Charter schools bully another district

The Nov. 29, 2005, San Jose Mercury News reports on another attempt to force a charter school on an unwilling school district, in this case the Moreland School District within the city of San Jose.

At a Commonwealth Club presentation on charter schools that I attended a few months ago, Caprice Young — head of the California Charter Schools Association — basically squirmed and stammered when asked if a school district can ever have a productive relationship with a charter that is forced on the district against its will. All I can say is, duh.

The Mercury News story:

Charter group planning to appeal
PARENTAL MANDATE AT ISSUE IN MORELAND
By Luis Zaragoza
Mercury News

A group seeking to establish a K-8 charter school in west San Jose is vowing to appeal the Moreland School District's rejection of its application due to a distinguishing aspect of the proposed campus: mandatory parent participation.

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Charter proponents say it's a must. The district contends it's unlawful.

The mandate amounts to forcing parents to pay tuition, the district says, and public schools, including charters, are not allowed to charge for enrollment.

Charter proponents believe requiring parents to take part in classroom activities such as teaching for a specific amount of time — and not just babysitting or dropping in occasionally &mdash is crucial to the school's success. They disagree with the district's characterization of parent labor as tuition and plan to appeal to the Santa Clara County Office of Education within two weeks, said Barbara Eagles, a lead proponent of the proposed Discovery Charter School.

"We knew it would be a hot-button issue," Eagles said. "But we know of lots of charter schools that require parent participation."

Parent participation levels in charter schools vary greatly, according to studies, with some schools issuing "contracts" in which parents pledge to attend certain school events and put in volunteer time on campus. In the Paradise Unified School District in the Sierra Nevada foothills near Chico, the 200-student Children's Community Charter School wrote mandatory parent participation into its charter when it formed nine years ago. How the Discovery proposal compares could be hashed out on appeal.

In a report from Superintendent Les Adelson submitted before last week's vote, trustees were urged to reject the application on the basis of several points. The district contends, for instance, that the charter school's proposed student discipline rules are flawed, and that the group claims rights to classroom space that are not granted by state law. The district also expressed concerns about the ethnic makeup of the school's projected enrollment of 350, saying it would be overwhelmingly white when it ought to reflect the district's diversity. Moreland's approximately 4,300 students are about 44 percent white, 24 percent Latino, 24 percent Asian, and 4 percent African American.

Eagles said the group first learned of the district's objections the day before trustees were scheduled to vote. Eagles said the group has attempted on several occasions to establish communication with the district to discuss possible conflicts, but never heard back. Many of the objections listed in the report could have been addressed quickly in advance of the vote, Eagles said.

Messages left with the district Monday were not returned.

Eagle said the group is meeting today with its lawyers. If the county office rejects the application, the group could appeal to the state board.

The group approached Moreland because it is located in an area of West San Jose in which a number of parents are interested in a charter school that could offer more personalized instruction utilizing parent participation.

The charter group's Web site, www.gotcharter.org, has links to the district's report and the charter group's response.

Contact Luis Zaragoza at lzaragoza@mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5803.

Bullying and threatening this school district hurts kids.

— Caroline

Teaching in the 408: More Readings

Another great post to check out over at Teaching in the 408, this time critiquing a report by The National Charter School Research Project, "Hopes, Fears, & Reality: A Balanced Look at American Charter Schools in 2005". Check out More Readings:

Missing the point, again.

[...] there continues to be this massive blindspot in assessing the impact of charter schools on student achievement. 'Everyone wants to know whether children attending charter schools benefit or suffer harm,' writes our researchers. Maybe, but the benefits of children in a charter school looks at only one side of the coin. Incomplete or insufficient as existing research is, it drastically exceeds research that looks at the effects charter schools have on the students who do not attend. In other words, a charter school opens in our community, what happens to our schools that lose their committed families, accomplished students, and key staff? Truly, the effects on the other 1,500 or 3,000 kids ought to be just as, if not more important, than studying or how the 73 kids fared in their new environment.

He makes a many other cogent points about charters. Check it out.

826 Valencia October Teacher of the Month

Back in August I posted a note about the Teacher of the Month award offered by the good people at 826 Valencia. Time has passed. I forgot about it. And now I'm catching up with the award for the month of October! Congratulations to Todd Elkin:

Congratulations to Todd Elkin, our October Teacher of the Month

Mr. Elkin, the superlative art instructor at Washington High School, is 'a distinguished teacher, a great motivator, and a genuine artist,' says his student Marian K. Dilan. Not only does he motivate his students with renowned speakers, customize his class projects for each individual, and run the extracurricular art club, but he also personally insures that every one of his senior art students makes it into the perfect college.

