Planning Time and Justice: Can UFLI Save OUSD?
October 1, 2025
Updated: October 21, 2025
Updated: October 27, 2025
Planning Time and Justice: Can UFLI Save OUSD?
We visited a district that once had the lowest literacy rates in its state and met a longtime reading coach who had seen a turnaround so dramatic it was featured on EdTrust’s ExtraOrdinary Districts podcast. She froze, and tears welled in her eyes, when I told her that Oakland Unified’s teachers only had 100 minutes of duty-free preparation time and 50 minutes for collaboration time each week. She didn’t want or need more explanation because she was familiar with the inner workings of success and failure. She knew the truth: if you don’t have time to prepare, your system isn’t organized to serve all children.
Oakland’s literacy crisis affects everything: attendance, special education costs, student eligibility for sports and the arts, math and science performance, school climate, student behavior, mental health, and teacher turnover. Literacy is the key that unlocks it all.
Years ago, the district adopted EL Education, a curriculum both expansive and demanding. But it was paired with limited prep time and a workforce full of new teachers—the very conditions under which EL’s own research found no gains in student achievement (TPP, p66). What followed was predictable: noble intentions, heavy workloads, and modest but hard-earned reading gains that have largely stagnated.
Now, UFLI Foundations offers a lifeline. It is straightforward, evidence-based, and can fit within the time teachers actually have. If fully implemented, it can rebuild reading from the ground up, reduce special education referrals, boost math and science achievement, and restore hope. But there isn’t enough preparation time for full implementation of both UFLI and EL Education. Success will depend on leadership’s clarity and courage to say, “We’re going to start with UFLI and make sure this is done fully.”
What if Oakland students were given a strong foundation in reading? Teacher stress and turnover would drop. Special education costs would stabilize. Student success across every subject would rise. It’s neither automatic nor assured, but it could dramatically improve the district’s health and trajectory.
Nearby, Lighthouse schools realized that EL Education was too heavy to implement fully and consistently with fidelity, so they trimmed its content and adopted a streamlined, evidence-based foundational skills program. The resulting progress has been remarkable. UFLI represents a similar opportunity for OUSD.
The question remains whether OUSD will learn from its experiences and its neighbors. Will leadership acknowledge the foundational skills deficit and officially communicate it as the instructional priority, confront the planning time issue, and streamline EL Education? Or will it continue trying to put a square peg in a round hole?
Justice for kids doesn’t come from slogans or speeches. Justice for kids begins with preparation that powers the details of teaching and learning. Everything else is a distraction.
Kareem Weaver
Executive Director, FULCRUM
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