Holly Kernan

Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) has seen its share of upheaval over the past decade. In 2003, the state took control of OUSD after a series of financial missteps. In 2009, local control was returned to the district – with the understanding that it would pay back nearly $90 million in debt to the state. That was two days before Tony Smith took office as superintendent.

Schools and districts around the country are looking for ways to improve learning and safety for their students. And author David Kirp’s new book, Improbable Scholars: The Rebirth of a Great American School System, tackles just that topic. He says we have to start with the way we think about education reform – and that means reforming the way we talk about it. He spoke about this with KALW’s Holly Kernan.

Carl Rist is behind a local effort called 1:1 Fund. It combines social networking and crowd funding techniques to help low-income students save for college. The 1:1 fund is a project of the Corporation for Enterprise Development, or CFED, and Rist is executive director of the project. He spoke with KALW’s Holly Kernan.

StoryCorps is a national project that records of conversations between loved ones. Parents and their children, siblings, spouses and friends sit in a sound studio booth and record and interview with each other. StoryCorps is the brainchild of Dave Isay, an award winning documentary producer, and author of the book, Mom. Since he has inspired others to interview each other, we thought it would be nice to interview him. Isay sat down with KALW's Holly Kernan.

The question of who should or should not be on any given street in Oakland came to a head recently at the city’s monthly First Friday Art Murmur event. In the past few years, First Friday has grown from a small art walk to a street party that attracts more than 20,000 people.  And increasingly, they’re people who represent very different Oaklands: the one that the New York Times named one of the world’s top five cities to visit, and the one where 30 people have been murdered so far this year.