Now that the school year is underway, surely some of our readers know of some great teachers who are making a difference in our kids lives. Someone who deserves the recognition (and the $1500!) that 826 Valencia's award offers. Take the time right now and write up a commendation. Think of it as a Christmas Holiday gift for someone that gives so much so selflessly for our kids.

Troubles at Jerry Brown's arts charter

Several years ago I heard Jerry Brown (the former governor and Oakland mayor) speak at an event promoting charter schools. He was surprisingly belligerent, portraying charter schools as a innovation that would crush traditional public schools (he was far more combative than the more polished charter spokespeople). At the time he was boasting about his two upcoming charter projects, the Oakland Military Institute and the Oakland School for the Arts.

We don't hear much publicly about either school. But I was chatting the other day with a very nice mom whose son just started at the Oakland School for the Arts. I can't post our private conversation publicly; I'll just say the parent was getting pretty wary and gave me some eyebrow-raising details.

Of cousre I Googled the school. There's surprisingly little posted about it, and its website, www.oakarts.org , is either down every time I try it or defunct.

I did find some interesting commentary from parents and former parents at the school on the Berkeley Parents Network website.

I'm not going to blog all those personal comments, but they're publicly available online. The first sentence of the top post, from September 2005, sets the tone:

Are there any other OSA parents out there who are as worried/dismayed/disgusted with the way things are going as I am?

A charter story that pushes the skepticism buttons

From the Oakland Tribune, 11/14/05:

Kids taught with tough love in Oakland American Indian charter school is on the rebound, nominated for state Blue Ribbon award By Alex Katz, STAFF WRITER

OAKLAND — If you mess up at the American Indian Public Charter school in Oakland's Laurel district, everybody will know.

One boy learned that lesson the hard way last week, when school Director Ben Chavis brought him in front of the entire school and called him a thief.

Chavis told a few hundred students in grades 6 through 9 that the boy stole a radio and some money. Embarrassment, Chavis says, is a good form of discipline.

"He loves his hair," Chavis told the school. "I'm gonna shave it all off. He'll be bald tomorrow."

The next day, Chavis said he made good on his threat to cut the boy's hair — with permission from the boy's father.

This school brought its base API up from 596 in 2002 to 813 in 2004. This is on a scale of 200-1000, as education wonks know. (The API is California's Academic Performance Index, a compilation of stadardized test scores given to each school by the California Department of Education.)

Well, I'm sorry, but I'm a former consumer reporter, and the No. 1 rule in the consumer advocacy field is: If it sounds too good to be true, it is.

I would like to believe that a school could make a gain like that legitimately. But I can't.

The president of Oakland's teachers' union is dubious too, according to the Tribune article:

Charter school critics, including Oakland teachers union President Ben Visnick, say charters have an unfair advantage when it comes to test scores because it's easier for them to expel low-performing students, or prevent those students from enrolling in the first place.

"I'm not saying they're cheating on the test scores or anything like that," Visnick said. "But the district doesn't do a good job of holding these (charter) schools accountable."

And the following quote in the Tribune article caught my eye particularly because I had just been reading Jonathan Kozol's acclaimed new book "The Shame of the Nation."

"I would liken (Chavis) to Joe Clark from the movie 'Lean on Me'," said California Charter Schools Association spokesman Gary Larson, referring to the famous baseball bat-carrying principal from New Jersey.

Here's what Kozol says about Joe Clark.

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Some will recall the adulation heaped upon a principal in Paterson, New Jersey, in the 1980s, who became the subject of a film and was presented to the public as a salvatory figure who was not afraid to discipline black students with unusual severity and walked the hallways of his high school with a bullhorn and a bat. The principal, whose name was Joe Clark, came to be a favorite of the White House in the Reagan years and was the subject of a cover story in Time magazine, where he was photographed holding his baseball bat in both hands and looking as if he would not hesitate to use it. Education Secretary [William] Bennett called his school "a mecca of education" after Clark threw out 300 students who were often late for class or had high absence rates, whom he described as "parasites" and "leeches." Two thirds of the students he threw out ended up in the Passaic County Jail, according to a teacher at the school, but average test scores briefly rose a bit because the kids who scored the lowest now were gone.

When I visited the school in 1990, its famous principal had already departed. (He was subsequently appointed the director of a juvenile detention center.) Whatever promise had been represented by his highly visible presence had departed with him. He left behind a grim and stolid school where classe in the language arts took place in a dingy basement, full-grown adolescents I observed had to squeeze their bodies into desks that were the size appropriate for elementary school, and English classes that I visited were stripped of literary content and were used almost exclusively, according to their teachers, to drill students for exams. The average reading level of the students was below sixth grade.

