I Have A New Appreciation for My School after Reading about the Inequities in Oakland Education
By: Bita Naghavi, Oakland Scholar
The “2021–2022 Oakland Report” by the Energy Convertors, The Oakland Report 2021–22: Continuation Schools in Oakland.pdf , brought up many interesting ideas surrounding education in Oakland and its shortcomings. Something that stood out to me from the section in the beginning was the quote by Quis Evans of Energy Convertors, “The power of a simple conversation is a magical teacher move. You would think all our ‘certified’ teachers in Oakland would be utilizing it to repair relationships with scholars who require extra love and attention.” This is interesting to me because I notice that some students at my school lack motivation in certain classes, and tend to fall further behind when they aren’t supported by those particular teachers. However, many teachers do take extra time and effort to assist these students, giving students the confidence in their potential to perform better, resulting in them elevating their efforts to learn. I have even witnessed this myself when helping some of my friends with work; once students are treated kindly and with support and patience they can improve without overwhelming feelings of doubt.
I was appalled with the data found in the section about Pushout, https://girlsinc.org/school-pushout-and-how-to-combat-it/, and how “the suspension rate for Black girls in the 2011–2012 school year was six times higher than the suspension rate for White girls.” This number is clearly not just luck, and it really does highlight the unfairness in schools and privilege white students possess. This number is interesting to me because at my school students are rarely held back, suspended or expelled. Students who are far behind in classes are offered summer school as a chance to make up courses, and/or they can take Edgenuity (an online version of the class) the next year to make up the class. I feel my school fully utilizes its resources to see to it that students are being properly served, so seeing such a difference in these suspension rates is staggering.
The last section that really caught my attention was how Student A said her mother was contacted when she skipped class, but not about Student A’s grades or struggles in class. This really highlights how the schools main concern was her lack of attendance and not her personal or academic struggles.
After reading this report, I have gained an appreciation for my school and the support I receive. All of my teachers have office hours, we have college counselors who we can schedule appointments with at any time, and if we need anything from the principal we are able to find her and ask for help or guidance with classes, schedules, and other things. I realized that my school experience is very different from the students from the report, possibly because my school is so small. This report inspires me to research ways to improve our local schools and the education my peers receive.
