OUSD::

ongoing debate about access

An insightful article "School boundaries plan spurs debate" is on the cover of today's Tribune. Katy Murphy, the Tribune wrtiter covering school issues, asks some good questions about public education in our diverse, and rather divided, city of Oakland.

Basically the hills school perform better - on tests - than the heartland schools. People spend well over a million dollars for a home if it's in a good school area, in particular Hillcrest School which repeatedly betters some of the elite private schools in Oakland. So people spend a fortune to get a free education, which is better and more privileged than the same free education that most other kids get in our city.

A teacher at one of the hill schools is quoted in the article as comparing her classroom to the United Nations, and at the same time recognizing that "there wouldn't be this kind of diversity if the students were just from this neighborhood."

So the question remains: is diversity in our OUSD schools important? or an added bonus?

And a great question asked by Katy Murphy, "To what extent should wealth - the ability to buy a home near a good school - determine one's access to a public education of their choice?"

She has a blog well-worth the read at http://www.ibabuzz.com/education/

I have to admit that I live in a failing-school neighborhood and succeeded in getting my child enrolled at what is considered a "hill" school - all without using a fake address and doing so in a legit way. You can read about my travails in many blog entries from last year [January - March].

I don't think the whole debate is rich versus poor. It's more about how our city is changing, how each and every neighborhood is being transformed by San Francisco Refugees, an expanding middle class that cannot move up the hills for a school nor afford a private one but will leave if they can't find public education that they trust. It's an huge issue for the urban shrinking middle class, even more in light of the financial slavery/limitations often incurred through mortgages and the desire to buy a home in the uber-expensive Bay Area. It seems to me that this is one of the KEY issues in terms of the transformation, gentrification, or resurrection (you pick the term you like) of our great city of Oakland.

What do you think about our city, the changes occuring and the role of OUSD in it all?