The Paterson "turnaround" had been suspicious from the start. It had sounded too good to be true, and it turned out that this was so; but the general pattern of identifying principals who have a vibrant public presence, and attach themselves to trends and slogans that may be in favor with tough-minded politicians ("cracking down" on troublesome teenagers, for example, and insisting there are "no excuses" for a student's failure), then attributing to each of them the gift of working a near miracle in record periods of time, repeats itself in other urban districts to the present day.

This is the same old story, Kozol points out.

There are hundreds of principals in our urban schools who are authentic heroes, few of whom would emulate the posturing and bluster of Joe Clark and most of whom do not receive the notice and support that they deserve. ... [T]]here is this inclination to avert our eyes from the pervasive injuries inflicted upon students by our acquiescence in a dual system and to convey the tantalizing notion that the problems of this system can be superseded somehow by a faith in miracles embodied in dynamic and distinctive individuals. I don't believe that this is true. I don't believe a good school or a good school system can be built on miracles or on the stunning interventions of dramatically original and charismatic men or women. I don't think anyone really believes this.

Mark Sanchez has the floor

The Nov. 15 SFUSD Board of Education meeting was exceptionally stressful. It took place simultaneously with all-night negotiations that were a last-ditch and ultimately successful effort to stave off a looming strike against SFUSD by the SEIU, expected to start on Nov. 17.

The meeting was marked by a heated exchange between BOE members Mark Sanchez and Eddie Chin. At least it's been described as a heated exchange. It was undeniably a tirade by Sanchez and a spluttering, outraged effort by Chin to defend himself.

BOE President Eric Mar sounded like he was trying to maintain civility at first, but ended up firmly shushing Chin and letting Sanchez hold forth unchecked, while Dan Kelly made low-volume but indignant attempts to object.

Given the stress everyone was under I would be inclined to say "let's just put it all behind us" — except that distorted accounts of the exchange are still circulating elsewhere.

So, with thanks to Hansel's Secretarial School (summer 1971), I decided to acquire a tape and transcribe the exchange. Here it is.

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[All seven BOE members are present. I've done my best to identify all speakers accurately. As far as I can tell, Norman Yee didn't speak during this exchange. There are no audible female voices.

The transcription begins as Mark Sanchez has voiced his distaste for a proposal to schedule professional development days on the possible first two days of the strike.]

