Small schools, big concerns
Publicity for an event this Thursday called "Small Schools Save Lives" has prompted me to voice some concerns about some aspects of the "small schools movement."
My own 10th-grader attends a small school, San Francisco School of the Arts, with about 600 students. The small size is one of the things we appreciate about the school. I do know other students thriving in SFUSD's large high schools — which actually tend to be SFUSD's highest-achieving and most-sought-after high schools.
But here are some things that trouble me. Some of the outreach/publicity the small schools movement and specifically its local showcase, June Jordan Small School for Equity, have done involves disparaging other schools — and with inaccurate information to boot — and inflaming destructive conflict within the public school community.
It's hard to determine the extent of those practices. But it is indisputable that June Jordan spokesman Matt Alexander gave the SF Weekly misinformation for an article a few months ago in several troubling categories. I discussed this with both Mr. Alexander and the SF Weekly reporter after the article ran, so I'm pretty familiar with the situation.
Here are the messages that I think are harmful. I'm voicing these concerns publicly to raise the consciousness of small-schools proponents in the hope that some of
this inflammatory rhetoric can be toned down.
— The outreach disparaged other schools in the name of boosting June Jordan — and with inaccurate information, too.
— The outreach gave misleading information comparing June Jordan's pass rate on the California High School Exit Exam to other schools' in a manner that disparaged other schools, based on inaccurate information about June Jordan's pass rate.
— The outreach indicated inaccurately that June Jordan is turning away students, leading to the conclusion (in the SF Weekly article) that SFUSD should be creating more small schools to meet demand but is refusing to do so. Here are some problems with this: Actually, there are openings in SFUSD small high schools (June Jordan and Leadership,to name two), so the indication that new small schools are needed is not accurate. A push to create new schools in a district that's losing
enrollment (which would obviously mean closing some other school) is obviously problematical and likely to inflame controversy and conflict.
— The outreach indicated that SFUSD is refusing to create new small schools. Actually, SFUSD did create a small school the year before last without the involvement of the "official" small-schools movement. That school is the Academy of Arts & Sciences on the SOTA campus, now in its second year, with 90 students per grade. In addition, SFUSD has redesigned at least two high schools into "small
learning communities." Again, this script inflames needless controversy and conflict.
— There seems to be a notion being promoted that SFUSD has it in for small schools. One poster on the Parents for Public School listserve described June Jordan as being "under attack." Again, this seems designed to inflame controversy and conflict in an area where I don't see that that's called for.
Does our district need more controversy and conflict? The script that small schools are a raging success that the heartless bureaucrats are refusing to acknowledge and replicate is not accurate, and the apparent push to promote this into a rage-against-the-machine-type conflict is potentially destructive.
I absolutely agree that the community should support existing schools, including June Jordan. But I think that the notion of promoting small schools by disparaging other schools, and inflaming controversy in the school district where it's not called for, is harmful to our schools, our district and our kids. So I'm publicly calling on the "small schools movement," whomever that is, to rethink that strategy and look for ways to benefit and support our school district, all our schools, and all our kids.
— Caroline
My own 10th-grader attends a small school, San Francisco School of the Arts, with about 600 students. The small size is one of the things we appreciate about the school. I do know other students thriving in SFUSD's large high schools — which actually tend to be SFUSD's highest-achieving and most-sought-after high schools.
But here are some things that trouble me. Some of the outreach/publicity the small schools movement and specifically its local showcase, June Jordan Small School for Equity, have done involves disparaging other schools — and with inaccurate information to boot — and inflaming destructive conflict within the public school community.
It's hard to determine the extent of those practices. But it is indisputable that June Jordan spokesman Matt Alexander gave the SF Weekly misinformation for an article a few months ago in several troubling categories. I discussed this with both Mr. Alexander and the SF Weekly reporter after the article ran, so I'm pretty familiar with the situation.
Here are the messages that I think are harmful. I'm voicing these concerns publicly to raise the consciousness of small-schools proponents in the hope that some of
this inflammatory rhetoric can be toned down.
— The outreach disparaged other schools in the name of boosting June Jordan — and with inaccurate information, too.
— The outreach gave misleading information comparing June Jordan's pass rate on the California High School Exit Exam to other schools' in a manner that disparaged other schools, based on inaccurate information about June Jordan's pass rate.
