A gymnasium full of teachers, teenagers and community members
are sitting around small tables and jotting down the names of
their favorite teachers on blue Post-It notes at Edna Brewer
Middle School. Stephanie Benjamin, a 17-year-old peer educator
with Youth Uprising, met her favorite teacher during elementary
school in Oakland. She reads from her Post-It: “Ms. Wallis knew
what was going on with us. She wouldn’t just get on you for not
doing your work, she’d try to figure out what was happening at
home.” It’s the first installment of Great Oakland Public
Schools Leadership Center’s forum “Teaching Matters,” which aims
to bring Oakland educators and community members together to
talk about education and supporting teachers. The forum is
mostly wonky presentations about policy, but the takeaways are
simple: In a few years, 75 percent of California’s students will
be children of color. California has what speaker Arun
Ramanathan, executive director of The Education Trust-West,
calls a “leaky college and career p