Sanchez: I’m disgusted by some of these board members up here. I really am.
Eddie Chin: Excuse me ...
Sanchez: I didn’t say your name, but I could.
Chin: Commissioner Mar ...
Dan Kelly: Commissioner Mar ...
Eric Mar: There’s a couple of objections from Commissioner Chin and Commissioner Kelly. Go ahead (apparently to Chin and Kelly).
Pause
Chin: Well ...
Sanchez: I didn’t say your name. I just said some of the board members.
Chin: I didn’t say your name either.
Sanchez: I didn’t say specific board members.
Chin: I didn’t say anything ...
Sanchez: But if you’d like, I could.
Chin: No, I didn’t say anything either.
Sanchez: Can I continue?
Mar: Civility, board members. Commissioner Sanchez, please continue.
Sanchez: Thank you. But the worst of it is — and this is what people fail to see — some people on the board — and I’m — if you could hear what I hear with these people in a closed-door session you’d just be out of your mind — is that this absolutely throws gasoline on the fire...
Chin: Mr. Chair, would you please...
Mar: Yes...
Sanchez: ...this absolutely throws gasoline on the fire.
Chin (apparently to Mar): Would you please comment — remind the commissioner to be civil?
Mar: I think he’s giving his opinion about ...
Sanchez: I’m not — I can characterize our meetings in closed-door. I certainly can.
Mar: Please continue, Commissioner Sanchez.
Sanchez: I have not said anything specific about closed-door meetings...
Chin: All right.
Sanchez: ...but if you had to be in these meetings with me...
Mar: Listen, one person at a time, so — one person at a time.
Sanchez: ...you’d be saying the same things I am right now. It is incredible the things people say in these closed-door sessions about you guys, the labor. Um
Kelly: Commissioner Mar...
Sanchez: Now...
Mar: Commissioner, um (unintelligible)...
Sanchez: Let me finish; let me finish.
Kelly: I’m going to ask you to ...
Mar: Commissioner Kelly, go ahead.
Kelly: I’m going to ask you to request that Commissioner Sanchez refrain from inflammatory comments and from ... (drowned out by Sanchez)
Sanchez: (over several other board members’ voices) I’m talking about inflaming the issue here — the gasoline that you are throwing on the fire right now — that you are throwing on the fire right now is what I’m talking about. That is inflammatory. We have — we are in this position right now with people at this late hour ...
Chin: Commissioner Mar ...
Sanchez: ... because of the actions of this board and our staff. That’s the bottom line. What’s going to happen is that not only ...
Chin: That’s wrong. That’s terribly wrong.
Sanchez: Well, can I continue?
Chin: (unintelligible)
Sanchez: Well ...
Mar: Turn on your microphone — turn your microphone on, Eddie
Kelly: Commissioner. Mar, would you please rein in this discussion?
Chin: (unintelligible) ... uncivility on the board.
Sanchez: (Chin is continuing to speak) You can share your opinion — you can share your opinion after I speak. You can share your opinion after I speak.
Chin: (unintelligible) You are the one &mdash you’re the one that is insulting the members (continues, unintelligibly).
Mar: (Speaking over Chin) Commissioner Chin, let’s — let’s stop this right now. Commissioner Chin, can you please stop this? Commissioner Chin, let’s let Commissioner Sanchez just finish his comments and then you will have your chance to speak (Chin is speaking all the while, drowned out by Mar).
Sanchez: You have a right ...
Mar: Commissioner Sanchez, please finish your comments.
Sanchez: You have a right to your opinion. I did not say your name, but you’re welcome to say my name.
Chin: You are so pigheaded — look at you.
Mar: Please don’t get into one on one. Just finish your comments.
Sanchez: Well, if I’m not interrupted, I’ll continue.
Mar: Finish your comments.
Sanchez: OK, all right, but what I see is happening (Chin has been speaking all the while)...
Chin: You understand that, right?
Mar: Please. Please let him finish.
Sanchez: Can I finish? OK
(Chin continues to speak)
Mar (presumably to Chin): Please stop badgering Commissioner Sanchez. I do think that that is very low, what you’re doing, and civility is — you’re hitting a low level as well. Please finish, Commissioner Sanchez.
Sanchez: God, Bill O’Reilly’s in the house. What’s happening — what’s happening is that if this happens is that the teachers who are not on strike, who are not going on strike, are going to feel inflamed and they’re more apt to go on strike later on down the line. Not only that, if the teachers do not cross this line, then SEIU is more likely to be going on strike with the teachers later on down the line. That’s what’s happening. We do not have to be in this position right now. We did not have to get to this point, but we did. And it’s people on the board, it’s their fault and it’s our staff’s fault. That’s what’s happening. That’s my opinion and that’s where it stands.
Mar: Commissioner Chin — Commissioner Chin — go ahead.
Pause
Mar: Commissioner Kelly.
Pause
Mar: But you had requested to speak earlier. Are you just giving up your time to speak, then?
Kelly: I don’t think I requested to speak. I had a different ...
Mar: I thought I heard (unintelligible)...
Kelly: Commissioner Mar, I asked that you restrain Commissioner Sanchez from his inflammatory comments, and I made that request. You didn’t do it, and instead you -- instead you ...
Mar: My opinion is that there were inflammatory comments coming from both sides. and I thought that ...
Kelly: You – you attempted to rein in Commissioner Chin, rather than Commissioner Sanchez, who was
Mar: I was trying to let him finish his thoughts so that
Kelly: I understand. I’m not defending Commissioner Chin. I’m not defending Commissioner Chin.
Mar: Let’s try to keep civility here, Commissioner Kelly.
Kelly: I think you granted me the floor. I think you interrupted me when I was using it.
Mar: Thank you for speaking. Now go ahead, Commissioner Kelly.
Kelly: I’m finished.
Mar: Thank you.

[discussion moves on to business.]

— Caroline

Sibling Assignment Deadline, December 2nd!

Don't miss out on the opportunity to secure a spot for your child!

Friday, December 2, 2005 is the last day for applications in the pre-assignment round. This includes:

• Siblings (you may apply at 555 Franklin or your older sib's school site - bring proof of birth either way) AND
• Inclusion students (child must have an IEP)
• Students exiting newcomer programs and applying to a language program

It's also the last day to submit applications for Lowell High School.

The deadline for all other applications is Friday, January 13, 2006.

Contact Parents for Public Schools at 415-468-7077 or www.ppssf.org or San Francisco Unified School District at 241-6085 or www.sfusd.edu for more information.

Thanks to Parents for Public Schools for passing this notice along. Please send this notice out on all listserves. Thank you.

