Dramatic, long-term reform and immediate action is needed to help the hundreds of thousands of students and families being short-changed of quality educations. Improving our public schools is the most important issue facing our community today.
Despite some recent gains, Oakland’s public education system continues to fail our children. Consider the facts:
• The Oakland Unified School District has the lowest average API scores among comparable districts such as those in Orange County and Sacramento County – almost 100 points lower!
• In fact, 52% of Oakland 9th graders do not graduate from high school.
• 90% of Oakland high school graduates do not have the classes needed to get into our own state college system, the UC and CSU schools.
Take a look at a couple of fascinating articles about small schools, one from http://whatkidscando.org/ and a related item from the San Francisco Chronicle.
The small schools model is an innovative new program that that has been successfully implemented in Los Angeles, New York, Washington State, and other urban school districts across the nation. The concept of small schools is based on the premise that, in contrast to large, factory-model schools, smaller schools of 400-500 or less creates a more intimate learning environment where teachers are better address the educational needs of students.
I am in favor of expanding the successful small schools model further in the East Bay, and throughout California, to address the issues facing our schools and improve education for our children.
