Oakland Schools Triumphantly Meet Own Expectations
Privately, California teachers are worried. The majority of their minority students haven’t learned anything in two years. Some, if not most, parents seem unable to have their children do any homework at all. Chronic absences have exploded since the arrival of the coronavirus. And both of the state’s public university systems have abandoned standardized tests as a means of determining admission.
Publicly, California teachers are supporting Oakland students who boycotted their classrooms for a week in a district where 74% of students are “socioeconomically disadvantaged” and Black students are 118 points below meeting grade-level standards in math.
The Oakland Education Association, which averted a district-wide teacher strike this week, said their agreement with the district was “made possible by the breathtaking activism of students, families and members.”
What’s really breathtaking is the performance of Oakland schools.
It is telling that the California School Dashboard hasn’t collected statistics for the past two years, but things are undoubtedly worse in 2022 than they were in 2019, the last year for which data is available. Even a cursory look reveals an educational “catastrophe” in Oakland schools.
30% of all students were chronically absent even before COVID-19, but 43% of black students were chronically absent.
Foster youth were 156 points below the grade-level standard in math, Black students 118 points down, and Hispanic students 96 points down.
28% of Black students were deemed “prepared” for college and career, while 76% of Black students graduated from high school.
Things are a bit better statewide, but somehow — in the “fifth-largest economy in the world” — 61% of all students are still are “socioeconomically disadvantaged” and Black students overall are still 48 points below grade-level math proficiency.
Most people think numbers like this indicate failure. I used to think that, too. But the more I listen to people like Cal State Chancellor Joseph Castro, the more I believe California’s educational system is triumphantly meeting its own expectations.
Cal State’s motto is “Voice Truth Life,” and when Trustees announced they were eliminating standardized testing requirements, Castro responded, “I’m very supportive of that. I just want folks to know that I am not interested as chancellor to make it harder for students to get into the CSU.”
My own daughter attended CSU Chico, and I wish they’d made it harder for her to get in because she wasn’t academically ready when she arrived. Part of the reason was high school grade inflation; among other things, her chemistry teacher gave her extra points for things like bringing tissue to class.
As a result — and despite my best efforts at Vox Veritas Vita — my daughter left C.K. McClatchy High School believing she was proficient in science. She was not. Luckily, in part because of my efforts, she was more than proficient in reading and writing.
For the last few years I’ve been told that our brave children — much like fire fighters — will “put their bodies on the line” to save the entire world from the violence of a changing climate, the violence of the police, and even the violence of silence.
Today these same brave children are boycotting their classrooms and claiming “our literal lives are at stake” while the adults in the room — the “dirty bourgeois intellectuals” — bow and scrape like they’re being threatened by the Red Guards of the Cultural Revolution.
Which, in a very real sense, they are.
Maybe it’s a good thing kids aren’t learning anything in California, because that might be better than learning whatever the state is teaching.