Education should be educating.
Capitol should be Capital.

Keyboard problem………..

California cannot have both a welfare state (with open borders on top of a 3rd world nation) and an government education system. The state is another Greece and will suffer their fate.

Or maybe we will just defund the state schools and turn them into segregated holding pens for the riffraff who are too cognitively impaired and otherwise disordered to get into a good Charter.

Either way, change is coming. Too bad the state and the democrats wanted this. We had it pretty good in 1960. We should have kept those policies.

Brave New World.

Partisanship, and or politics are not the root cause of problems here(once again just a symptom). The root causes are driven by a social welfare system system that for decades has permitted otherwise irresponsible people to procreate and live at taxpayer expense at levels that are unsustainable for the actual working and taxpaying citizens. Remember that costs are not just benefits, but also the large well paid state and federal bureaucracies that oversee this program. The other associated cost is the loss of human capitol toward useful endeavors that benefit society. We instead have sizeable amounts of individuals with a lot of idle time(thanks to welfare benefits) who inevitably use that free time for making money via crime.

The education system for the most part has changed from diligently education our children to becoming surrogate mommy and daddy(offering food and health services), because real mommy and daddy aren’t up to it(and so it goes). The other problem is the apathy that permeates the system partly because of secured benefits pensions and seniority(why try hard if you do not absolutely have to, in reality who is going to take the time to accumulate all the reams of evidence necessary to fire you)? No the reformers did not cause all this, but they are rocking the boat(trying to change course) which would have sailed straight to oblivion if left untouched.

GO public schools, Haesin Thomas, Charters, Public money, residency status…

i’d vote for Shaggy and Scooby if i thought it would help my kid’s school improve. I dont care who they’re affiliated with.

Enough with the distraction of conspiracy politics. OEA is not the defender of the poor. They do the best they can to advocate for teachers. Great. No organization primarily represents the interests of the struggling kids in Oakland except school board.

When Spearman said it’s not in me to close the schools, thats her unique burden. People need to stop passing judgement.

I also dont blame her for being dismissive and critical of theses so called reformers and revolutionaries. This isn’t the 60′s. tired of groups like BAM (for example) doing ridiculous things AS IF they represent the best interests of kids. THEY DON’T

Dont know who’ll win, but Spearman shouldnt be chided for talking about the good old days. Nobody else seems to know what is possible for our kids.

Reread #24

James Harris is a good man. Good luck to both he and Spearman.

You know. A back door voucher system.

I would like to get back to the REAL issue here, since it is not James Harris’ residency, but rather who will better serve the needs of my children and the other children attending Oakland schools. I have not seen Ms. Spearman do much in way of pushing forward a real, or strong policy agenda to help schools educate students. I have seen her scream at (what respectable public official does that?), belittle, denigrate, and disrespect a great many in Oakland. I have not seen hide nor hair of my representative at any school talking to, nay RALLYING parents or teachers about improving outcomes for Black and Brown students. I am tired of hearing about Oakland and Castlemont’s ‘good ol’ days’. I am worried about NOW! I am worried about tomorrow. I am worried about the possibility of Measure J not passing.

Oakland can and should be leading the charge in Sacramento and Washington, D.C. champion and support equitable and sustainable school funding, teacher quality, facilities upkeep and equity, and school equity legislation. Instead we get a representative who likes to sit on the dais, play BIG I AM, yell from on high, and fan herself like Scarlet O’Hara or the Queen of Sheba!

Enough is Enough! I am done. I am so over the games and ego-manical shenanigans. I need to see real work, real progress. I need to see true leadership, policy consciousness, consensus-building, accountability, and forward momentum for our schools and students LEAD BY A DISTRICT 7 BOARD MEMBER. I need to see boots on the ground. I need to see action. And I intend to do all that I can to see it happen NOW and pretty soon after a new board member is seated.

Charter schools, magnet schools, etc (ALTS) are all *public* schools, dependent on government funding to one great extent or another. Private schools do not (yet) operate on that basis.

ALTS are subject to a huge subset of the regulations which impact (destroy) traditional public schools. Private schools are certainly hurt by numerous government regulations (ie the statutory school “year”, administrative requirements, and so forth) but they’ve been able to avoid some of the most terrible ones (ie “credentialing”).

I’m glad we got that straight.

It does not impress me that some ALTs receive considerable amounts of private funding. As I’ve mentioned, that money should automatically flow into the State’s general fund to be redistributed according to priorities determined by the Legislature.

Benefactors can open a Y near their favorite school and allow the students to use it free of charge.

I take your point that the benefits of education should be what is good for the children.