April 25,2013
By Caitlin Healey
Which Oakland schools are producing promising results and raising achievement for all students? Who are the people teaching in our schools and what are they like? How is OUSD meeting its goals for operational excellence and student achievement?
We are running a series of blogs at GO Public Schools Leadership Center and our sister organization, GO Public Schools:
• Oakland achieves bright spot schools
• Getting to know Oakland teacher policy fellows
• OUSD scorecard updates
Here’s a sampling of each:
Oakland achieves bright spot schools
Where are Oakland students thriving? And what are these schools doing right? The Oakland Achieves report identifies “bright spots” – areas in which Oakland schools are beating expectations. In this post, Manzanita SEED third grade teacher Anne Perrone discusses how reading is an essential part of the school day at her school:
“Students are processing language at SEED throughout the day, and using their expertise in one language to help understand another. This makes reading and rereading text, even more essential, as students absorb and process vocabulary and concepts they may only be hearing, talking, reading and writing about at school.
“Students soon learn that they are experts for part of the day and depend on the expertise of classmates for another part of the day. This need to collaborate also makes SEED unique, as students support each other as they process difficult texts and concepts.”