New schools chief: Oakland “full of opportunity”
September 11, 2014 | By Louis Freedberg and John Fensterwald | No Comments
The Oakland Unified School District has begun the school year with a new superintendent, Antwan Wilson, at the helm. The 46,000-student district is the 14th-largest in the state. Unlike the district’s former superintendents in recent years, he comes to Oakland without any prior experience in California public education.
Oakland Unified School District Superintendent Antwan Wilson in his downtown Oakland office.
Wilson, 42, comes to the district after nine years in the Denver public schools, most recently as assistant superintendent for postsecondary readiness. He succeeds former superintendent Tony Smith, who resigned unexpectedly at the end of the 2012-13 school year. During the transition to a permanent superintendent, the district had been led by interim superintendent Gary Yee. Wilson sat down with EdSource’s Louis Freedberg and John Fensterwald for a wide-ranging discussion on why he came to Oakland, his views on the Common Core, and his goals for the district.
His remarks provide insights into how a superintendent in an urban district at the outset of his term of office is approaching some of the challenges that he will face.
What made you accept the position of superintendent in Oakland?
Oakland is a school district that is full of opportunity, and that got me excited. And the opportunities are to make a difference in the lives of young people, many of whom come from diverse backgrounds, many of whom share similar experiences to those that I had as a child, and also just the history in Oakland. The diversity, the activism, the number of individuals who care about social justice issues — those were all things that attracted me to Oakland, and some of the issues that are here in Oakland to improve education are issues that resonate with me from my work in other places, most recently Denver. And it would have taken a tremendous community in order for me to leave Denver because I love it, and I love Colorado, and Oakland provided those opportunities. So I am excited to be here.
EdSource: Where do you come down in the debate about how much schools can do to improve academic performance, and how much has to do with the environment that kids grow up in, their economic background, or the traumas they might experience in their homes and in their neighborhoods?
I normally don’t debate that issue. I believe that schools have a tremendous responsibility to ensure that our young people have opportunities in their lives, and I believe schools can have a tremendous impact on the opportunities and prospects that students have for their lives. My own personal life is an example of that. I was a young student born to a single mother in poor neighborhoods, where we moved all the time.
Where was that?
In Wichita, Kansas. There I experienced and saw the violence, the drugs, the gangs. One of the things that led to me having an opportunity to do more is that my mother really pushed and helped me get a great education. And getting a great education led to me being here with you now. So I know that education has a tremendous role to play. In playing that role it has to be one where adults are really serious about saying that every child will get a great education and show empathy for the experiences that young people are faced with, help families think through ways in which young people can get the support they need. If they’re hungry, we’ve got to feed them. If they are dealing with abuse, we’ve got to connect them with people and resources to help remove them from those situations and put them on a trajectory so that they can rise above or overcome those situations.
But we must educate them. As a society we need to believe in the power of education because if not, then what? We can’t say, “Well, we’re going to wait till there’s no more poverty, no more violence, there are no more drugs,” all things that I saw on a regular basis as a young person growing up, and then say “After there’s no more of that, we’ll educate them.” We have to educate them, and that’s what’s going to put them in a position to have more success, but recognizing that’s not the only thing. The other social systems in the society have to work as well. But education is key.
“I believe that schools have a tremendous responsibility to ensure that our young people have opportunities in their lives, and I believe schools can have a tremendous impact on the opportunities and prospects that students have for their lives.”
But where do you come down on issues like having school-based health centers and mental health and other wrap-around services that schools can use to help with students with discipline problems and so on?
Having the additional supports are huge to positioning schools to be successful. So the community schools effort in Oakland is in large New schools chief: Oakland “full of opportunity” | EdSource: