“In nearly 20 years of privatization push into Oakland, this is the first time since 2003 that Oakland schools will be returned to local control by a school board that values and embraces authentic public education. Remaining hopeful for the future, and look forward to strengthening and improving Oakland’s schools.”
Diane Ravitch
By Ken Rice
The Oakland Unified School District (OUSD), a petri dish for school privatization for the past two decades, might have an answer. I ran and was elected to the Oakland school board and served one term (1997-2000). I raised $12,000. My opponent raised about the same amount. In those days the school board elections were neighborhood races funded by local supporters. There was no out of state money or PACs involved.
That began to change about ten years ago: Huge donations from individuals and foundations began to pour into Oakland school board races. The money was funneled through the California Charter School Association and GO (Great Oakland Public Schools), a pro-charter organization. The money also came from Michael Bloomberg, the Walton Foundation, Eli Broad, Laurene Jobs (Steve Jobs’ widow), and several more. The goal was to elect a pro-charter Oakland Board of Education.
Unsurprisingly, the pro-charter organizations were successful.
The Oakland school board has approved about 65 charter school applications over the last twenty years — many of them in the last 12 years. Of those charters, about twenty have closed their doors — in some cases during the academic year, causing great dislocation to families who had to find another school for their children midyear. OUSD now has 30 percent of its 50,000 students in charter schools, the highest percentage of students in charters of any school district in California.
What is surprising is what happened in the 2020 election. For the first time in memory no incumbents were running for any of four of the seven school board seats up for election. Thus, there was a possibility of greatly changing the make-up of the school board, whose majority has opted for policies of charter school approval, school closures and lack of responsiveness to the greater Oakland educational community. This was an opportunity to flip the board . . . and flip it we did!
The charter community recognized this opportunity, and poured almost $900,000 into electing their candidates for the four open seats! Yet when the votes were counted, three of their four candidates lost.
Trying to understand how and why this happened can provide an insight into the educational landscape of not only Oakland, but urban cities nationally. While it might be early to know for certain why the charter candidates were defeated, we can make some educated guesses.
The Blueprint
Strong Local Candidates: Two of the three candidates who won had deep Oakland roots. Two had been teachers (one in Oakland, one in San Francisco) and the other had worked in Oakland’s afterschool programs. Two had been community activists around school issues for years. Oakland elections are calculated by ranked-choice voting (RCV). When the RCV was tabulated Sam Davis, the candidate in District 1 received 62 percent of the vote. Sam built a stellar campaign focused around school communities. He held Zoom meetings with each school community in his district hosted by a combination of parents and teachers who worked in those schools. VanCedric Williams, in District 3, got 61 percent. VanCedric, a public school teacher for almost twenty years, had strong support from the teacher’s union as well as other unions. Mike Hutchinson in District 5 got 56 percent. Mike had run for the board previously, networked with other education activists nationwide, and had built a reputation of challenging board policies by going to board meetings for years and reaching out on social media.
Backing of the Teacher’s Union: Last year, teachers in Oakland led a successful strike. The union’s ability to drum up enthusiasm with their members was one contributor to that success. Teachers recognized that if their future demands were to be met, they needed to have a responsive board. Specifically, the current board was considering a plan that would close up to 24 schools in Oakland, mostly in Brown and Black communities. At the same time, none of the 44 charter schools in Oakland were under threat of closure. Teachers made the connection between a charter-friendly board and school closures of the public schools and were determined to change the direction of the district’s blueprint. Teachers phone banked, texted, walked to drop off literature, and held zoom meetings in support of the three candidates who won. As Sam Davis noted, many voters tend to rely on their friends and neighbors who know something about the schools. The friends and neighbors were telling each other to vote for the candidates they trusted.
An Oakland student helps keep a strike picket line going in March 2019. The successful strike built community awareness, alliances and momentum toward the 2020 school board election, which saw several well-funded pro-charter candidates defeated. [Photo: Christopher Scheer] Oakland Education Association strike march in March 2019. [Photo C.Scheer] Strike supporters of all ages. Oakland, CA. March 2019. [Photo by C. Scheer] Striking public school educators. Oakland CA. March 2019. [Photo by C.Scheer] Striking teacher and friend, Oakland CA.. March 2019. [Photo C.Scheer]
Building a Coalition: The three teacher-union supported candidates were also endorsed by the Democratic Party. This wasn’t an accident. Educational activists pushed the local Democratic clubs to endorse candidates who would not be overly pliant regarding charters and wouldn’t owe their election to big money. These clubs, in turn, pushed the local Democratic Party apparatus.The California Democratic Party has taken a critical stance towards charter schools, calling for more public oversight, and this was replicated locally. Organizers noticed that as people walked to the polls on election day, many of them carried the Democratic Party door hanger with them. Some of these candidates were also endorsed by the county’s labor council, union locals, individual Democratic Party state officials and various organizations, including the Network for Public Education, Educators for Democratic Schools, Democratic Socialists of America, and Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club — many of which also helped to call, text, and walk precincts.
The Word is Out
You can fool some of the people all of the time but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time, or so Lincoln believed. Over time, the general public has begun to understand that there is an attempt to buy their votes. As I dropped off a flier at one home, a parent came to the door and asked, with hostility, “This isn’t the candidate who is getting all that money from Bloomberg, is it?” Several media sources reported on money from Bloomberg ($500,000 from Bloomberg alone!) and others pouring into Oakland’s local election from far away.
After recovering from the astonishment that anyone would spend that kind of money for a school board election, voters became leery of candidates receiving those huge amounts of money. In District 1 where I live — and the charter candidate received nearly $300,000! — I found glossy fliers in my mailboxes more times than I could keep track of.
It is profoundly disturbing and a huge threat to our democracy that this big money trend has filtered down to local school board races. It took many years, but the Oakland community is successfully fighting back against the billionaires’ spending advantage, and when the new board is seated in January it will have a clear pro-public school majority.
With appealing candidates and strong ground games, Oakland voters have shown that big money can be defeated. While Oakland will never go back to the days when a local neighborhood candidate spent only $12,000 to be elected, this recent victory over out-of-state billionaires’ bucks and their agenda sends a clear signal that our community will not be bought.
()