On Thursday January 8th, several hundred students, parents and teachers gathered at the Oakland Public Schools Administration Building for a hearing on Oakland school closures. As dozens rallied outside and hundreds packed a hearing room, "Oakland police barred dozens of other people from the building, including at least one journalist and a woman who asked to be let in to find her young daughter. The crowd chanted, banged on windows and rang fire alarms, which could be heard from inside the meeting room." (Oakland Tribune).
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The occupation of Oakland schools by the State of California enables the state to make cuts to Oakland schools that a democratically elected school board would never approve (see pdf). Administrator Randolph Ward at first threatened to close up 13 schools but settled on a short-list of 5.
Ward plans to rent shut-down schools to charter schools. Ward's attack is a thinly veiled attempt to privatize education. Ward is acting as an unelected, unaccountable overseer for the state to try to strip down, degrade and privatize education in Oakland.Read More...