— The outreach indicated inaccurately that June Jordan is turning away students, leading to the conclusion (in the SF Weekly article) that SFUSD should be creating more small schools to meet demand but is refusing to do so. Here are some problems with this: Actually, there are openings in SFUSD small high schools (June Jordan and Leadership,to name two), so the indication that new small schools are needed is not accurate. A push to create new schools in a district that's losing
enrollment (which would obviously mean closing some other school) is obviously problematical and likely to inflame controversy and conflict.
— The outreach indicated that SFUSD is refusing to create new small schools. Actually, SFUSD did create a small school the year before last without the involvement of the "official" small-schools movement. That school is the Academy of Arts & Sciences on the SOTA campus, now in its second year, with 90 students per grade. In addition, SFUSD has redesigned at least two high schools into "small
learning communities." Again, this script inflames needless controversy and conflict.
— There seems to be a notion being promoted that SFUSD has it in for small schools. One poster on the Parents for Public School listserve described June Jordan as being "under attack." Again, this seems designed to inflame controversy and conflict in an area where I don't see that that's called for.
Does our district need more controversy and conflict? The script that small schools are a raging success that the heartless bureaucrats are refusing to acknowledge and replicate is not accurate, and the apparent push to promote this into a rage-against-the-machine-type conflict is potentially destructive.
I absolutely agree that the community should support existing schools, including June Jordan. But I think that the notion of promoting small schools by disparaging other schools, and inflaming controversy in the school district where it's not called for, is harmful to our schools, our district and our kids. So I'm publicly calling on the "small schools movement," whomever that is, to rethink that strategy and look for ways to benefit and support our school district, all our schools, and all our kids.
— Caroline
5 Comments:
Caroline Grannan’s continued efforts to portray me as a liar are ironic, given her professed desire to bring people together. For the record, I have offered several times to have Caroline visit June Jordan School for Equity, see the school for herself, and find common ground -- but she has refused each time. As I told her in an email last spring, I have never disparaged another school to boost JJSE -- and her continuing claim to the contrary is baffling. Her other assertions reflect a similar lack of knowledge and understanding -- for example, June Jordan School for Equity is indeed full, and as a result has been closed to new enrollment since September. More important, the June Jordan School for Equity community has never tried to claim that we (or the small schools movement) represent anything but a good college-prep option, among others, for San Francisco’s children. Perhaps if Caroline had actually met me or others at JJSE, she might have more accurate information about our school. Her defensiveness and willingness to attack with falsehoods suggest that it is she who is “inflaming destructive conflict within the public school community.” If anyone has a relationship with Caroline and can convince her to meet with me, please do so – unlike her mean-spirited, divisive email, that would be a real step toward unity and support for all of our kids.
Matt, we went over this last spring, point by point. The SF Weekly
article contained significant misinformation, including inaccurate
claims comparing JJ to other schools and inaccurate claims that JJ was
turning away students when it actually had fewer first-choice
applicants than seats. The correct numbers are publicly available.
I am not trying to attack JJ; I'm trying to stop the maligning of
other schools -- as well as the divisive and inaccurate storyline that JJ is turning away students and that the unresponsive district is
stubbornly refusing to create other schools like it.
I can repost the factual corrections that Dana Woldow and I wrote in
response to the SF Weekly article if anyone is interested. And please
don't try again to get my kids' schools principals to shut me up.
I teach at a small school in NYC of which I am a strong advocate. I do however become upset when attacks on other more tradional large schools are "put-down" as places of failure.
Just as there are several learning styles to contend with, there are many teaching styles and successful educational structures. Being in an urban school setting I am truely fortunate to see successful large and new small schools. NYC is better off with both in place.
The truth is -- SFUSD is doing a terrible job educating African American Students. Nearly 4 out of 5 African American Students attending San Francisco Public Schools failed to score at proficient or above in English-Language Arts and Math tests. Despite all the blather and misleading propaganda about test scores rising -- San Francisco's African American students score the lowest overall when compared with all their African American counterparts in other urban districts in California.
"BETTER" does not mean "GOOD".
One easy way to start to remedy some of the disparity would be to at least start providing school bus service to the "coveted" schools from all neighborhoods with large populations of African American and Latino students ... and for the district to actively recruit and encourage the underrepresented populations to attend those schools.
