A continual state of crisis

I posted yesterday about SFUSD-bashing based on inaccuracies and misstatements from the left (Green Party activist/BOE candidate Kim Knox) and the right (hothead SFSOS mouthpiece Wade Randlett). To her credit, Kim has gracefully corrected the inaccurate figures that she used on the blog Leftinsf to show that some schools were at risk of being closed.

Nestwife posted an insightful commentary on the sfschools Yahoo group that I'm reprinting here, with her permission and a couple of links.

I too appreciate Kim's correcting her inaccurate information. For those of you who have pointed out errors in SFSOS' figures, don't hold your breath waiting for them to issue a correction.

Still, I am troubled by these two instances of individuals deliberately trying to create a wave of hysteria among parents who are already anguished about their child's school assignment. I know what Wade Randlett's agenda is (he views himself as a s**t-disturber), but he is a private citizen, albeit one with a big mouth and seemingly limitless supply of money with which to fund his Ministry of Disinformation.

But Kim is running for BOE, and furthermore, she has made it a plank in her platform (and rightly so) to call for better PR for under-requested schools, to help more parents to become aware of the advantages of enrolling in a "hidden gem." So it puzzles me why she would post a controversial piece yesterday which claimed that certain schools, like Marshall and Revere, were in immediate danger of being put on a closure list because of lack of requests. To her credit, when informed that the figures she posted were wrong, Kim corrected them.

However, it seems to me it would be more appropriate for her to be out cheerleading for under-requested schools, rather than starting rumors that these schools would be subject to closure within the year if more parents didn't hurry up and sign up (not exactly an enticing argument.)

All I can think of is that she must subscribe to the Mark Sanchez school of "continual crisis." As he explains in this interview with Matt Gonzalez from 2002, Sanchez apparently believes that it is the duty of every BOE member to view the school district as in a permanent crisis:

"In large part I was voted onto the board because people really wanted a public schoolteacher on it. I'm the first teacher since Tom Ammiano served more than eight years ago. I taught for seven years in San Francisco public elementary schools and as a result of that, everything I do on the board is informed by my experience with students. It really is about practicing the politics of urgency, which means that it must be continually acknowledged that our school system is in crisis and that we as elected officials must behave like we know this."

Portraying the SFUSD as being in a continual state of crisis does not help our kids or our schools, and based on the most recent API results, it isn't even accurate. It does not draw more families in — on the contrary, it scares them away. We don't need any more BOE members who think it is their first duty to scare the crap out of parents all the time, whether it is leading them to believe that their kids are going to be served irradiated meat (which they were NOT), or that the Superintendent was on a spending jag that would rival that of the recently convicted former Roslyn NY Superintendent Frank Tassone (which she was NOT), or that any school which was not full 24 hours before the end of the round one assignment period would be in imminent danger of being closed.

What we need are BOE members who will devote themselves to bolstering the performance of all of our schools, to burnishing their reputations and promotoing them in a positive light to current and prospective SFUSD parents, and to the taxpayers who may well be asked to approve a parcel tax to benefit the schools.

Constantly screaming "Panic!" does nothing but create a panic, and that doesn't help kids, parents, teachers, or schools.