http://oaklandstreetacademy.org/

Employing “culturally relevant pedagogy” as Gloria Ladson-Billings would identify it, the Street Academy offers a college-preparatory alternative environment for mostly black and Latino students, at time in the 1970s when “charter schools” hadn’t yet been conceptualized. Founded with a coalition among California’s first black superintendent Marcus Foster, the National Urban League, the still-current executive director Pat Williams Myrick, teacher Betsy Schulz, member of San Francisco State University’s black and Chicano movements, and many more. Creating a smaller high school with rigorous and interesting electives—including biking and tutoring to get a glimpse into teaching. With an “egalitarian and humanitarian outlook” according to Kitty Epstein[1], seemingly simple innovations become radical saviors for students that were deemed failures; the Street Academy was the first Oakland school to be named California Distinguished School, with 50% of all graduates (compared to 14% African American and 28% Latino in Oakland) meet ingrequirements to enroll in the statue universities. Each student is assigned one consulting teacher—and there is a large percentage of black and Latino teachers extremely committed to teaching about structural racism—who support the students in and out of school.

[1] Epstein, Kitty Kelly. “Miracle School: A Child of the Civil Rights Movement.” The Phi Delta Kappan. Vol. 85, No. 10, pp. 773-776. Jun., 2004.