Examples:
ALAMO has 666 students … 4 of them are African American.
CLARENDON has 570 students … 34 of them are African American
I applaud the efforts of ANYONE who is trying to create better schools to serve these kids, because what currently exists is not working for them. The gains are not big enough, the intervention is not fast enough – the parents don't want to wait for the slow rise of test scores to rise a bit more, their kids are failing NOW.
For all the talk Caroline does about what "hurts our kids", I think the divisive political posturing against all charter schools and everyone involved in the small schools movement and the tireless badgering and criticism she does against those who are honestly trying to figure out better ways to educate children -- that is what really hurts our kids and our school district.
Here's an excerpt from the
FINAL SUPPLEMENTAL REPORT OF CONSENT DECREE MONITOR:
The Monitoring Team has conducted an analysis of the figures posted online by the California Department of Education and is able to
present an overview of the most current trends.
In disaggregating the California Standards Test (CST) results by
race/ethnicity for each of the seven major urban districts in
California, we have found that once again while SFUSD as a whole has
the highest percentage of students scoring at proficient or above when
compared with the major urban districts, San Francisco's African
American students score the lowest overall when compared with their
African American counterparts in these same districts:
African American Student Performance on the California Standards Test
(Spring 2005)
Percentage of African American Students Scoring at Proficient or Above
English-Language Arts
1. San Diego – 33.6%
2. Long Beach – 31.1%
3. Sacramento – 27.3%
4. Los Angeles – 25.2%
5. Oakland – 22.7%
6. Fresno – 21.5%
7. San Francisco – 20.7%
African American Student Performance on the California Standards Test
(Spring 2005)
Percentage of African American Students Scoring at Proficient or Above
Math
1. San Diego – 31.7%
2. Long Beach – 31.4%
3. Sacramento – 27.6%
4. Los Angeles – 24.4%
5. Oakland – 21.9%
6. Fresno – 20.6%
7. San Francisco – 20.1%
In this context, it must be noted that SFUSD's test scores have "gone
up" every year during the nine years that this Monitoring Team has
been submitting independent reviews to this Court. Indeed, during the
entire tenure of the past three District administrations (dating back
to 1992), the test scores have "gone up" every year.
It was not until additional data was available online pursuant to the
"No Child Left Behind" Act that we were able to go beyond this basic
reality and determine more precisely what the test scores actually
said. Clearly, it is imperative that we continue to look beyond the
test scores for an entire District and examine the disaggregated
results. It is also imperative that we continue to examine other
objective indicators, including but not limited to GPA, GATE and AP
enrollment, attendance figures, suspension and expulsion figures, and
graduation rates.
We urge continued vigilance in the community in this regard. In this
era, substantial relevant data is available online, data that provides
a much more complete picture of current realities than anything that
might be included in District press releases and on District Web
pages. We urge members of the community to continue to look beyond the
basic overall numbers… especially given the fact that the District
overall continues to do so well, even as certain sub-groups continue
to do substantially worse than their counterparts in other places.
>^..^<
Moggy
I agree about providing buses from the Bayview to top-performing schools.
One point of view might be that ANY experiment, no matter what its
costs, is worth trying. It would not be reasonable to endorse opening
a new school and then oppose school closures, though. One equals the
other. With dropping enrollment, school closures are inevitable
anyway, but opening a new school makes more of them inevitable.
And it's really not clear what magic the Coalition for Essential
Schools (CES) believes it has, but their attitude seems insulting to
the educators currently working in Bayview schools. Meanwhile, the CES
currently runs Leadership High School, which is struggling with
falling test scores and the highest dropout rate among SFUSD high
schools. (Leadership does not enroll enough African-American students
to constitute a separate subgroup, so it's not possible to track
whether there's an achievement gap.) I don't know their track record
elsewhere, but that doesn't seem to portend miracles.
It seems to be an ongoing trend for the latest miracle -- nonprofit
charters, Edison Schools, etc. -- to sweep into an area with
low-performing schools serving high-need students, promising miracles,and then blame "lack of support from the district" when the miracles don't happen. But how many times are we going to require our kids to sacrifice to subsidize yet another of those promised miracles? You can argue that this viewpoint is excessively bleak, but on the other
hand, at some point, wise decisionmakers learn from the past rather than continuing to try the same thing over and over again.
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