Primary and secondary education
Most public schools in Oakland are operated by the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD), which covers the entire city of Oakland; due to financial troubles and administrative failures, it has been in receivership by the state of California since 2002.
Overall, OUSD schools have performed poorly for years. In the 2005 results of the STAR testing, over 50 percent of students taking the test performed "below basic," while only 20 percent performed at least "proficient" on the English section of the test. Some individual schools have much better performance than the city-wide average, for instance, in 2005 over half the students at Hillcrest Elementary School performed at the "advanced" level in the English portion of the test, and students at Lincoln Elementary School performed at the "advanced" level in the math portion.
Several factors have been blamed for poor performance, including an inefficient top-heavy administrative structure and a student body that is often poor or from a background of limited English proficiency.
The three largest high schools are Oakland High School, Oakland Technical High School, and Skyline High School. The Oakland Military Academy, Oakland School for the Arts, Unity High School, and Oakland Charter Academy are public charter schools that operate outside the domain of the OUSD.
There are several private high schools. Notables include the secular The College Preparatory School and Head-Royce School, both with tuitions around $25,000 per year and the Catholic Bishop O'Dowd High School, Holy Names High School and St. Elizabeth High School. Catholic schools in Oakland are operated by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Oakland.
Julia Morgan School for Girls is a private middle school for girls housed on the campus of Mills College.
(Source: Wikipedia.org)
