Oakland Schools Chief Leaves Post

The school superintendent whose district prompted a national debate over ebonics announced her resignation Wednesday.

In a tearful news conference, Carolyn Getridge said she is leaving for a better job in the private sector, not because of past controversies.

Getridge vaulted to the forefront of a national education debate last December when the Oakland school board passed a resolution recognizing “ebonics,” or black English, as a separate language.

The action drew the scorn of critics who declared that black English was slang and that recognizing it as anything more meant lowering standards for black students. But school officials said they were just looking for ways to reach black students, who make up about half of the district’s 52,000 enrollees and at the time of the resolution had a collective grade-point average of 1.8 on a scale of 4.

A 30-year veteran of the Oakland Unified School District, Getridge had been superintendent for three years. She is resigning Sept. 12 to become president for the Northern California region of Dallas-based Voyager Expanded Learning, a curriculum development company.

Getridge, who earned $130,000 a year, said her new job means being able to put quality lesson plans “into the hands of children across the country.”