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Appeal Filed to Return Local Control to Oakland Schools
Appeal Filed to Return Local Control to Oakland Schools
April 28, 2005
A group of Oakland community leaders have appealed the decision of an Alameda County Superior Court judge to dismiss their lawsuit challenging the legality of the State takeover of Oakland’s schools.
In their brief to the First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco, the plaintiffs argue that the superior court erred in not concluding that Senate Bill 39 violates the rights of Oakland’s voters to elect a school board that exercises the powers and duties established under the State Constitution, Education Code, and Oakland City Charter.
The plaintiffs include include Oakland POST publisher and former school board member Paul Cobb, former Oakland school superintendent and current county school board member Dennis Chaconas, and former Oakland city council member Wilson Riles.
The plaintiffs ask the Court of Appeal to overrule the superior court’s order sustaining the demurrer by State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell to their complaint so that they may take their case to trial. They argue that under the authority granted to charter cities under the State Constitution, the Oakland City Charter provides for the election of its school board. A school board possesses substantial powers and duties that are set forth in both the California Constitution and the State Education Code.
SB 39, by eliminating all of those powers and duties, thereby conflicts with the Constitution, Education Code, and City Charter, according to the appeal. The plaintiffs argue that the State did not have the discretion to refuse to provide financial support to the Oakland school district to insure that it did not run out of funds in 2003. Therefore, according to the appeal, the State’s fulfillment of its responsibility did not allow it to attach unlawful conditions to its loan to the Oakland school district.
Under well-established legal authority, the State’s intrusion into the affairs of the Oakland school district was required to be accomplished by means “narrowly tailored” to satisfy the State’s lawful concerns with only minimally necessary intrusions on local interests, according to the appeal.
SB 39 fails this test, the appeal concludes, because complete State assumption of the powers and duties of the Oakland school board was not necessary to insure that the State’s interests in the repayment of its loan and in the Oakland district’s fiscal recovery were protected,
The appeal, filed by Oakland attorney and school board member Dan Siegel, will be heard in approximately six months.
April 28, 2005
A group of Oakland community leaders have appealed the decision of an Alameda County Superior Court judge to dismiss their lawsuit challenging the legality of the State takeover of Oakland’s schools.
In their brief to the First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco, the plaintiffs argue that the superior court erred in not concluding that Senate Bill 39 violates the rights of Oakland’s voters to elect a school board that exercises the powers and duties established under the State Constitution, Education Code, and Oakland City Charter.
The plaintiffs include include Oakland POST publisher and former school board member Paul Cobb, former Oakland school superintendent and current county school board member Dennis Chaconas, and former Oakland city council member Wilson Riles.
The plaintiffs ask the Court of Appeal to overrule the superior court’s order sustaining the demurrer by State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell to their complaint so that they may take their case to trial. They argue that under the authority granted to charter cities under the State Constitution, the Oakland City Charter provides for the election of its school board. A school board possesses substantial powers and duties that are set forth in both the California Constitution and the State Education Code.
SB 39, by eliminating all of those powers and duties, thereby conflicts with the Constitution, Education Code, and City Charter, according to the appeal. The plaintiffs argue that the State did not have the discretion to refuse to provide financial support to the Oakland school district to insure that it did not run out of funds in 2003. Therefore, according to the appeal, the State’s fulfillment of its responsibility did not allow it to attach unlawful conditions to its loan to the Oakland school district.
Under well-established legal authority, the State’s intrusion into the affairs of the Oakland school district was required to be accomplished by means “narrowly tailored” to satisfy the State’s lawful concerns with only minimally necessary intrusions on local interests, according to the appeal.
SB 39 fails this test, the appeal concludes, because complete State assumption of the powers and duties of the Oakland school board was not necessary to insure that the State’s interests in the repayment of its loan and in the Oakland district’s fiscal recovery were protected,
The appeal, filed by Oakland attorney and school board member Dan Siegel, will be heard in approximately six months.
