Community Schools as Urban District Reform: Mapping Oakland’s Political Landscape

• In Event: New Perspectives on the History of the American School District: Reforms, Reorganizations, and Innovations, 1935-2014

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the multiple political histories that have coalesced to produce support for or resistance to Oakland Unified School District’s full-service community schools model. It analyzes oral history interview data with key stakeholders who represent each of the district’s major constituencies to explore the reasons why each individual, positioned differently within the larger district system, may or may not support this ambitious, equity-minded reform. Most participants have worked and lived in the district since at least 1999, and have experienced several waves of reform, including a grassroots-driven small schools initiative for the district’s most racially and economically isolated neighborhoods; a six-year state takeover for financial insolvency; an unprecedented expansion of private charter schools; and various central office restructuring efforts aimed at improving district governance and student performance. Through their voices, the paper explains the ways in which different constituencies interpret an urban district’s priorities, conceive of the appropriate role for a local district, and form coalitions that further or thwart democratic, equity-oriented reform.

I draw on three interdisciplinary concepts to guide my analysis. First, I employ the concept of structural racism, which helps explain why individuals’ access to opportunity is not equally available to all, but rather is “produced and regulated by institutions, institutional interactions and individuals [that] jointly and differently provide and deny access along lines of race, gender, class, and other markers of social difference.” Second, I draw on urban regime theory to analyze which local political arrangements and coalitions shaped Oakland’s evolving reform agenda and the eventual political responses to its full-service community schools model. Finally, I use the concepts of intra- and inter-group social capital, which refer to the personal and institutional bonds within a racial community, as well as the cross-sector bonds of trust and cooperation across racial communities. These concepts reveal how district reform involves relationships between the central office and its communities, as well as how it shapes and is shaped by multiple institutional forces that merge inside a district.

My primary method of data collection includes oral history interviews with 20 members of the Oakland Unified School District’s community. Other data derive from structured observations of school board meetings, document analysis, and two focus groups.

This study is significant because it contributes a case that departs from the most common types of contemporary district reform, such as those that center on standards-alignment, instructional coherence, or market-oriented initiatives like portfolio models. It illuminates issues of democratic engagement, as well as the normative and political tensions inherent in district reforms that aim to redistribute resources based on the historical decisions or policies that perpetuated certain inequalities. The paper also contributes a unique framework for studying urban district reform, one that suggests a less common role for the American school district by requiring its leaders to build relationships across institutional boundaries and acknowledge how communities’ structural disparities necessitate reforms that are responsive to these realities.

Authors

• Tina M. Trujillo, University of California - Berkeley

• Laura Elena Hernandez, University of California - Berkeley

• Tonja Michelle Jarrell, University of California - Berkeley

• Rene Espinoza Kissell, University of California - Berkeley