Tag: public schools

On Friday, Jan. 18, 2019, teachers and support staff from Oakland Technical High School will join together with educators from across Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) in a one-day work action. This work action will significantly impact the school day, and we expect that a large majority of educators at Oakland Tech will participate. This “Day Without Educators” will give a small preview of what an actual, open-ended strike would feel like.

After running an historic campaign to be governor of Georgia, former House Democratic Leader Stacey Abrams addressed members of the media and her staff just before Georgia certified election results on Nov. 16. In her remarks, Abrams outlined the gross injustices Georgians faced when trying to cast their ballots during this election and launched Fair Fight Georgia. This new PAC will pursue accountability in Georgia’s elections and integrity in the process of maintaining our voting rolls.

Recently, there have been many notable accomplishments in our public schools in the Bayview. Dr. George Washington Carver Elementary School’s principal was awarded Principal of the Year. Students at the Willie Brown Academy just won a statewide competition on healthy eating. And Malcolm X Academy’s fifth grade math and English test scores beat out KIPP Middle School’s fifth grade scores – that’s the charter chain that wants to take space away from Malcolm X.

For the last few months, myself and other POOR Magazine family of poverty and indigenous skolaz have been traveling to Missions across CalifAztlan alongside First Nations elders and revolutionaries to address the 21st century violence of granting sainthood to Junipero Serra by Pope Francis. Using indigenous bodies for brutal slave labor, Junipero Serra “founded” nine of 21 Franciscan missions along the Pacific coast.

Because of Andy Lopez’ killing, the main focus of many people I know is on youth executions at the hands of law enforcement. I see this in terms of a broader context, i.e. the long-range agendas of the right-wing Republican Party. The week-to-week shooting deaths of our Black, Brown and other youth by so-called law enforcement must be studied in the context of the systemic all-over picture. Clearly, there is a pattern and a plan there, if one would just look closely.

As a descendant of former slaves and as an immigrant from the South, I have a unique perspective on segregation. My parents migrated to Oakland from Jackson, Mississippi, in 1944. In Jackson there were signs which posted the segregation policies. In California there were segregation policies, but no signs.

In late August, Aboriginal Blackman United organized over 30 unemployed union members from Bayview Hunters Point to protest construction at Bayview’s Willie Brown Academy. We did not protest because we disagree that our public schools are much in need of repair or with the $531 million that the San Francisco School District will spend to upgrade our public schools. We protested because, despite this historic opportunity for the School District to work with local communities to rebuild our schools, there are no Black workers and no Black contractors at Willie Brown Academy. And at ABU we say that if we don’t work, nobody works.

According to The ARC (advocacy, respect and commitment) of California, the governor has made devastatingly destructive cuts in the support system for people with developmental disabilities and their families. Recently I received a letter from the president of the ARC, Dwight Stratton, stating that our elected legislators decided to ignore the will of the people of the state of California by decimating the Lanterman Act.

Zero apartments currently being built to replace the 963 public housing apartments formerly occupied and now demolished at the St. Bernard Housing Development. 2.6 billion FEMA dollars for Katrina damages that have not yet been delivered. Renowned people's attorney Bill Quigley has compiled a shocking "pain index" caused by the continuing ethnic cleansing of New Orleans.