No Education Reporter Left Behind Manifesto

Al Magary, an sfschools alumni, passed along this interesting article, The Secret of the Education Beat:

As I prepare to return to journalism, I keep thinking about how to cure education-reporter myopia and cover the reality of schools. Here are some thoughts:

1. Cover what the kids and the best teachers are talking about -- avoid the agenda of the district’s flack.
2. Spend a few days in a school, even volunteering as a mentor/writing teacher (but be honest and constantly remind everyone you’re really a reporter).
3. Follow the money. Plenty of education software, test-prep tools and other gimmicks impress taxpayers, but much of it is junk.
4. Speaking of money, many schools do waste it by the bucketful. That’s news worth investigating. But some schools are socked by the soaring costs of the basics. At budget time, ask what a district spends on heating and health insurance. Then ask what special education services that must be provided because of federal laws and pressure from parents’ lawyers.
5. Don’t be hemmed in by artificial constraints like county lines. Why not look at innovative programs in middle schools throughout your readership or viewership area?
6. Write about parents, parents, parents. You can usually judge a school by its parents. If they’re involved, the school probably will have higher standards. What can poorly performing schools do to draw in parents?

Good advice. I'l try and keep it in mind as I write this blog. Thanks Al.

Poltical Animal - Republicans and Education

No need for an introduction for this post on Kevin Drumm's Political Animal blog: Republicans and Education

In the past couple of weeks universities around the country have announced huge tuition increases. In California, for example, UC just raised tuition and fees for undergraduates by 8%, the fifth increase in the past five years.

The Republican response in Congress has been predictable: a massive reduction in student assistance in order to help finance their $70 billion corporate tax cut...

Get the picture? Republicans are raising fees and interest rates for middle class students, cutting taxes on corporations and the rich, and allowing special interests to keep a special privilege that allows them to lock in higher rates on kids for years regardless of what the market does. That's a pretty sweet deal. For someone.

Not for the someones reading this blog, I'm guessing.

High stakes for S.F. public schools

Be sure to read this excellent article by PPS stalwarts Lorraine Woodruff-Long and Lisa Schiff, High stakes for S.F. public schools:

The stakes are high for the long-term future of San Francisco’s public schools. School districts across the state are locked in a struggle with the governor over school funding. The reality is that unless there is a dramatic shift in power and money in Sacramento, districts are largely on their own in identifying new sources of funding to make up for shrinking appropriations from the state government.

The bullet we just dodged with the SEIU was a low caliber round compared with the still unresolved UESF contract. The sectarian divisions that have roiled the BOE and our school communities must be put aside. We must act now, in solidarity, to secure better funding for public schools. Schwarzenegger's recent defeat is not enough. We need to make sure this translates into a new agenda in support of schools and school funding.

School Board Notes – 11.15.05

School Board Notes 11.15.05
By Nicole Achs Freeling
GreatSchools.net Correspondent

• District scrambles for eleventh-hour labor agreement
• Board considers closing schools to students in event of strike
• Implications discussed as consent decree ends

Tempers were strained Tuesday as the district scrambled to deal with a strike by classified employees that was threatened to start Thursday and which teachers, bus drivers, and building maintenance workers said they would honor by not crossing picket lines. A proposal to close school to students Thursday and Friday by declaring last-minute "staff development days" led to a heated exchange that all but degenerated into a shouting match. Meanwhile, commissioners worked through the meeting and well into the night to craft a last-minute agreement with union negotiators.

District scrambles for eleventh-hour labor agreement

Even as the Board completed its regular business, Commissioners Norman Yee and Jill Wynns were at City Hall working with top officials of the Mayors Office including City Controller Ed Harrington to negotiate with SEIU Local 790. "This brings this back to more of an informal mediation process," Board President Eric Mar told reporters prior to the meeting. "We are both working to find the middle ground between where there side is and where our side is."

About 20 speakers -- parents, students and district employees-- appeared at the meeting to entreat the district to avoid a strike. "I have 1,000 signatures from students demanding the Board of Education to give SEIU and UESF a contract and avoid a costly strike," Lowell student Jacob Blanc said. "You can be sure we will not cross a picket line." United Transportation union representative Shane Hoff appeared to say that school bus drivers were standing in solidarity with SEIU. "We cannot tell (our members) not to cross picket lines, but they don't cross picket lines of people striking for healthcare coverage for their children."

Meanwhile, teachers union president Dennis Kelly appeared to discuss the status of the teachers' own contract struggles with the district. The union held a meeting last week with about 1,400 in attendance, according to Kelly. By a strong margin, members authorized calling for a second meeting in which they could vote to approve a strike if negotiations with the district reach an impasse.

Board considers closing schools to students

Concerned that there would not be adequate school staff to supervise children in the event of a strike, the board held a special meeting immediately following the regular meeting to discuss whether Thursday and Friday should be declared "staff development days" in which schools would be closed to students. The discussion provoked an angry exchange between several of the commissioners before the board ultimately voted to suspend the meeting until 6 a.m. the following morning to take up a vote on the matter.

