Oakland Unified: Still Failing After All These Years

This year’s Stanford-9 achievement scores show that California students made slight gains over the last year. The Oakland Unified School District (OUSD), however, continues to trail far behind the state, county, and national averages.

Despite some minor gains, test scores in the OUSD have dropped or remained stagnant, particularly in the higher grades. The district still has a long way to go to reach the state averages, which also remain far behind the performance levels sought by California’s parents and policymakers, including Governor Gray Davis. Oakland Unified even falls short of such perennial low achievers as the Los Angeles Unified School District.

On the 1999 Stanford-9 exam, OUSD defied state law and refused to test its Limited English Proficient (LEP) students. Because they did not have the large number of LEP children in their testing pool, district scores showed distinct improvements from the 1998 achievement levels, when all students, regardless of English proficiency, had been tested. In 2000, after the loss of legal battles, the district complied with the state requirements and tested all students. However, the state Department of Education has yet to release the breakdown of students in the different categories, making it difficult to make sound comparisons with last year’s performance. This new data will be released in late August, at which time PRI will release a more detailed analysis.

Though by any standard one of the worst districts in the state and nation, Oakland Unified could use this position to its advantage by showing that radical change can make a difference. By providing more alternatives for educational choice through charter schools or an opportunity scholarship program for low-income families, Oakland could become an example of reform for California and the nation.