Why have there been no books written about Broad and the California’s grand experimentation with OUSD between 2002-2011?

Why have there been no movies about he successes and failures of SFUSD’s aggressive Reconstitution efforts in the 90s?

I actually went through “reconstitution” at schools in the 70s not once but twice — and both times the school culture and safety benefited enormously (I can only guess that academics followed, although that is a sketchy assumption). This was, primarily, I believe, because of the excellent principal we had for both housecleanings.

However, I later led an investigation of SFUSD practices which found that reconstitution of high schools there led to extreme turmoil and mixed results.

These reforms are just tools — they are bad or good depending on how they are used and by whom and for what motive!

If anyone at the three high school campuses would like to share their views for the story, please email me at kmurphy@bayareanewsgroup.com to set up a time.

Also, I’m helping to plan a Tribune forum on the subject in late March. I will let you know the details once we have set the date.

I was in middle school thirty years ago and watched Mexican and Black kids brawl across the school for days at a time. Sure, it happens sometimes; but it is old news, and not the dominant story nor a rising trend — in fact, black and hispanics rarely fight today in OUSD — almost all violence in our schools (and on streets around them) is WITHIN ethnic/class groupings and is usually related to pride, sex, money, posturing, gang initiations, or boredom.

Now, in the prisons, that may be different, I don’t know — you’ve got the big racially-based gangs, etc. But in schools? You are simply making up trends based on nothing.

Some of us actually work in these places 10-12 hours a day — I am surprised you are so intent on telling us we don’t know what we are talking about. Just as I would never tell you about being a parole attorney or whatever it is you do, I am not sure why you claim to be a big education expert but never actually visit classrooms? You have the gall to demand a Lowell even though you never visit Tech?

http://adamyoshida.com/yoshiblog/2012/03/06/bc%E2%80%99s-battle-of-the-somme/

Change is fast upon us, the schools need to get with it in a hurry.

http://www.sacbee.com/2012/03/07/4319254/30-students-in-racial-brawl-at.html

Imagine OUSD when the Mexican students reach 50% and the Blacks are down to 40% or less…

And the teachers and admin are in the lounge talking about state exams and such…

Just like CDCR..

If/When the schools refuse to impose their own external culture on these warring factions and they are permitted to bring their own “culture” to school – this is what will happen. And the White/Jewish students will have long since been gone. The balance of the students would be poor Asian. We’d have Los Angeles Unified North.

Admin and Faculty bickering about pay issues will probably take a back seat to getting through the gang violence.

This is what’s coming if the schools allow the chillun’ to bring their own comfort zones (and tattoos) to the property. They will not play nice. I still think OUSD should open a Lowell High. At least save something.

i will correct one:

why Katy hasn’t written about this SINCE THE Feb. 27 posting…

“Of course, whether or not the experiment succeeds, its designers will move on to six-figure jobs in other school districts, or for corporate contractors, like so many in OUSD administration before them. Meanwhile, Oakland’s students, parents, and teachers will be stuck with the mess they’ve left behind.”

I do agree, however, that OEA hardcore vets are not real thrilled to have quiet dialogue with newbies who think unions are a big part of the problem in education. They need to get over this frustration if they want to make OEA more than the impotent shell it currently is.

It would be nice, though, if TFA kids and such would really make an effort to learn the bitter history of OUSD in particular and the systemic exploitation of “other people’s children” AND their teachers a bit before they embrace the helter-skelter reforms of the various Wizards of Oz foisted on us Mack the Turtle’s by billionaire dabblers and Sacramento politicians.

There is so much naivete, on all sides — from the Nextsets who long for a segregated system ruled by “lion-tamers” with switches, to the J.R.s who blame seniority for all problems, to the 25-year-old Ivy Leaguers who think that nobody smart and caring every got into the teaching game before them, to the union diehards who think the golden age of the industrial age labor movement is ever coming back…

Reality check: None of us pure of heart, but many of us try every day to do what is right. That probably includes Tony Smith, as well as the vast majority of teachers in OUSD. However, are we all pulling in the same direction? Do we believe in the same solutions? Are we carry anything like equal weight in the debate? Probably not.

I would like to know why Katy hasn’t written about this Feb. 27 posting — it is clearly by far the biggest issue in the district, or for several years.