Opinion: Oakland’s dysfunctional school board is failing our children

Our children are public school students in Oakland. We are public school parents. We have put our faith in this public good, to prepare them for the future, our futures, yet it is failing them.

Only one in three Oakland Unified students are reading at grade level, while just over one in four are proficient in math. For Black and Brown children, who make up over two-thirds of the district, the outcomes are even more alarming.

Instead of relentlessly focusing on this, Oakland’s public schools are in permanent crisis.