I think of my block in Oakland — most of the men are unemployed and “hustling,” the women tend to work menial low-wage jobs and/or stay drunk/high. How can you be 12 and see beyond that? The parents are modeling a life where only escapism has any value, and they have to be very different to reach beyond that — and they will be rejecting the experience/skills/culture of the people they love the most.

People like to talk about free will, but it seems a lot more constrained in reality than most of us would hope….

I don’t think that achievement is tied to the teaching staff quality although Oakland has more than its fair share of less experienced teachers. The high turnover rate for principals and teachers means too much time spent learning their jobs. OUSD also has some terrific teachers that do amazing work despite the work environment.

With declining enrollment and less money, paying teachers more would mean not having money left for much else. Teachers need safe, clean well-maintained schools, counselors for troubled students, librarians,special ed assistants, nurses, etc.

I would like someone to look at the budgets for equipment and supplies in Oakland. If it is not nailed down in the district, anything of value is stolen. Computer equipment is particularly vulnerable.

I don’t doubt that getting to 55% would be hard, yet I’m not convinced that it is impossible just because you say so.

I’m particularly interested in your claim that SpEd monies are extra high and that is a dealbreaker — yet isn’t by far the biggest expense of SpEd that you have high teacher-student ratios? Wouldn’t then SpEd expenditures drive us higher, toward 55%? As far as I see at my school SpEd funds don’t go to equipment, they go to an army of teachers, aides and specialists. Perhaps the specialists don’t count?

I don’t believe that our utilities, admin, security and tech budgets should be any higher percentagewise than other urban districts from LA to Long Beach, S.F. to San Jose. Anybody know if they are meeting the 55% number?

The Piedmont Students are not the same as the OUSD students. Frankly, they are superior students. OUSD could not replicate conditions in Piedmont schools with all the money in the world. They could, and don’t want to, replicate the conditions for a small school of elite students selected from throughout OUSD service areas. That’s not going to happen because OUSD would rather have no school that is academically superior if it would be an ethnically segregated elitist school. Not the way I’d run OUSD. But it is clearly not what they are in business for. SF has Lowell High, OUSD refuses to follow suit.

Piedmont is not as much about the money and the teacher deployment as it is about the people who go to school there. Same thing with the other high performing schools.

Or as we used to say, garbage in, garbage out.

Can we transform poor prospects to champions academically? Well if that were to happen there would be a lot of drama and pain in the process with rejects flying down the concrete stairs. No way is OUSD going to do it. It’s not what they are in business for, OUSD wants peace and quiet and for people to be happy and content or at least not being noisy. Pacification is the party line. Just give everybody passing grades and tell them they’re wonderful. It’s what they want and they will believe you.

Can you imagine OUSD’s High Schools telling their students who are at the bottom 25% of the state rankings that they are academic failures who should never go to any college and had better get into a trade school fast or else plan on being a hotel maid and ditch digger for life (the truth)? And how many OUSD high school students exactly would that be?

As far as US and the top 12.5%, that’s the statewide ranking. Some schools have few or no students who are top 12.5% statewide cutoff. Some schools have more than, say, 50% of their kids at that level. Same with the bottom 12.5%. Some people are more equal than others.

I do wish the public schools would do more “discharge planning” for it’s students, drop outs and graduates alike. Go over whatever is known about students who leave with the profiles and performance stats of the particular student and tell them the truth of what is known about the fate of such students to date and what the range of occupations or work paths for a particular profile. Many of these kids don’t have a strong family network to explain the facts of life and go over options. The school can do more in this area without a huge outlay.

I’m getting off the thread of teacher compensation. My point is that in a depression, if that’s what this is turning into, we can use a little less teaching and a little more social services for the left side of the bell curve. Small amounts of training and coaching make a huge difference in the quality of life for the left side of the curve. The Piedmont kids and those like them are going to survive regardless of the extra touch of the public school. The dull students can sink ro swim depending on small amounts of help.

What I notice – with the exception of Piedmont – I will write about that in a minute – is that the school districts that pay attention to providing students with the state educational standards, where parents who are concerned to not have to supplement, pay their teachers A LOT MORE.

Teachers salaries go up when parents who send their students to public schools can do so without supplementing thousands of dollars per year to get the education that the State of California says schools should be providing. When parents spend $1,500 per year for science camps to offset the lack of science, spend another $1,000 per year for writer’s workshops, $1,500 or more so students can learn to read music and learn the vocabulary of music, $1,000 for acting in plays after school because even though the upper elementary school standards include it, teachers refuse to teach it and it continues with drawing, painting and “clay play” lessons. And if a parent can’t afford these lessons or can’t barter to clean the studio or get a grant, then tough, they don’t get the state standards. They become part of the 87.5% of Nextsets total who are not prepared – they miss that part of the SAT or if they get in to a UC, they are incompetent in the humanities and have to catch up.

Piedmont pays less, put provides the teachers to every student to meet these state standards – what they say is that they are not willing to pay for what is not delivered – but they value the “humanities” and tutoring for slower students, so they pay collectively out of pocket to insure that all students in their district get these needs met – and it shows – even their continuation high school scores outperform all but the top 5% of Oakland.

I am frustrated with the low pay of our teachers – but I am also frustrated with teachers who say the day is too short, the students are too unprepared, there is no way to teach all of the standards to all students – if we started in kindergarten and ALL teachers following the standards – knew and followed the standards and skipped the Otter pops, Star Wars and Monsters Inc. movies complete with popcorn during the school day and taught all day and reduced waste in the morning and after recesses or classroom switches, more could be taught particularly IF THE UNION SUPPORTED SUCH EDUCATIONAL STANDARDS.

I would not argue that any principal is overpaid (you could not pay me enough to do that job), one thing that is different about OUSD is that we have many principals who have very small schools. When you look at other districts, their schools are very large compared to ours. That does cost the district extra money, money that is subsidized by Broad and Gates foundation money the first 2 years and then OUSD shoulders forever after.