MAINSTREAM SUCCESS

Test scores proved that Oakland Community School’s methods were effective and highlighted reforms needed in public schools. In 1978, students of the OCS scored 1 to 2 grades beyond their age level on the comprehensive test of basic schools.  Small class sizes, placing students according to their ability, free meals, and medical care contributed to the school's exceptionally high achievement scores and a waitlist of over 400 people. 

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Mainstream news sources such as Jet Magazine lauded the school’s achievements. In one article, Ericka Huggins distances the school from past liberation schools and the rhetoric embedded in early curriculum. According to Huggins, the OCS proved that poor Black children were “educable,” contrary to what many public school teachers seemed to believe. In 1977, the OCS was awarded a commendation from the California state legislature in recognition of  “the highest level of scholastic achievement in elementary education and for having concretely defied the myth of the uneducable child,” a testament to the schools success and impact given the fraught relationship between the party and the government.  

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According to Ericka Huggins, this recognition and the more traditional aspects of the curriculum did not represent a shift in party goals: “We are the same people we always were, we want a new order of things in this society and in the world. But we realize that if ‘A’ is oppression and ‘Z’ is freedom, you can’t jump from A to Z. If we want to change things the best way to begin is to educate our children.” 

The other founding goal of the IYI, of creating a model school, was also achieved. Public school teachers and city council members pointed to the OCS’ success as evidence of necessary reforms, many of which teachers had long been advocating for.

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The success of the Oakland Community School was two-sided. Scholars such as Daniel Perlestein have argued that the school became more mainstream over time and lost sight of its original revolutionary aspirations, embracing electoral reforms and assimilation to the system rather than challenging it. On the other hand, the publicity and recognition that the OCS achieved helped expose the failure of public schools, and in modeling a communal form of education, was revolutionary in and of itself. The goal of founding the IYI was never to grow party membership. It was, as written in 1971, “educate to liberate.” Shifting away from party rhetoric allowed for a larger student body and positive national recognition that a radical panther school would not have received. Though less ideologically pure, the OCS was able to have a larger impact on its students and the community