History
The Oakland Unified School District was founded in the 19th century as part of the city's birth as a bedroom community for families working in San Francisco. Today the district includes around 120 schools including several dozen sites that have been founded or redesigned as part a nationwide small schools movement.
In 2003, the state Legislature passed an emergency $100 million loan for the insolvent school district leading to state control of the 48,000-student school system. Randolph E. Ward, Ed.D., was appointed in 2003 to serve as state administrator for the school district.
During its early twentieth century history, Oakland was one of the first school districts to use the I.Q. test developed by Stanford Professor, Lewis Terman, to track its students. Terman stated his view that Northern European whites were smarter than others. He placed his graduate student, Virgil Dickson, as research director of the Oakland schools, and the resulting tracking system placed most African-American and Mexican students in the lowest track classes
The resulting racial stratification continued through the 1960s until more African-American and Latinos began being elected to the school board and questioning the tracking processes.
Read more about this topic: Lincoln Elementary School (Oakland, California)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Regarding History as the slaughter-bench at which the happiness of peoples, the wisdom of States, and the virtue of individuals have been victimized—the question involuntarily arises—to what principle, to what final aim these enormous sacrifices have been offered.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“These anyway might think it was important
That human history should not be shortened.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“A man acquainted with history may, in some respect, be said to have lived from the beginning of the world, and to have been making continual additions to his stock of knowledge in every century.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)