Opinion

Opinion: State Needs to Help Maintain, Not Close, Oakland Schools

Published

7 years ago

December 27, 2018

The Oakland school district is considering closing 24 more public schools. Oakland has already closed 15 schools, even though the city population is growing.
An extensive study of public school closures, conducted by the National Education Policy Center, indicates that closing schools in urban communities does not save money and causes the greatest harm to the lowest income students.
Closures do not save money on buildings, because the district may be forced to give the closed facility to a charter school, and the school to which students are transferred often needs renovation to accommodate the transferring students.
Closing schools disrupts the lives of children and drives more students out of the district, resulting in lower enrollment and further budget problems. A 2012 audit of Washington, D.C.’s closure of 23 schools found that the cost of the closures was $39 million, four times what the district was expected to save.
In Oakland, the school closings are especially unfair. Of the 24 threatened schools, all are in the low-income flatland neighborhoods; zero are in the affluent hill area; and zero are charter schools. The 15 schools that were already closed are also in the lower-income areas. When these facts are raised the hand-wringing begins. “We know these are difficult decisions, but…”
These are not difficult decisions. They are wrong and unnecessary decisions. So, who is making them?
In 2003 the state took over the Oakland school district, a step which has since been condemned by many. The district argued that it did not need a loan because it could borrow from its own construction bonds, a step which had been taken by other districts. At the insistence of then-state Sen. Don Perata, the state imposed a $100 million loan which was three times more than the highest estimate of the district deficit.
The power of the elected school board was removed; a series of state administrators had total authority over the funds with no input from anyone in Oakland. Most of the money was spent on items that had nothing to do with the stated purpose of the takeover — correcting the finances. And, by the end of the takeover period, the district’s finances were in worse shape than before the state took control.
Yet the state continued its power over the district through the non-elected, Bakersfield-based Fiscal Crisis Management and Assistance Team and a state trustee. With all this “help,” the district now owes $40 million, which is more than the highest estimate of what Oakland needed in 2003.
There are other ways that the state makes both the financial and educational situation difficult. The state is in charge of who gets to teach. Its nonelected, nearly invisible Commission on Teacher Credentialing increases bureaucratic requirements, tests and fees almost every year, leading to an artificial teacher shortage, particularly of Latino and African American teachers who are least likely to afford the extra time and money required to jump through the ever-expanding series of hoops. A school with a constantly rotating set of temporary teachers is unlikely to be the first choice of parents.
And then there are the charter school laws, which do not allow a district to control how many charters open within its jurisdiction and will not allow districts to close any of them.
The State of California is the fifth largest economy in the world. It has a super-majority of Democrats in its Legislature and a large budget surplus. Yet for 15 years, it has played the role of hostile mortgage-holder to the Oakland schools.
The State of California needs to rescind the remaining debt, help the district maintain rather than close its community schools, and reform the laws that make quality education for non-affluent Californians impossible. We hope that newly elected State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond will take up that task.
Kitty Kelly Epstein is an education professor and the author of two books about Oakland. This column was first published on Dec. 19 in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Kitty Kelly Epstein

Posts by Kitty Kelly Epstein

Activism

Oakland Post: Week of December 17 – 23, 2025

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of – December 17 – 23, 2025

Published

5 days ago

December 20, 2025

Oakland Post

To enlarge your view of this issue, use the slider, magnifying glass icon or full page icon in the lower right corner of the browser window.

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Advice

COMMENTARY: If You Don’t Want Your ‘Black Card’ Revoked, Watch What You Bring to Holiday Dinners

From Thanksgiving to Christmas to New Year’s Day, whether it’s the dining room table or the bid whist (Spades? Uno, anyone?) table, your card may be in danger.

Published

2 weeks ago

December 14, 2025

Oakland Post

The ‘aunties’ playing cards. iStock photo by Andreswd.

By Wanda Ravernell
Post Staff

From the fourth week of November to the first week in January, if you are of African descent, but particularly African American, certain violations of cultural etiquette will get your ‘Black card’ revoked.

