Education Week
By Tom Vander Ark
Social justice advocates have been working in Oakland for 20 years. Recently, they've been joined by reformers, talent developers, school networks, and investors seeking an affordable Bay Area hub.
A district on the move. For two decades Oakland has been the focus of education reform efforts and expenditures. The state took control of the district in 2003 to resolve fiscal insolvency. Superintendent Tony Smith, a veteran of Bay Area reforms, joined the district three years ago and has continued improvements that make Oakland the most progressive urban district in California.
Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) aims to make a high quality "full service community school" -- schools that provide enrichment, serve as a community center, and connect families to health services -- available to every family. OUSD offers free or reduced-cost preschool for students at 29 locations across the city. Brigitte Marshall, Associate Superintendent, leads efforts to inculcate "The Oakland Way" by "recruiting teachers that look like our students, are local, and have a commitment to community."
Blended networks. Three years ago KnowledgeWorks, a nonprofit rarity, acquired New Tech Network and opened an office in Oakland. The airport and BART make downtown Oakland the most accessible and affordable location in the Bay Area. It didn't hurt that CEO Lydia Dobyns attended Oakland High, loved the reform energy, and wanted to be part of rebuilding a great city. The 120 school network is the first platform-centric school network and is powered by Echo, a project-based learning management system.
Leadership Public Schools, a four-high-school network based in Oakland, used collaborative and distributed innovation to create blended learning environments and tools includingFlexMath and ExitTicket, a classroom assessment and competency tracking system. Envision is another four-high-school, project-based network headquartered in Oakland; its consulting division helps others schools deploy rigor, relevance, and relationships to get the same kind of results.
With 34 schools serving 12,000 K-12 students in nine California cities, Aspire Public Schools is the state's top-performing, large, high-poverty school system. In 2010, 2011, and 2012, 100 percent of Aspire's graduating seniors were accepted to four-year colleges. They developed the data management platform Schoolzilla but were initially reluctant to mess with success.
Last year they piloted blended learning classrooms with EdElements. Heather Kirkpatrick said, "Overall, the pilots were a great success, student achievement increased in both ELA and math, classroom instruction changed in innovative ways, teachers felt their work was more sustainable, and culturally the blended learning classrooms still 'screamed Aspire.'" As a result, they plan to open 10 blended learning schools in Memphis over the next five years.
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