There is a crisis in Oakland Unified School District — educators are leaving our classrooms at an alarming rate. Each year, we lose more than 300 teachers from Oakland schools. At the start of the school year, we had 570 teacher vacancies, mostly in our flatland schools with high concentrations of low-income black and brown families. As a result, every year, we see our schools scramble to get adults in classrooms, while students don’t have the supports needed to succeed.
As students and parents, we know these adults are not leaving because they no longer love us. It’s because they’re not being paid a living wage to work and live in Oakland. The reality is OUSD is facing a funding crisis and won’t be able to keep teachers here — and they’re not alone...
For us, the teacher strike is more than just about wages. It’s about fighting to keep our role models, extended family members, and essential support systems. It’s also a warning sign of how much is at stake for our communities if we continue to underfund schools.
Saturday, March 02, 2019
Oakland Schools Strike
How much of this problem might be related to lack of discipline and safety in schools, as opposed to just pay?
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3 comments:
"As students and parents, we know these adults are not leaving because they no longer love us. It’s because they’re not being paid a living wage to work and live in Oakland. The reality is OUSD is facing a funding crisis and won’t be able to keep teachers here — and they’re not alone..."
--Or perhaps there isn't enough money in the world to keep teachers in those minimum security juvenile detention centers. It's mind-boggling to see the blindness of the original poster ('Got a problem? Throw more money at it!')
I hear that public teacher salaries in some parts of New York (and Alaska) are up in the 80,000 range-- but few people would actually want to live in the places where that bribe money is offered.
Amazing what they "know" without a hint of empirical evidence.
I could stay three more years in my classroom. State of Texas says I'll get a $5K boost in pay. I'm just not sure it's worth it. I don't find myself obsessing over cost of living issues, I find myself outraged and dismayed by the pride with which some students display their ignorance. The students I have right now are less informed. less articulate and less willing to work than those I had five years ago. The college counselor told me that of the students who left for college in last years class, nearly half returned home because they were emotionally, socially, academically and sensibly prepared to live on their own. They party all the time, they run up credit card bills, they get in car wrecks and they avoid class. This is why not everyone should be pointed toward college. But in addition, with these issues comes more disruptions and more draconian actions required and added to teachers' already over the top bucket of responsibilities. I just can't do it.
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