I try to report as completely as I can in my blog posts, but because the reporting/writing/editing process is so compressed, the end result will usually not be as comprehensive as the stories I write for the paper.

That’s why I encourage people to fill in the gaps — though such information and insight could probably be delivered just as effectively without the snark… I guess it wouldn’t be as fun to write, though!

Wouldn’t waste any time arguing about it, since it can’t happen.

I agree with Debora’s comments about Lincoln…It’s not just about money. Schools with active PTAs do not just contribute money, but also a great deal of time.

Nextset: I agree that that we must have a set of values and principles for which we hold each and every family accountable.

On one blog threads, Lincoln elementary school’s contribution is to get their students to school on time with their homework done. Not money, not even volunteer time, just get your kids to school on time with their homework done. We have plenty of parents from every walk of life, socioeconomic background, parenting (use this loosely) situation who will not do those two things. In some cases its parents who don’t like being in the queue or rushing their kids, for others its a broken car or no car.

You could even argue that the parents don’t know the work, don’t speak the language, etc. Then their job as parents is to go to the school and ask for the help, go to the library and ask for the help. Comparing socioeconomic backgrounds, Lincoln elementary school has some of the highest scores overall of any school in the district with the vast majority of the parents having some of the lowest education levels. The difference with this school is everyone has their jobs, the teachers teach, the parents parent and the students learn and perform. Everyone has a role and everyone takes their role and responsibility seriously.

Tony is behaving as though this is about money. And some of it is. And much of it is not. In addressing the issue of learning, Tony has not addressed the issue that there are a group of students who learn the “9 month curriculum” in 3 months and those who take 12 months to learn a standard 9 month curriculum. He wants to throw all types of learners in the same classrooms and call is a mean of 9 months, but students are not learning on the curve of the mean.

There should be an opportunity for those students who take nearly 12 months to work through a standard year curriculum to do so with a group of students who take nearly 12 months to learn the material. There should be an opportunity for students who take 3 months to work through the standard year curriculum to do so with a group of students who take 3 months. In our district I hear that we are thinking Same is Equal. But Same is NOT Equal.

I wonder what would happen if we would hold our students and their parents accountable for the behaviors at school? If students graffiti the walls, students and parents must come and paint the school, if students throw trash on the ground both parents and students must come to school and pick up trash, if students do not arrive on time, they must come and work the drop off queue, if students do not have homework done, students and parents must come to the school to work together to do homework. It seems fair that everyone would behave in a way that would help the school teach and help the students learn.

What I see, is that except for Broad, we do not ask for much foundation in Oakland to set up a “Expect Parental Success” movement. The vast majority of students who have difficulties come from families in which the first child of the family was born before the parents were 21 years old. How does a 14 year old know how to parent? How does that same parent who is now 19 years old know how to get the best education for her or his kindergartner? I challenge those schools, and people on this blog who have said about misbehaving children, “What do you do, kick them to the curb?” to look at the age of the parents when they had their first child. Study after study has shown that parenting a first child after age 30 is one of the best predictors of educational success for children, its not reading to the child (no, I am not opposed to reading to children), its not taking them to libraries or museums (I’m not opposed to that either), its delaying the age of parenting (yes, I am all for delaying the age of parenting). Tony is looking for some parents to fund other parents, this is what progressive taxation does.

If Tony wants to help Oakland students with money to fund solid projects, he can apply for grants that would give the kind of support that the students of Pico Rivera CA get through grants from the Toyota Foundation, the Valley Foundation, the Koret Foundation, the Wallace Foundation and the Annie E. Casey Foundation. The key is you have to have a valid proposition with data driven results. What I see is that we want “feel good results” and we want our results not tied to test scores, delayed parenting, improved nutrition, schools that teach by ability or any other data driven result for which our entire district will be held accountable. We want the money to try new things, to build “equity” and to help our students “feel better about their environment.” Foundations do not fund based on how everyone feels about the environment, they fund based on student achievement.

Los Angeles Unified being the best case in point. It is a school district that is similar to a County Hospital. If the working population belong to Kaiser and other systems they aren’t going to fully fund a County Hospital. That hospital only exists to keep the welfare crowd away from Kaiser, it doesn’t merit significant funding. LA voters would no more vote (bond) funding for MLK/Compton Hospital than they would LAUSD. The voters can’t imagine ever going there.

If the urban schools continue their leftist policies and politics they can forget widespread voter support and funding. In order to win that support it is required to make the voters identify with the schools. Piedmont voters greatly identify with it’s schools and it’s Police Dept and will fully fund both. San Francisco maintains Lowell High School and by doing so keeps it’s monied class involved with SFUSD even if Lowell is the only high school they’d consider hiring from or sending relatives to.

It doesn’t take much to keep the interest and affection of the public. They don’t have to like all the schools as long as they like one of them. In a city the size of Oakland you would think OUSD would have something for everyone. Instead they (OUSD) allow the Charters to peel off what would have been pockets of support and increasingly allow themselves to get left with the ghetto. It doesn’t bode well for the future.

OUSD needs a Lowell High.