In recent years, the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) has made progress towards its ambitious vision of all students graduating from high school as “caring, competent and critical thinkers, fully-informed, engaged and contributing citizens . . . prepare[d] to succeed in college and career.” Since 2012, for example, the reading proficiency of high school students has nearly doubled from 19% to 38%. Yet OUSD continues to face significant challenges, and consistently trails the State of California and surrounding counties in academic proficiency as measured by the Academic Performance Index. In 2014, for example, 56% of students in the state were proficient in English while 43% were proficient in OUSD. There are also disparities upon…