OaklandSchoolReport

@kane @mattbaran @CDeBenedetti Two things can be true. Oakland is gorgeous. Best weather in the Bay. Fixing the schools, streets, dumping, homeless encampments, ridiculously high taxes that only result in ridiculously wasteful spending... would make Oakland better

@mattbaran @CDeBenedetti No amount of regurgitated therapy-speak from you negates what’s obvious to anyone that’s lived in Oakland: the government fails its residents on petty crime, public infrastructure, cleanliness, and corruption.

This is #Oakland. I love this town. My feelings for this place are irrational. A Lake Merritt poet once described Oakland to me as being "a beautiful woman in an old, tattered dress." I think it was an understatement. Like I said...irrational. The best kind of love usually is.

@educator4ever36 This is practically every district middle and high school in Oakland. Tests are even taken in groups.

Parents - if your public school has an approach like this, pull your child out. When equity becomes more important than learning, your child will learn nothing.

@bryan_caplan Imagine how UC faculty feel. They wanted to keep the SAT but were overruled by the Regents. But at least they had AP to count on. Six years later, they're ready to kick all of @CollegeBoard to the curb.

@bryan_caplan This is certainly not the case at UC. BOARS is so fed up with campuses reporting unprepared students (not just UCSD) despite earning 5s on AP exams that they're considering scrapping them entirely across all subjects

APs are getting easier, but they are still highly meritocratic compared to not just high school grades but college grades. Most students who get an A in a college class would be lucky to get a 3 on the corresponding AP.

@pitdesi Sorry to tell you. College Board is complicit. educationnext.org/dumbing-down-o… jamesgmartin.center/2025/06/the-sa…

Downstream impact of this on UC schools is bound to be bad I can’t believe they STILL don’t accept standardized tests!

@educator4ever36 @socraticexp Wouldn't a school principal have the final say on this? Or are you suggesting parents and teachers won't allow it?

@socraticexp We can get most kids to read hours a day in school except the schools will not support this. They’ll say it’s not engaging enough.

The low-hanging fruit in education is embarrassingly simple: more reading. If we could get a significantly higher percentage of kids to spend 2-3 hours a day reading from ages 7-8 into their teens, most would develop a more solid foundation for high school than do the bored, inattentive kids in lessons that most don't find engaging.

@berkie1 Only thing that would've made this scene better is if the general replied, "Can we try rent control first?" youtu.be/3hRYHX8bLVA?t=…

"There is now unambiguous, solid economic evidence, not just abstract economic theory, that rent control would make the affordability problems facing [Massachusetts] worse, not better." - Jon Gruber, Chairman of the Economics Department at MIT

@neetu_arnold 60% of teachers. This next policy brief is from Canada, but let's assume the numbers are similar for the US: secondstreet.org/2024/05/21/pol… "82% [of parents] are worried about discipline & accountability." If parents and teachers agree, what's the bottleneck for addressing this?

60% of teachers in new Ed Week survey say student behavior has worsened over the past two years: “We’ve seen a large increase in the inability for students to cope when things don’t go their way. We see a lot of crying, yelling, shutting down, gross overreactions”

@esanzi @MomCooksFS @MrDanielBuck In affluent schools, the ones banging the table are the ones demanding 504s for their kids and bully teachers who call with concerns.

@MomCooksFS @MrDanielBuck With due respect, that's just not true in many cases. I spent a decade working in schools (affluent and poor) and have raised three kids who've attended public, charter and parochial. Generalizations like this show ignorance and a lack of experience.

If behavior is the #1 reason teachers want to leave the profession, parents must ask themselves what part of that is on them? Can't bang the table for parental rights and then take no responsibility for student behavior. Plenty of kids behave well. But too many do not.

@AnnieG1473 @neetu_arnold Do people on the political right actively try to make their daily work life miserable?