The measure would have switched staff development days from their scheduled days on January 27 and March 30, to this Thursday and Friday, a move the district is allowed to do in the event of "extenuating circumstances." In this case, the circumstances were a strike, which district officials said Tuesday night would cause enough chaos and disruption at the schools that it might not be safe for students to attend. After an exhaustive effort to recruit substitutes and retired teachers, the district had only been able to secure 120 substitutes to work in the event of a strike, hundreds less than it would need, according to Deputy Supervisor Gwen Chan,

Afraid closing schools outright would be viewed as a lockout by non-striking labor groups and could invite costly labor action, the district instead proposed declaring two staff development days in the hopes that an agreement with striking workers could be reached by Monday. On Friday, a fact-finding report by an independent review panel will be delivered that makes recommendations for an agreement between the disputing parties.

Commissioners Jill Wynns, Dan Kelly, Eddie Chin and Norman Yee, who supported the move, said the district had little choice. "The reason we were put in this position is that an illegal labor action is planned to take place one day before the fact-finders report is due. If SEIU is going to strike, our response is to do what needs to be done to protect the kids and the schools, and if it means we have to change this calendar, that's what we have to do." Commissioners Mark Sanchez, Sara Lipson and Eric Mar opposed the move, saying it would cause further animosity between the district and school staff. Some believed it was a brass-knuckles bargaining tactic cloaked as an issue of children's safety.

"I'm disgusted by some of these board members. I really am," Sanchez said. When Chin asked Sanchez to refrain from his derogatory comments, Sanchez replied, "I'm not saying your name, but I could." Something of a shouting match ensued, with each calling the other pig-headed and Mar working to restore order.

Commissioner Sara Lipson made a motion, which ultimately passed, that the vote be suspended until the morning. "I'm afraid if we put these professional development days on the calendar, it will escalate the situation." As an agreement with Local 790 was reached during the course of discussions during the night, there is now no need to consider closing schools, according to Mar.

Implications discussed as consent decree ends

District Legal Counsel David Campos addressed the issue of a recent ruling by a federal court judge that will end a desegregation-related court order under which the district has been working since 1983. Campos discussed the effects the ruling would have both on the district's controversial diversity index, through which student assignments to schools are made, and the future of the $40 million in annual funding the district has received from the federal government as part of the consent decree.

The district, he said, had been working under a court order to desegregate schools and insure equal education opportunities for every student. "Anytime the Board took action that would effect those goals, those actions were subject to scrutiny by a federal court," Campos said. "Now the decisions will be made by the Board, subject to the will of the voters." As to the diversity index, the board would be free to keep it as it is, modify it or eliminate it altogether, Campos said.

The consent decree funding should continue, for now, to come to the district from state coffers. According to Campos, the state is now currently obliged to provide the funds, however, the money is subject to the state's budgeting process and could be reduced if lawmakers so decide.

Strike Averted -- District and Union Reach Agreement

By Nicole Achs Freeling
GreatSchools.net Correspondent

In the wee hours of the morning Wednesday, after meeting in closed session from 5:30 p.m. the night before, the district reached a "tentative" agreement with SEIU Local 790, the union representing secretaries, custodians and cafeteria workers. "There will be no strike," a joyous if exhausted Eric Mar told a reporter at 3:30 Wednesday morning. "We did the impossible." Mar said he could not reveal details of the agreement, which would be announced at an upcoming press conference.

The union had announced Tuesday it would commence a strike Thursday. District officials said they had been getting credible information that most teachers and bus drivers would honor the strike and, with trouble finding adequate substitutes, the board was considering closing the schools to students to hold impromptu "staff development days."

Mar credited the efforts of the office of Mayor Gavin Newsom in helping broker the deal. Numerous top officials, including City Controller Ed Harrington, worked all night with the district and SEIU, ferrying proposals between the parties in a sort-of shuttle diplomacy.

Strike rumors info

The Examiner, citing unnamed sources, is reporting that a strike is set for Thursday. We are trying to confirm this information.

The district strike hotline (437-5063 English, 437-5054 Chinese, 436-0629 Spanish) currently says they have not received official notification from the union.

We'll update this the moment we learn more.

UPDATE 3:42pm: The Chron is also reporting that the strike is set for Thursday. See "S.F. schools service workers to strike":

The Board of Education is scheduled to meet behind closed doors tonight after its regular public meeting to choose among three options in coping with the strike: keeping schools open and operating with replacement workers; closing schools outright and making up the days following the scheduled close of the school year on June 15; or moving up two professional development days, scheduled for Jan. 27 and March 30, to Thursday and Friday of this week.

