How are Oakland schools responding to Prop. 16 failing?

California voters have decided not to restore affirmative action in schools. Proposition 16, which failed by a margin of 12 percentage points, would have reversed a 1996 ban on considering race, gender or ethnicity in public education systems and public contracting.  State lawmakers—motivated by high-profile racial injustices, such as the police killing of George Floyd—voted…

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Oakland Unified School District takes on tech, with corporate help

An AP Computer Science Principles class at Castlemont High School in Oakland Unified School District. (Photo by: Stefanie Le)

Over the last year and a half, the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) has been making an effort to deepen its science, technology, engineering and math programs, but so far it has had to depend on donations from corporations to fund much of them. The district’s efforts to bring so-called STEM education to students have been…

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