Remarks at OEA Press Conference to Announce our Sunshine Proposal January 17, 2008
OEA Press Conference to Announce
Contract Proposals
Betty Olson-Jones, OEA President
January 17, 2008
Like all of you, I was stunned and horrified by the shooting of the fifth grader last week while he took his piano lesson. I had been at his school that very afternoon. I was a fifth grade Oakland teacher before taking on this role, and it hit hard. I can’t say that I’m shocked or surprised by the continuing level of violence in Oakland. More than anything, I am angry. As long as we don’t seriously address the underlying causes of violence in our society, and put the crisis in public education squarely in that context, this cycle is bound to continue. We’re here to say the conversation about reforming public education has to be changed from one of scarcity to one of how are we going to solve this problem! If California can’t afford to educate its kids, yet can continue to build prisons, what are we saying about ourselves as a society? Our proposals for a new contract need to be seen in that light.
The Oakland Education Association represents nearly 3,000 teachers, counselors, nurses, school psychologists, speech therapists, social workers, librarians, and substitute teachers. Our current contract with the OUSD expires in June. We are presenting bold proposals, what some might call “unrealistic” in the current budget crisis. But we have no choice! If we don’t set our expectations high, we’ll be accepting the status quo, and the next time around we’ll be told the same thing. “There’s not enough.” As we remember the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr., let’s remember some of his words: “to repair the damage of centuries of denial and oppression means appropriations to create jobs, job training…and equal education.” He warned us not to be satisfied with “limited reforms…at bargain rates for the power structure.” We’re long past the time for bandaid solutions to systemic problems.
The right to a quality education is a civil right. If we are talking about real reform, if public education is to survive, we have no choice but to advocate for our students and our profession.
Our Bargaining Chair, David de Leeuw, will elaborate on our main demands shortly. In brief, they are:
- Lower class size;
- Reduce caseloads for counselors, teachers and nurses working with students with special needs;
- Compensation that’s adequate to recruit, support, and keep good teachers;
- Academic freedom for teachers
Before he does, let’s go back to basics for a minute. First and foremost, every student has the right to a quality education. We are talking about helping our students – all students – grow up to be lifelong learners: thinking, caring, critical, creative, responsible members of a democratic society. This won’t happen by simply pouring facts into them and then measuring their achievement by their test scores. It won’t happen if our students don’t feel safe, and if they don’t feel engaged and cared for. For each child to have a quality education in Oakland, we can’t just expect success. We have to create the conditions where students can be successful and where teaching is honored and respected. OEA’s Vision for Public Education lays out ways to ensure student success, including:
A stable, caring teaching force where new teachers are supported and mentored so they choose to stay in teaching as a long-term career, not an entry-level position into the business world;
Small classes that allow teachers to provide individual attention to each student;
Time for teachers to collaborate and plan;
Ample resources, materials, and support staff;
Relevant, engaging curriculum;
Excellent early childhood and adult education programs;
Clean, safe, sustainable schools;
The power to make democratic decisions about the most important priority in our society: educating our young people.
Our contract proposals are meant to move us in that direction.
We know what conditions are like in Oakland schools. I taught for 14 years in Oakland schools, and now in my role as President I visit them regularly. We know that there are wonderful schools and excellent teachers throughout Oakland, and that students are demonstrating in a thousand different ways that "education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." (W.B. Yeats) But we also know that many students—particularly students in flatlands schools—aren’t getting the opportunities they deserve. Our students come to us with such a range of needs that we are constantly trying to do the impossible. You cannot build a system of school improvements on the back of heartsick teachers and children without hope.
Since the state took over in 2003, and with the financial backing of wealthy patrons like Eli Broad, OUSD has experienced wave after wave of destabilization and change in the name of efficient business practices and educational reform. We’ve lost hundreds of great teachers — up to 30% a year — and over ten thousand students. Essential programs have been cut back or eliminated, custodians and other support personnel laid off. Of the 98 traditional schools that existed in 2002, 42 have been closed, reconstituted, incubated into new small schools, or turned into charters. There are now 32 charter schools in Oakland, which remove students and income from the district, feeding a vicious cycle of cutbacks, closures, destabilization of communities, and student and teacher flight. And far too many teachers are being forced to focus on raising test scores by using one-size-fits-all materials and following a script instead of doing what experienced teachers do best: building a genuine relationship with each student and tailoring their teaching to each child’s needs. All in all, the state takeover has made public education in Oakland worse.
Now we’re told that the state budget deficit will require even greater cuts in the funding that goes to education. But we can’t keep doing more with less! As a community, we cannot allow this manufactured crisis to be borne on the backs of our most vulnerable citizens. Our neediest students are the ones who suffer. Students with special needs, students who come from poverty, students whose first language is not English, have additional needs that must be met for them to learn.
If the district, as currently run by the California Department of Education and wealthy patrons like Eli Broad is truly interested in fulfilling their obligation to educate all – not just some — of our children, then we challenge them to find the resources for doing so. California is the fifth largest economy in the world, and yet California schools rank near the bottom in per pupil funding. Oakland is not a poor city. Clearly there are resources available, and these need to be redistributed. For instance:
- 46 corporations in California with an income of over $1 billion pay less than $801 a year in taxes (CalPIRG Education Fund). Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill reported this week that eliminating tax credits or closing tax loopholes could bring in billions a year;
- Reinstitute the 11% income tax on incomes over $500,000 (a policy during the Republican administrations of Governors Reagan and Wilson) – $3 billion
- Restore the vehicle license fee repealed four years ago — $5 billion
- Reverse some of the damages of Proposition 13 by implementing a split roll tax (reassessing commercial property while leaving residential property alone) — $4 billion
- Locally, the Port of Oakland and other corporations need to pay their fair share.
Even a severe economic recession doesn’t have to lead to automatic spending cuts. It was in the midst of the Great Depression of the 1930’s that Americans were able to win the greatest increase in social programs by demanding that social priorities be reordered.
Teachers are the key to providing students with a quality education. How can we expect to recruit, mentor, and then keep qualified teachers if we cannot offer them sustainable conditions of work or fair compensation for the critical work they do? How can we stem the growing number of drop-outs and push-outs if we are forced to measure our students only by their test scores and not by their unique gifts and talents? How can we stop the increase in violence in Oakland if we’re not giving young people a real alternative to gangs and the streets? We cannot continue to blame students, their parents, and educators for the refusal of our state and nation to live up to their obligations.
In this contract proposal we set out to boldly address the conditions in Oakland’s schools and to fight for what’s really needed to improve them. Our district must return to local control, and corporations must be taxed both locally and statewide on a regular, sustained basis— not just as “charity” with strings attached—to help us all achieve our vision: to provide and maintain quality public education, controlled by the community it serves.
As Frederick Douglass once said, "A man who will NOT labor to gain his rights, is a man who would NOT, if he had them, prize and defend them."