UPDATE 4:00 More confirmation in the form of an email press released forwareded to the list via a PPS list:

Local 790 has directed workers to strike beginning on Thursday, November 17th. In their strike announcement, SEIU leaders have threatened that teachers will not report to classrooms, garbage will not be collected, and school bus drivers will not deliver students to schools. Leaders of United Educators of San Francisco have also strongly discouraged teachers from reporting to work during a strike called by SEIU leaders.

Waiting...

No news is... no news.

The stage has been set for SEIU Local 790 to walk out. Yet there is no solid information to indicate when that might happen, how it will be decided, or what might be happening to avert the strike. We are all waiting with increasing apprehension for any new developments.

Various trustworthy reports have filtered in that a strike is likely this week. Local 790 has indicated they will give 24 hours notice of the strike. So we wait, and wonder, and hope for the best—even as hope fades.

On Friday the teachers' union, UESF, met at Lincoln High. They discussed their leadership's support for SEIU and reiterated their desire for the UESF membership to honor any SEIU picket. However, there was no vote by UESF membership to support Local 790. It remains a voluntary, individual choice.

The UESF meeting was convened to conduct a vote on the following resolution related to the UESF negotiations with the district:

Shall the leadership of the United Educators of San Francisco be authorized to call a general membership meeting for the purpose of conducting a strike vote?

The resolution passed handily. This vote does not relate to the SEIU negotiations. Rather, it is just another step in the UESF's negotiations with the district. The UESF pot is just simmering. It is the SEIU pot is reaching a full boil.

Over the weekend the Local 790 held a sparsely attended public meeting to explain their side of the story. I have given the union credit for avoiding negotiating via the media. The district has been relatively indiscreet about going public, in my opinion. But with the strike date bearing down, it was time for them to reach out to the public to explain their position. We had two reports from attendees posted to the list. One of them, written by Kim Knox, was also published as the Left in SF blog: Local 790 Parent and Community Meeting. I encourage anyone who's interested to join our sfschools list and read the other report from the meeting. Between the two reports I feel I have a much better sense of why the union would risk a strike. I'm not taking sides, but at least we have a better sense of their motivations.

As I speculated back in September, protecting jobs and upgrading job classifications appears to be the real sticking point. There are some serious questions around health benefits too. But, from what limited information available, problems related to abuse of "as needed" and part-time worker status may be why we are faced with a strike. Yet there are so many questions unanswered about the true nature of the disagreement. Most of the public statements from both sides have been centered on pay raises and health benefits. Is that the main problem? Or has the union simply done a poor job of explaining their grievances?

As one parent and union veteran (with no connection to either Local 790 or the UESF) cautions, "we don't know what we don't know." We can all hope that all parties are working as hard as they can to resolve this impasse without a strike.

Now I know why I voted for Prop I

O'Rielly is such an idiot:

"'You know, if I'm the president of the United States, I walk right into Union Square, I set up my little presidential podium and I say, 'Listen, citizens of San Francisco, if you vote against military recruiting, you're not going to get another nickel in federal funds," ' O'Reilly said Tuesday on his radio show as San Franciscans were approving the two measures.

How dare San Francisco exercise their voting rights! How dare they get out of line! I can almost hear him breaking into another apoplectic round of "Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!"

Now I know, Prop I was worth it.

PPS - School Beat and Labor Info

Two good sources of info from the tireless Lisa Schiff and Parents for Public Schools. This week's School Beat article on Beyond Chron, No Time to Celebrate gives a good round-up of the post election issues facing SFUSD:

• The Labor Dispute
• Superintendent Search
• Student Assignment/Consent Decree
• School Closures

Noted within the article is an information page about the Labor negotiations being maintained by Parents for Public Schools. I've come accross some of those documents from other sources, but they definitely have the best collection of informaiton. Great work.

Holy cow, Batman. We are living through intersting frightening times.

Eric Mar on the end of the Consent Decree

Be sure to check out Eric Mar's recent blog posts on the demise of the Consent Decree. I like this passage from his post, "SF Schools Consent Decree will expire Dec. 31, 2005"

[Judge William Alsup]"As the decree has come to be used, the Court must pretend to supervise decisions better left in the hands of education professionals subject to the rough and tumble of local politics and government."

Now it is up to our Board of Education and district to ensure fairness and equity in our student assignment system and also in how we distribute our resources as well. We have been meeting with community advocates and the researchers from the Harvard Civil Rights Project and other groups to come up with a new system that can allow our district to counter the rapid resegregation going on in our district and urban districts around the country.

He subsequently wrote this post about the reporting of the event, "San Francisco Schools Desegregation Order Ends - Racial and Socio-Economic Inequality Continues".

Hats off to Eric for publishing his thoughts and ideas on the web. Most pols just don't get that this is such an advantage.

Edwize - Parental Involvement

An interesting post over on the Edwize blog Parental Involvement. The post reports on three recent articles published by The Public Education Network on the impact of parental involvement.

