Rethinking High School Education in Oakland
By RACHEL GROSS
It’s almost deadline, and Christopher Scheer’s journalism class at Skyline High in Oakland is working feverishly on the upcoming issue of The Oracle, their school paper.
Computer keys clack. Time ticks down.
They’re editing articles, writing editorials, designing page layouts. To coin a phrase (or not), it’s something of a baptism by fire, but the students are learning skills and how to work independently and under pressure.
Alice Han pauses for a moment from her work configuring a page.
“It can be pretty stressful,” she tells me from behind a computer screen.
While President Obama prepares to reveal his education revamp aimed at bringing the nation’s educational standards up to speed with the rest of the world, Oakland Unified and other districts are already rethinking academics at a local level.
Mr. Scheer’s class at Skyline High, a school where more than half of about 1,990 students qualify for free- and reduced-price lunches, is an example of