For more information:
http://www.oaklandrising.com
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Chaconas and Riles! Now there's a winning team. Perhaps Wilson can go rustle up some chicken dinners for everyone! Oakland lost control of its schools because its elected school board lost control of their job, their budget, and their common sense. Granting raises to teachers when you're broke is hardly good business sense. Oakland may have control of its schools restored when, and only when, the state monitor decides it can handle it. Obviously, from this story, they can't yet.
The federal government spending and national debt is out of control but you don’t hear Steve calling for a takeover of the national government. Prop 13 and lowered taxes on corporate and wealthy individuals have hit our public schools hard. Funding that should have been there never was. The wealthy and influential just put their kids in private schools while they played the system to minimize tax increases on corporate owned real estate. The Oakland schools were set up by a funding system that would probably have driven them into financial turmoil no matter who was in control. I think one of the main reasons that the state took over was to get Chacones out as superintendent. He was not the choice of the Perata/Brown machine and as soon as the school board defied the machine, the machine went to work in Sacramento to get him out.
We are now faced with a dictatorship in Oakland schools. What are we really teaching are children about the way a democracy works? That is the real education issue here. Now, instead of wealthy individuals and corporations being required to fund at a level they should be, we have private foundations and individuals such as the Broad Foundation trying to inject their control into a public institution. We do not need handouts or charity from the wealthy, we need a tax system that requires funding at a level required to operate a public school systems along the lines of a democracy. The City of Oakland should have provided funding to the City Schools to prevent a takeover instead of squandering time and money trying to build new baseball stadiums and other private ventures. Had the City helped the schools maybe the state would have stayed out. But that was not part of the Perata/Brown agenda to wrest control from Chacones and the public. The wealthy and vested interests see our public schools as a charity and something to be controlled by private interests, not as the public trust.
We are now faced with a dictatorship in Oakland schools. What are we really teaching are children about the way a democracy works? That is the real education issue here. Now, instead of wealthy individuals and corporations being required to fund at a level they should be, we have private foundations and individuals such as the Broad Foundation trying to inject their control into a public institution. We do not need handouts or charity from the wealthy, we need a tax system that requires funding at a level required to operate a public school systems along the lines of a democracy. The City of Oakland should have provided funding to the City Schools to prevent a takeover instead of squandering time and money trying to build new baseball stadiums and other private ventures. Had the City helped the schools maybe the state would have stayed out. But that was not part of the Perata/Brown agenda to wrest control from Chacones and the public. The wealthy and vested interests see our public schools as a charity and something to be controlled by private interests, not as the public trust.
Sorry, you're wrong. The children in school in Oakland don't give a rat's ass who runs the schools. The majority of them would simply like to be able to learn without being beaten or assaulted by the little thugs they are forced to be around all day. The same little thugs trash the bathrooms and the physical plant of the schools, and then "activists" complain that the school is a mess. As for Prop 13, well, you can hold your breath until you turn blue, but it is NEVER going to be the way it was.....32 years ago. Get that? Thirty-two years. Prop 13 only applies to people living in the same house in an uninterrupted tenancy. When the house is sold, it is reappraised. New houses are appraised when purchased. Every time a house is sold, it is reappraised. The people benefitting from Prop 13 are the ones who have been living in the same house since 1973, which really is a rather small number. The Left has been blaming Prop 13 for failed schools for over 30 years. Sorry, that's old and tired and it is utterly invalid. Oakland, like the other 25 districts in this state that are takeovers, need to learn to live within their means. Contracting out non-education services is a start. There is no reason for a school district to employ kitchen help, janitors, and gardners. Put it out to bid. Get rid of your $100,000 a year "consultants" who produce nothing. Start teaching kids to read and write. Remove the criminal element. Remove the disruptive, violent students. Bill the parents for damages.
..... influences in their minds in the first place? Pendejo
Thanks so much for your input. It shows the overwhelming superiority of the Leftist thought pattern.
Hey Steve-- You got Wilson Riles and Elihu Harris mixed up. But I understand-- those chicken eating black guys are all the same.
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