Mike Myslinski
Headquarters Communications
California Teachers Association
408-921-5769 (cell)
MEDIA ADVISORY
March 1, 2019
Oakland Education Association
272 East 12th Street
Oakland, CA 94606
Contact: Mike Myslinski with CTA on cell at 408-921-5769, mmyslinski@cta.org
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
TENTATIVE AGREEMENT REACHED
OAKLAND – A 4-year tentative agreement has been reached between the Oakland Education Association (OEA) bargaining team and Oakland Unified School District. This contract caps a historic seven-day strike that united a community to save public education in Oakland. The tentative agreement, which has a win in every major proposal that OEA made, must be ratified by a majority vote of OEA members.
The vote will be scheduled shortly – OEA members will first be given 24 hours to consider the details of the agreement. Details will be posted on OEA’s website, and given to the media at 4 p.m. today.
Some highlights of the 4-year tentative agreement include:
* Experienced teachers stay in the classroom. 11% salary increase, 3% bonus at ratification
* Lower class sizes. Phased-in class size reductions at all schools
* School closures. 5-month pause in any school closures
* More student supports. Lower caseloads for special education teachers and counselors
* A charter cap. The school board will vote to push the state for a charter school moratorium
A 4 p.m. news conference to discuss the tentative agreement will be held at Taylor Memorial United Methodist Church in Oakland this afternoon. It will be broadcast live on the OEA Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/OaklandEA/
–WHAT: News conference to discuss the tentative contract agreement reached by OEA and the Oakland Unified School District.
–WHEN and WHERE: The news conference will be at 4 p.m. today, Friday, March 1, at Taylor Memorial United Methodist Church, 1188 12thStreet, Oakland, 94607.
###
The Oakland Education Association represents 3,000 OUSD educators, including teachers, librarians, counselors, nurses, psychologists, psychiatric social workers, therapists, substitutes, and early childhood and adult teachers. OEA is affiliated with the 325,000-member California Teachers Association and the 3 million-member National Education Association.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Sounds good but much of the language is vague without deadlines and detailed language.
scary manipulative stuff across the nation: over and over we hear that after a teachers’ strike the demands may not actually be realized
The corporate and/or billionaire owned elected representatives will agree to anything to make those teachers go away, and then it is back to business as usual until the teachers rise up again. Then the same response is repeated.
I don’t think teachers have it in them to start a shooting civil war. Teachers are good for making signs to carry in protest marches. Most teachers do not make for a good military army. The oligarchs are counting on this as they keep eroding our freedoms and the public sector.
But teachers make up less than 1-percent of the total population, and there are plenty of other people outside of teaching that is also being stepped on and driven into the mud face first by the arrogant and corrupt few that worship at the altar of avarice.
Impossible to tell if the strike won any major advance, no numbers on class sizes, no numbers published on how many pupils per counselor, and the 11% over 4 yrs means only 2.75% per year, about even with inflation, no gain in real income, no closing of any charters just a moratorium on new ones which can be lifted. Forgive me pls for spoiling the party but I still wonder why smart and brave teachers on historic strikes settle so soon for so little again and again. Is it not apparent that their walkouts paralyze their locales b/c no society can function if thousands of k-12 kids are unsupervised every day? When will teachers recognize the enormous power already in their hands and go to the mat with their boards, mayors, governors, and charterizers?
The charter lobby has tried to destroy Oakland and suck the bones of the public schools.if they are not stopped, Oakland public schools will die.
Yes. And seven days was a BIG commitment on the part of the Oakland teachers. They are true heroes in getting this essential fight started.
WASHINGTON – Today, Congressman Paul Mitchell (R-MI) announced the “Congressional School Choice Caucus” will be renamed the “Congressional Caucus on Education Innovation and Opportunity.”
“Parents should have the right to choose which education model works best for their children and innovation in education options provides access to schools and practices to best serve an individual child’s unique needs. Changing the caucus’ name to the ‘Congressional Caucus on Education Innovation and Opportunity’ reflects a renewed focus on diverse education models that are parent directed, teacher mentored, and customized to meet individual learning styles,” said Mitchell.
Amusing.
More rebranding of vouchers.
It’s amazing how coordinated ed reform is. One of the university think tanks rebrands vouchers and within months the whole echo chamber follows.
This is really ambitious. It’s a plan to put in a “backpack voucher” and extent it to hundreds of private contractors. It’s privatization on steroids. There would be NO traditional or comprehensive schools. You would take your (low value) stipend and spend it on educational services.
The public have no idea how radical these people are. Hence, all the careful rebranding and deceptive language. They don’t just want to eradicate public schools. They want to fragment education into a collection of commercial services.
No one in the echo chamber is even questioning it. It’s full speed ahead!
They envision a whole new tranche of adult “experts”- “navigators”- who will get a cut of every voucher. These tens of thousands of new employees will (supposedly) steer parents to “quality” contractors. It’s nuts. It makes absolutely no economic sense. Each student will be paying RETAIL for each course, because no course will have sufficient enrollment to take advantage of volume pricing. Students will get FAR LESS bang for their buck than in a comprehensive school.
This is a really bad idea, but the echo chamber has no critics and no dissenters, so it’s moving right along thru the pipeline.
Put it nicely.
These are witless robots with an ideological agenda.
If the public want to see how completely ed reform has captured DC, check out the “Homeroom” blog at the US Department of Education:
https://blog.ed.gov/2019/03/5-tips-to-encourage-reading-at-home/#more-28074
Half the posts are pure politicking- selling charters and vouchers.
If you’re wondering why none of these public employees ever seem to do any work that benefits public schools all you have to do is read their own priorities and preferences.
Try it with any ed reform site. Go read them and look for a positive mention of a public school or ANY positive or supportive plan for any public school, anywhere.
The contract has not been voted on yet; more details will come out then. The press spent way too much time and energy talking about salaries/wages and not enough emphasis on the other issues that affect kids: class sizes, teacher retention, improved supports, more nurses and counselors, etc. The teachers fought hard for the improvements that they know matter (not just wages), and it is disrespectful to denigrate all that they fought for by implying that they didn’t fight hard enough. FYI, thousands of kids were not unsupervised every day, and that’s one of the many reasons why the strike was effective. The community stepped up and organized and staffed strike schools. Every rec center and many churches and libraries were open and staffed with teachers and parent volunteers during school hours. The kids all had access to structured time and were in a safe space. Because of this organization, I believe 97% of the kids stayed out of school during the strike. The bigger picture was the momentum of the strike that fed changes in legislation. Even if a local moratorium on charters is short-lived, Oakland now has traction to put the skids on charter expansion through a series of bills supported by our local legislators Rob Bonta and Nancy Skinner. Elections absolutely matter.
In fact, one shouldn’t ask why teachers didn’t fight harder, but why should they have to fight this hard at all?