Commentary
OPINION: OUSD Kids Are Eager to Learn. Our Board Is Holding Them Back
Oakland Unified School District students are facing a literacy crisis, with fewer than one in three reading at grade level. Despite receiving significant per-pupil funding, the district is struggling with what county officials describe as a decision-making problem rather than a lack of revenue. Oakland Parents for Quality Education and the local NAACP are now sounding the alarm over fiscal instability, alleging that board leadership has failed to identify necessary budget cuts while ignoring warnings from school principals. To understand how these leadership decisions are impacting campus resources and student equity, read more.
Oakland Unified students are falling behind: fewer than 1 in 3 read at grade level, and the numbers are worse for Black and Latino students. This is happening in a district that has received more per student than even the highest-funded states. As Alameda County Superintendent of Schools Alysse Castro has said, “OUSD’s biggest problem isn’t a revenue problem. It’s a decision-making problem.”
That is why Grace Park-Bradbury and I, two OUSD parents, started Oakland Parents for Quality Education, the ParentPAC. We believe our kids deserve a school board that faces hard decisions honestly. This board has not.
The county has warned them repeatedly. Earlier this year Castro said the new teachers’ contract “endangers” the district’s fiscal stability. That wasn’t because of the raises, but because the district was counting on cuts it had not identified.
Days later the board passed a budget that assumed $30 million in still-unnamed reductions. Board President Jennifer Brouhard and Vice President Valarie Bachelor voted yes. Director Mike Hutchinson voted no. The plan to name those cuts isn’t scheduled until mid-December, after the election.
The Oakland NAACP called for public forums and honest answers about the management of public funds. This fall Castro approved the budget only conditionally, noting that “a budget can be balanced but not be good for kids.”
Principals have spoken out as well. In January, 30 school leaders wrote that asking schools to do more with less “erodes the dignity of our profession” and “unconscionably compromises the quality of education our students receive.”
In April, 60 principals raised concerns that “have diminished our confidence in our current leadership,” warning that district decisions had produced “a structural deficit and cash-strapped schools.”
In June, all 15 high school principals objected to using voter-approved Measure N and H reserves for expenses already in the budget. The district did it anyway. The measures’ citizen oversight commission has demanded the money back. Auditors found the board had the legal authority, but as Castro observed, legality does not settle whether it was what voters thought they were approving.
Opponents claim we want to close schools. Our candidates do not all agree on consolidation. Hutchinson has fought closures for years, yet he also wrote the 3Rs proposal examining how many schools the district should operate.
What our candidates share is a willingness to weigh every option openly. This board told the superintendent not to even consider consolidation, and every school is being cut instead. As principals representing two-thirds of OUSD schools wrote, “the gradual starvation of our schools is also an equity issue.” Closures disrupt families, especially in Black and Brown neighborhoods. So does starving every campus.
You may have seen ads calling us a front for out-of-town billionaires. Every contribution is publicly reported, and 140 Oakland families have given. The people sounding the alarm are principals, citizen commissioners, the county superintendent, and the NAACP. None of them are billionaires. They are the people who see our schools up close.
Oakland schools are staffed by excellent principals and teachers. Our kids are like kids everywhere: eager to learn if given a real chance. They are being held back by a board that will not make hard choices.
In District 2, vote for Arielle Fleisher. In District 4, rank Kathryn Camp and Mike Hutchinson first and second. In District 6, rank Alexandra Williams and LeAna Powell first and second. Leave your third choice blank.
Vote like our children’s future depends on it. Because it does.
Edmund Chun co-founded Oakland Parents for Quality Education and is an OUSD parent.
