OPINION: OUSD Kids Are Eager to Learn. Our Board Is Holding Them Back

Share Tweet By Edmond Chun Special to The Post 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.

This excerpt comes from the named source. Read the original for the full reporting.