime and take your hand out of the pocket of the public.

Jim Mordecai

But I am unclear on your exact logic or solutions for OUSD and beyond. Because you seem to have a lot of history with the district, I am really interested to understand your perspective — if it has a constructive side.

Can you explain a bit more? I would appreciate it.

Questions:

1. Are you saying unions are bad for schools? If so, why? Money? Protecting bad teachers?

2. Beyond charters, would you support a voucher system, where parents can take their education benefit to any school private or public?

3. If the school district isn’t working for minorities, why should they get to decide what schools should be closed? Aren’t you giving back power to the people you wanted to take it away from? Or is you trust the district leaders and the state but just want to do away with the union?

4. Are your complaints about the teachers’ union rooted in a particular philosophy (i.e., conservative, libertarian, objectivist)? Or based on personal observation/experience?

5. If whites engaged in OUSD are “pimps,” what about those at the state level, or the private consultants, or Eli Broad and Bill Gates and their foundations? You seem to be particularly angry at Dan Siegel, the union, etc. How about Jack O’Connell? The testing companies? How do you explain conflicts between these different forces?

6. A lot of your analysis seems to be directly race-based, as exemplified by your bringing in slavery. Are you asking for more minority leadership of the district? Fewer white teachers/administrators? Do you have ideas about how this could be brought about?

7. Do you believe, like Nextset on here, that enough resources are already going into education, but they are being wasted? (Presumably, because of unions.) Because most of the “poverty pimps” you attack have always claimed they are not given enough resources by a society that doesn’t care.

8. What’s your beef with Dan Siegel, who have attacked several times on here? I see he was president of the school board before the state takeover. Is he just an example of the white leaders you are angry about, or did he support policies you disagree with? What schools did he sue, and why?

I know this is a lot of questions, but I am actually interested in your answers if you want to respond.

When a nation is at war- you do what you got too- by any means necessary. That even inculdes breaking up a monopoly and hiring consultants. Isistnt that what companies do? Distircts do it too- just like at OUSD.

We in the ghetto are sick and tired of people like you using your position to pimp our kids for the greater good of your ideals and associations. We are at war with you and the powers that be that send more black and brown kids to prison rather than the universities. My people have been listening to the old vanguard of education like you for years!

We are a minority-majority state, (48%). yet we drop out at ridiculous rates, and go to prison or die.

Give no more money to charter schools? First of all, It aint your money-its our money. I would rather give my money to whatever school I wish, then to be forced to give it to pimps like you who would rather segregate the community becuase of your union affiliations rather than to say that charter schools are part of the answer.

Your metnality is an exhibit of the education crisis, that will in part, ultimately destroy this country.
Your people crossed an ocean, enslvaed other, stole land, killed by the masses, and killed our minds and way of being-yet we should still listen to you and your ways. Now you want to play nice. Do what you will with your kids, but as for the minorities in Oakland- I believe theyr are leaving your ideals, unions and schools cause it aint working.

It is not about you and your comrades-its about our kids and neighborhoods.

Keep pimping-but do it in the hills for a change.

The Blackwater example points to the problem with ending the public institution as a monopoly whether in education or military.

When the bottom line becomes maximizing profit, and the chief form of accountability, trouble usually follows because of the contradiction between public and private.

Blackwater hired guns troubled the world and many Americans because its actions were not under the direct control of a Nation state and seemed to lack the accountability expected when a Nation-state commits questionable actions. Often there is blow-back and pressure on a Nation-state to halt and punish those responsible for injury or death of non-combatants.

Blackwater is a private contractor doing work that in the modern world is associated with a Nation-state. I say modern world because contractors carrying out the will of a Nation-state are not new from Sir Francis Drake to The East Indies Company to the French Foreign Legion.

Charter schools, in my view, are always bad public policy because they alienate themselves from the public and cost more in oversight.

As the number of Oakland charter schools grow the public is left further and further behind in how its public schools are run and how its tax money is spent. The autonomy means less transparency and greater opportunity for monkey business.

Charter schools are a bankrupt idea because the inverse relationship of accountability vs. autonomy means that accountability and oversight of charter schools will cost more money than in public schools with an elected school district school board representing the public.

Remember that charter schools don’t have elected school boards but corporate boards with no obligation to hold public election of its governing board.

Furthermore, It cost more to make sure high-stakes tests data is reliable; it cost more to supervise 32 Oakland charter schools acting with the autonomy of a school district to ensure they follow through and submit required finance reports on time. Every audit of Oakland charter schools under the State take-over have indicated that charter school records taken as a whole have been incomplete. Perhaps even a greater commitment of money to District oversight of charter schools will not change the situation enough to pass a State audit.

I would argue against spending even more money on charter school oversight because it is a broken concept that should no longer be funded and should be ended the same as the concept of Blackwater and hired guns to replace the American military.

Jim Mordecai

I wouuld like to know where school board members, and OUSd staff send their children. I bet you a huge number are in the hills.

Tony Smith’s child in in Crocker Highlands right? Who else? I know no one will ansewr this, but rumore abound. i heard that even ms. Marantz daughter attended American Indian? Is that true?

Charters are a choice and parents could choose to leave. I recall speaking to Mr. Lopez from Oakland Charter Academy who told me that he loses many students to the neighboring schools because they do not have the academic rigor and discipline model as compared to the OCA program.That is their choice and they should feel glad to have it, ( I dont know what they are thinking), but they have a unique power that my folks did not have when I attended terrible district schools.

I do agree that there are too many charters in the city that are not performing well and should be closed, and simply ask- then what about district school that do not perform well?

By the Way- Mr. Siegal- what is your daddy up to these days- suing schools still? As Long as he aint on the OUSD union loving board!