SFOP parents take wrong tack on small schools
I was sorry to see that the parents who published an op-ed in today's Chronicle supporting small schools used such a simplistic attack mode. That kind of ignorant bashing harms our schools and our kids by costing them public support. And the unsupported miracle claims are not helpful. The notion that there's an instant magi-cure out there being suppressed by the forces of evil does nothing to address real issues.
Small schools are a better setting for many kids, and we definitely need to support them. June Jordan, the Academy of Arts & Sciences and Aim High are all promising options for kids who need that kind of setting.
But small schools are not a miracle cure for all the challenges of public education. The claims that small schools inherently achieve wondrous results (attributed to unnamed "numerous studies") are magical thinking, which is not just unproductive but harmful in the quest for genuine ways to improve public education.
Meanwhile, the negative attack-attack-attack strategy of this piece will simply damage our schools and thus our kids by costing even more public support for public education.
And citing Oakland Unified (which is under state takeover and being run by a state-appointed administrator) as a successful role model? I'm speechless about that one.
My husband has worked at the Chronicle for 29 years, and you'd think I'd know by now, but I am still sometimes shocked at how low their standards are for fact-checking and for requiring that contributers support their claims. The attitude should not be "it's an op-ed, so anything goes." With traditional media under siege by Craiglist and blogs, you'd think they'd try to maintain their standards, but there don't appear to be any in effect here at all.
(The San Francisco Organizing Project is an impressive initiative, too, but 40,000 members? Seems a bit unlikely.)
And by the way, the Gates Foundation halted its funding to small schools in many districts nationwide. The reason was essentially that the foundation's well-meaning but clueless decisionmakers expected insta-miracles and — surprise! — didn't see them. That's because insta-miracles don't happen. Also, no statistics coming from Leadership High School about dropout figures or anything else are credible. That school is in crisis and chaos, and any information it puts out is an act of desperation.
— Caroline
Small schools are a better setting for many kids, and we definitely need to support them. June Jordan, the Academy of Arts & Sciences and Aim High are all promising options for kids who need that kind of setting.
But small schools are not a miracle cure for all the challenges of public education. The claims that small schools inherently achieve wondrous results (attributed to unnamed "numerous studies") are magical thinking, which is not just unproductive but harmful in the quest for genuine ways to improve public education.
Meanwhile, the negative attack-attack-attack strategy of this piece will simply damage our schools and thus our kids by costing even more public support for public education.
"San Francisco is pushing its small schools into a corner: housing them in parking-lot temporary classrooms, restricting curriculum design and squeezing their budgets" ... "families are leaving the San Francisco public schools in droves, and the solution is out there, waiting to be made available to all our students"...Come on. This simplistic attack is harmful and uninformed about the issues our district faces. It's an insult to the many committed people working to resolve the actual problems.
And citing Oakland Unified (which is under state takeover and being run by a state-appointed administrator) as a successful role model? I'm speechless about that one.
My husband has worked at the Chronicle for 29 years, and you'd think I'd know by now, but I am still sometimes shocked at how low their standards are for fact-checking and for requiring that contributers support their claims. The attitude should not be "it's an op-ed, so anything goes." With traditional media under siege by Craiglist and blogs, you'd think they'd try to maintain their standards, but there don't appear to be any in effect here at all.
(The San Francisco Organizing Project is an impressive initiative, too, but 40,000 members? Seems a bit unlikely.)
And by the way, the Gates Foundation halted its funding to small schools in many districts nationwide. The reason was essentially that the foundation's well-meaning but clueless decisionmakers expected insta-miracles and — surprise! — didn't see them. That's because insta-miracles don't happen. Also, no statistics coming from Leadership High School about dropout figures or anything else are credible. That school is in crisis and chaos, and any information it puts out is an act of desperation.
— Caroline
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