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California State School Superintendent Jack O’Connell said in an e-mail to an Oakland education activist this week that despite his belief that state school takeovers should be a “last option,” local control of the Oakland Unified School District will continue to be withheld until “the time is right.” 

Oakland education activist Susan Harman—who earlier this year testified in Sacramento in favor of Assemblymember Sandré Swanson’s ultimately vetoed AB45 Oakland local control bill—wrote O’Connell an e-mail inquiry in early November after seeing an October New York Times article on the No Child Left Behind federal law. 

In that article, the state superintendent said it was “unreasonable” under NCLB that some 700 California public schools were in danger of state takeover. “To have a successful program,” the Times quoted O’Connell as saying, “it really has to come from the community.” 

After Harman e-mailed O’Connell to point out the difference between this position and O’Connell’s opposition to Swanson’s local control bill, O’Connell responded that he saw no discrepancy.  

“California’s educational system relies on local control for the management of school districts on the theory that those closest to the problems and needs of each individual district are the best able to make appropriate decisions on behalf of the district,” O’Connell wrote. “I strongly believe that successful programs require a partnership between the district governing board and the surrounding community. However, the circumstances surrounding the takeover of Oakland Unified School District (OUSD), included the state Legislature passing an emergency $100 million loan for an insolvent Oakland district, leading to state control of the school system. The district's insolvency, no matter who was ultimately at fault, did not bode well for the district's future ability to properly educate its students regardless of positive strides made through the nascent small school reform movement beginning to take shape at the time. Since then, the Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team (FCMAT) has a proposed recovery plan, which outlines the improvements that would have to be achieved by the OUSD in order to reach fiscal solvency and be returned to local control.” 

Oakland’s schools have been under state management since a massive budget shortfall was discovered by OUSD school officials in 2003. No allegations of malfeasance were ever alleged, and the causes for the shortfall have been generally attributed to an earlier teacher pay raise and a drop in district income due to an unexpected decrease in attendance. 

Swanson’s bill, passed by the legislature but vetoed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, would have taken the discretion for return to Oakland Unified local control out of the hands of the superintendent’s office and tied it directly to FCMAT’s recommendations. Under current law, the state superintendent makes a final decision on local control in any of five operational areas after FCMAT recommends that local control can be returned. O’Connell has never spelled out exactly what criteria he will use in determining when OUSD will be ready to be returned to local control.  

FCMAT has completed its latest round of assessments of OUSD and has tentatively scheduled a release of its recommendations at a special OUSD meeting on Thursday, Dec. 6.