The Cole World Podcast: Ep. 44 Frankenstein’s Monster
Today, we discuss the tragedies that our country has continued to face. We also have a little fun — because we need it. I discuss the new Ghostbuster’s movie. Topics (In Order): – Conversation...
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Ending the “Lock Out” of Black Students, How OUSD Enrollment Rules Hurt Black...
District enrollment rules conspire against equity from top to bottom. Even those most “fair” mechanisms like lotteries. Redistributing opportunities and privilege means upending these rules,...
View ArticleHow Oakland Unified Graduates Left Over $16 Million on the Table and What We...
Educational Policy is too often about promises and pledges with few delivered results. Amidst the best intentions, everything comes down to implementation. And if last year’s FAFSA submission rate...
View ArticleBeyond “Safe” Spaces for LGBTQ Students, the State, the School, and You
Recent events echo, and remind us of the hate directed against the LGBTQ community, while quieter pain, often equally devastating and more widespread permeates the halls of most schools. Schools need...
View ArticleRhetorical Education Wars From the Right and Left
Political language… is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. George Orwell Words matter. What we call something affects...
View ArticleDr. Stanley Breaking Down the Data
In the wake of the recent NAACP position on school choice for Black parents, there has been a lot of conversation. I had the good fortune to be involved in one of those conversations where Dr. Brian...
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Supporting Our Black Parents and Cutting Through Political Slush
Recently, the NAACP called for a moratorium on Charter Schools, which would deal a blow to African American families and their right to choice in places such as California. There are a lot of families...
View ArticleI Don’t Understand Why My Child’s Oakland Public School Receives Less Funding
To the Oakland Unified School District/Oakland School Board: My name is Brandon Dawkins, and I am an Oakland resident, community leader and taxpayer, as well as a father to three young scholars...
View ArticleAre you suffering from Blackache?
Diagnosis Blackache [blak-eyk] noun emotional and physical pain from hearing dumb *ss rationales as to why it’s ok to deny Black humanity constantly a condition that occurs when the confluence of...
View ArticleBe informed, get involved, vote in Oakland school board election Nov. 8th
Almost nothing is more important to the health of a city than how well it educates its kids. So, if you care about Oakland, you need to care about who runs the schools. On November 8th you can do more...
View ArticleYou Want to Know the Students of Richmond? Then You Gotta Live Here.
“OK, let’s go save these kids.” This was the expression used by a fellow teacher before the school year began. As I heard the expression, I wondered if the remark had any degree of truthfulness....
View ArticleAfter the Election- The New “The Talk”
Election day hurt bad, it still hurts. I was in two Oakland schools. One in the West, and one in Fruitvale. Little girls in hijabs lined up alongside voters in one school. And in the other school,...
View ArticleThe Teacher, Our Savior by Robel Espino
“OK, let’s go save these kids.” This was the expression used by a fellow teacher before the school year began. As I heard the expression, I wondered if the remark had any degree of truthfulness....
View ArticleHow Oakland Unified Graduates Left Over $16 Million on the Table and What We...
Educational Policy is too often about promises and pledges with few delivered results. Amidst the best intentions, everything comes down to implementation. And if last year’s FAFSA submission rate...
View ArticleOakland school’s chief Antwan Wilson to be named D.C. schools chancellor
According to the Washington Post’s Emma Brown, D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser is expected to announce superintendent of Oakland California schools Antwan Wilson, as the next D.C. school’s chancellor. The...
View ArticleMake Oakland Better by Taking the “Two Tour Pledge”
Change starts with us, it always has, and always will. No place is this more real than in school segregation, where thousands of individual choices tend to reinforce racial and class separation and...
View ArticleSuperintendent Wilson’s Legacy in Oakland
News broke last week that Oakland Unified’s superintendent, Antwan Wilson was moving on to become the new school chief in DC. This has been a tumultuous couple of years in Oakland, marked at times by...
View ArticleNYC’S Integration Policy That Can Work in Oakland
The basics of desegregation are simple. It just takes will. NYC’s gifted and talented programs and the specialized high schools are some the most segregated classrooms in the City. And despite a...
View Article#MyBlackHistory: My Parents Decided to Go Back to College 30 Years Later....
Recently, the story of my parents, Renate and Charles Cole, went viral after I tweeted on social media: “My parents went back to college together and they graduated today. Together #salute.” After...
View ArticleSTUDY: OUSD’s plan to reduce meat and dairy in school lunches pays off
A new case study from Friends of the Earth shows that reducing meat and cheese in school lunches doesn’t just save money, it also proves an effective strategy for mitigating climate change by reducing...
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