@OUSDReport @neetu_arnold In the teacher’s union that I belonged to, the people in leadership were on the political left. They supported PBIS and RJ because of their political views, even though it made their daily work life miserable. 🤷🏼‍♀️

California teachers w/30+ years of experience are leaving schools bc of student behavior issues. One blames PBIS: “This positive behavior support where they really didn’t want any punishments for students who were acting out or misbehaving. So they were looking for positive interventions w/the idea that students —every once in a while— lose themselves” foxnews.com/media/californ…

@AnnieG1473 @neetu_arnold But as a union member, you felt like you couldn't go to your leadership and say this isn't working? I've heard from so many teachers that they need to be teachers, nurses, therapists, counselors, psychiatrists. Why?

Thinking about literacy programs and schools.

@JamesAFurey This has been my family's experience. Where is this pressure coming from? The districts? The state DOE? Federal? Parents? Why adopt a "community schools" model when there aren't enough resources to fund and staff those services? Who makes that decision?

Teachers have simultaneously: A) been stripped of the ability to do anything about poorly behaved students B) been pressured to pass students no matter what C) been tasks with taking on more and more responsibilities that used to belong to parents D) been vilified and blamed for every problem in society. So…why the job dissatisfaction? It’s a mystery!

@SusanDReynolds In Oakland, students take math tests in teams. Class is divided in groups of 4. They work together and submit a single test. Teachers walk around during the test and note who's "helping". You're graded on the test as well as how much you "helped."

“SFUSD’s new eighth-grade Algebra 1 policy penalizes ready students by forcing them to double their math load. This is not effective policy, it’s ideological coercion.” thevoicesf.org/failing-the-ho…

Thoughts on the forum with Alysse Castro last night... They didn't allow individual recordings so these are my notes from Castro's answers. Castro: In 1965-66, OUSD enrolled 64k students across 88 schools. In 2025-26, it enrolled 32k across 78 schools. Other Alameda County school boards make hard decisions and stick with them. OUSD keeps reversing them. Or they make them but never follow through. E.g. Hayward closed a school this year. Pleasanton and Livermore changed staffing rations (i.e. layoffs) when they realized they overestimated their budgets. OUSD is a well resourced district, highest among large districts (> 15k students) in the state. Direct quote: "You ain't broke." Why is 30% of the budget going to outside consultants? Castro said she can't confirm the 30%, but did say OUSD uses outside contractors for after school care, before school care, and a lot of legal fees stemming from lawsuits re: special ed. Is there a realistic plan to pay the tentative agreement with OEA and keep all schools open? Yes, but it will be a terrible district, certainly not one she would want to run. Closing schools saves money everywhere, but not in Oakland. This is because of bad implementation. This is by design in Oakland. If closing a school is shown to save money, this paves the way for more closures. In her experience closing/consolidating/moving schools sites, families don't care about buildings; they care about community. Don't be attached to buildings. Those that are attached are always adults, not children. Most school board decisions are unanimous. In Oakland recently, it's been 4-3 for most. Can the county do more to intervene when there's mismanagement by the Board? Yes, but she's a big believer in local control. The school Board is comprised of elected officials. If the county intervenes, this displaces the will of Oakland voters. In other words, she said, "You voted for this. You need to vote yourselves out of this." Her suggestion for the way forward: Built trust. Build community. She said a good example of what NOT to do is what she experienced in the days leading up to this forum. She said she got emails, texts, and calls (didn't say from who) asking what group is responsible for this forum. Becca and Anna(?) raised their hands and said they weren't affiliated with any "group". In Oakland, it's always about fighting. It's always about winning and losing. It's too antagonistic. The only way forward is respectful dialogue, compromise, and commitment to action.

@LauraPowellEsq "California taxpayers deserve better than an education system that fails at its primary mission." Sorry, the primary mission of public schools is to be a jobs program for adults. It's actually doing a great job! @educatedandfree x.com/OUSDReport/sta…

@moultano Wait till they get to high school where the class breaks into teams of 4-5, and they take math tests in teams. And if kids don't collaborate and help their teammates, they get marked down.

When you chose a school for your kids, you probably didn't realize you were choosing educational software, but that choice of software might be more consequential for your kid than the choice of school. moultano.wordpress.com/2026/03/12/our…

@grok Are there any reports on how many families left OUSD due to antisemitism?

I wonder how many families took their enrollment dollars elsewhere due to district employees' rampant antisemitism. ktvu.com/news/oakland-t…