(CALMATTERS) – California education leaders are confronting an urgent challenge: helping schools — and students — bounce back from a pandemic that continues to exact a disproportionate toll on communities of color and widen longstanding learning and achievement gaps.
A critical test could come Tuesday, when the Oakland Unified School District Board of Education is set to vote on a controversial proposal to close or merge more than a dozen schools in the next two years to help shrink a budget deficit exacerbated by declining enrollment. Half of the eight campuses slated for closure have the district’s highest percentages of Black student enrollment, according to Oaklandside.
Oakland City Council leaders on Thursday called on Gov. Gavin Newsom and the state Legislature to help stave off the closures by using California’s budget surplus to forgive the district’s state debts and by amending state law to fund schools based on enrollment rather than average daily attendance.
Also demanding action from Newsom: Moses Omalade and Andre San-Chez, two Westlake Middle School teachers who have been on a hunger strike since last Tuesday to protest the closures.
“We are very adamant that this is until death. The hunger strike for me was, you’re going to watch the bodies erode, you’re going to watch us struggle.”
Moses Omalade, Teacher at Westlake Middle School
Tensions are also rising in San Francisco, where voters have until Feb. 15 to cast their ballots in a recall election that could oust three school board members from office. Many of the city’s top Democrats are backing the recall, including Mayor London Breed, who in October 2020 slammed the school board for prioritizing renaming campuses tied to historical figures such as Abraham Lincoln rather than reopening them.
“The fact that our kids aren’t in school is what’s driving inequity in our city. Not the name of a school.”
Mayor London Breed
But recall opponents also cite equity to make their case. United Educators of San Francisco President Cassondra Curiel noted in a Friday San Francisco Chronicle column that if the recall succeeds, Breed will get to appoint three replacements to the seven-member school board. But “a 2013 study by the Economic Policy Institute on three cities (with school boards) that were under mayor control — Washington, D.C., New York and Chicago — found that academic gains were seen only by white and high-income students,” Curiel wrote.
Still, for many San Franciscans, the pandemic exposed the gap between the district’s pledge of educational equity and reality.
- With the district facing a $125 million budget shortfall, experts warn young teachers of color will likely be the first to see potential pink slips.
- And then there was the stunning case highlighted in a Sunday report from San Francisco Chronicle columnist Heather Knight: A public middle school issued report cards with A’s and “pass” grades to sixth-grader Miriam Nelson, who had never set foot on campus. Her mother, Lila, had disenrolled her from the district after fifth grade to attend in-person parochial school.
San Francisco district officials say they “care so much about the education of Black students and care about the wellness of Black families, but … you can’t possibly be. You’re not connected to my family.”
Lila Nelson, Parent