A new coalition to bring back adult education
By Katy Murphy
Monday, October 18th, 2010 at 3:44 pm in adult education
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If you read this blog regularly, you probably know that adult education in California has been decimated in recent years. You might also know that the Oakland school board voted in June to shift millions of dollars of adult ed funds to the district’s child care programs, which the governor in May had threatened to cut.
(Not all of the Oakland school district’s 11th-hour cuts went through. The district tried to use an obscure ed code provision to lay off some of its tenured adult
In Oakland, school produce stands are becoming a weekly fixture
By Katy Murphy
Thursday, October 14th, 2010 at 2:19 pm in West Oakland, community, elementary schools, health, initiatives
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West Oakland may not have a full-service grocery store (that’s another story), but it does have another produce stand. Here are some photos we took on Tuesday at Hoover Elementary School’s new weekly market.
The Oakland school district and the East Bay Asian Youth Center opened two more stands this week — at Hoover in West Oakland and Global Family and Learning Without Limits in East Oakland — bringing the total to 12. They plan to expand the number to 25 by September. Glenview Elementary has one too, run by parent and community volunteers.
These mini farmer’s markets are open to the public, as well. Here’s the schedule: Read the rest of this entry »
Why do so many new Oakland teachers leave? Some have no choice.
By Katy Murphy
Wednesday, October 13th, 2010 at 4:18 pm in teachers
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A new report to be presented at tonight’s school board meeting (agenda here) shows that 73 percent of teachers hired by the Oakland school district in 2004 were no longer in the classroom, five years later.
Using several years’ worth of data, the district found that 28 percent of its new teachers didn’t return for a second year; about 48 percent didn’t come back for a third, and 60 percent didn’t return for a fourth (such as Andy Kwok, right, the rookie teacher we followed in 2007-08).
Through surveys and the district’s personnel data, the New Teacher Support & Development Department tried to find out why 887 teachers hired between 2004 and 2008 had left. They collected 491 responses.
You might be surprised by one of the top reasons new teachers leave their Oakland classrooms: they have no choice.