From Thanksgiving to Christmas to New Year’s Day, whether it’s the dining room table or the bid whist (Spades? Uno, anyone?) table, your card may be in danger.

It could take until Super Bowl Sunday for reinstatement.

I don’t know much about the card table, but for years I was on probation by the ‘Aunties,’ the givers and takers of Black cards.

How I Got into Trouble

It was 1970-something and I was influenced by the health food movement that emerged from the hippie era. A vegetarian (which was then considered sacrilegious by most Black people I knew) prepared me a simple meal: grated cheese over steamed broccoli, lentils, and brown rice.

I introduced the broccoli dish at the Friday night supper with my aunt and grandfather. She pronounced the bright green broccoli undone, but she ate it. (I did not, of course, try brown rice on them.)

I knew that I would be allowed back in the kitchen when she attempted the dish, but the broccoli had been cooked to death. (Y’all remember when ALL vegetables, not just greens, were cooked to mush?)

My Black card, which had been revoked was then reattained because they ate what I prepared and imitated it.

Over the decades, various transgressions have become normalized. I remember when having a smoked turkey neck instead of a ham hock in collard greens was greeted with mumblings and murmurings at both the dining room and card tables. Then came vegan versions with just olive oil (What? No Crisco? No bacon, at least?) and garlic. And now my husband stir fries his collards in a wok.

But No Matter How Things Have Changed…

At holiday meals, there are assigned tasks. Uncle Jack chopped raw onions when needed. Uncle Buddy made the fruit salad for Easter. My mother brought the greens in winter, macaroni salad in summer. Aunt Deanie did the macaroni and cheese, and the great aunts, my deceased grandmother’s sisters, oversaw the preparation of the roast beef, turkey, and ham. My father, if he were present, did the carving.

These designations/assignments were binding agreements that could stand up in a court of law. Do not violate the law of assignments by bringing some other version of a tried-and-true dish, even if you call it a new ‘cheese and noodle item’ to ‘try out.’ The auntie lawgivers know what you are trying to do. It’s called a menu coup d’état, and they are not having it.

The time for experiments is in your own home: your spouse and kids are the Guinea pigs.

My mother’s variation of a classic that I detested from that Sunday to the present was adding crushed pineapple to mashed sweet potatoes. A relative stops by, tries it, and then it can be introduced as an add-on to the standard holiday menu.

My Aunt Vivian’s concoctions from Good Housekeeping or Ladies’ Home Journal magazine also made it to the Black people’s tables all over the country in the form of a green bean casserole.

What Not to Do and How Did It Cross Your Mind?

People are, of all things holy, preparing mac ‘n’ cheese with so much sugar it tastes like custard with noodles in it.

Also showing up in the wrong places: raisins. Raisins have been reported in the stuffing (makes no sense unless it’s in a ‘sweet meats’ dish), in a pan of corn bread, and – heresy in the Black kitchen – the MAC ‘n’ CHEESE.

These are not mere allegations: There is photographic evidence of these Black card violations, but I don’t want to defame witnesses who remained present at the scene of the crimes.

The cook – bless his/her heart – was probably well-meaning, if ignorant. Maybe they got the idea from a social media influencer, much like Aunt Viv got recipes from magazines.

Thankfully, a long-winded blessing of the food at the table can give the wary attendee time to locate the oddity’s place on the table and plan accordingly.

But who knows? Innovation always prevails, for, as the old folks say, ‘waste makes want.’ What if the leftovers were cut up, dipped in breadcrumbs and deep fried? The next day, that dish might make it to the TV tray by the card table.

An older cousin – on her way to being an Auntie – in her bonnet, leggings, T-shirt, and bunny slippers and too tired to object, might try it and like it….

And if she ‘rubs your head’ after eating it, the new dish might be a winner and (Whew!) everybody, thanks God, keeps their Black cards.

Until the next time.