Do High School Students Need The Support Of Their Parents To Achieve?

Pushy Parents Raise More Succesful Kids

Rethinking Parent Conferences

Let's keep the good news coming

Today is a great day for teachers, for students, and for organized labor. How sweet it is to be enjoying sweeping victory across the board. What a welcome change from recent times.

The celebration will be way to short and ultimately bittersweet, however, if SFUSD and SEIU cannot find a way to resolve their differences and avoid a strike. Walking out now would instantly turn victory into defeat for every single stakeholder in the SF school community. Step back. Breath in. Let's not shoot ourselves in the foot.

Less for teachers, more for janitors?

I get accused of a "divide and conquer" attitude if I even mention a question like this (and that's by my own husband). But this paragraph in today's Examiner story gives me pause:

San Francisco’s teachers union — which approved a resolution last week calling on district teachers to honor a strike by SEIU, if called — submitted a letter to the district on Tuesday vowing not to ask for equal dependent health coverage if the district came to an agreement with the service employees.

— Caroline

Liar! Liar! Pants on Fire! A Choose Your Own Ending Story

Once upon a time, Momma Bear and Poppa Bear had 4 little baby bears. Both Momma and Poppa worked and took care of the babies. After a while, though, Poppa seemed like he was less interested in the family than before, and eventually he left. The court awarded Momma Bear child support, but Poppa didn’t want to pay it, so he kept finding reasons to send less and less; when Momma complained, he gave her a bunch of double talk about how he was “borrowing” some of the child support money and he would pay it back next month, but he never did. When Momma howled again, he claimed that he HAD paid it back, and that she had plenty of money, so quit howling.

So, having to live on less income, Momma Bear went off to the grocery store with her four babies each week with increasing anxiety. It was hard to stretch less money every week, what with the babies getting bigger all the time and most of them not really being babies anymore. Food kept getting more and more expensive, so Momma kept making changes, like instead of serving trout, she would make fish chowder, which was cheaper but still kept the kids fed. It was their favorite dinner. On Sundays, instead of serving three meals, she skipped breakfast and served a “brunch” instead of breakfast and lunch, which cost less than serving two meals, but still filled the kids up almost enough. By cutting corners like this, Momma just got by, but she had to be real careful.

It was hard on the kids too, because as they grew, they wanted more and more to eat, but Momma could afford to buy them less and less. One day at the store, it all blew apart. They were checking out and Momma could see that she had just enough money in her wallet to cover the total bill with a dollar left to spare. When Baby Bear saw Momma get the dollar back as change, she started begging for a small pot of honey which the grocery store had cleverly put for sale right by the cash register, where Baby Bears shopping with their Mommas could not fail to see it. “It only costs 79 cents, Momma” hollered Baby Bear. "You can afford it. The cashier lady just gave you back a dollar!”

“But Baby, if I buy that for you, I have to buy one for your sister and one for each of your two brothers too. That would cost over $3, and I only have the one dollar. Sorry, but we can’t afford it.”

“What do you mean we can’t afford it?” howled Baby. “I see the dollar right there in your wallet! The lady just gave it to you! You have a dollar – buy me the honey, please Momma, I really really need it, I’m so hungry, I never get enough food anymore.”

Momma replied, “Baby, you think I can afford to buy you that because you are just thinking about yourself. But I have to think about your sister and brothers too. If I buy that for you, I have to buy the same thing for them. And I can’t afford to spend over $3 when I only have $1.”

“Liar! Liar! Pants on fire!” screamed Baby. “Why are you saying that it costs over $3 when I can see the sign right there and it says it costs 79 cents. You have a dollar – you can afford it. You just won’t buy it for me because you’re mean. And a liar!”

Choose your own ending:
First ending:
Momma Bear, wanting to avoid causing any further scene at the grocery store, and feeling sorry for Baby Bear, who really wasn’t getting enough to eat these days because Poppa Bear was being a jerk, apologized to the cashier, and looked through the groceries she had bought to put some things back on the shelves until she had enough money left to buy the 4 pots of honey for her kids. The kids were thrilled and Baby Bear told her she was The Best Momma EVER!

Later that week, Momma served fish chowder for dinner, but this time she made it with no fish, because the trout was one of the things she put back on the shelf at the store. The kids complained because fish chowder without fish is really not much of a meal – just potato and broth. Two hours after dinner, they were whining because they were hungry again, but Momma had nothing else to give them. The next day, as the family was passing around the bowl of baked beans that was their dinner, Baby Bear started to cry because she always got the bowl last, and her sister and brothers hadn’t left much of anything for her. “Make me a jam sandwich, Momma,” she begged. But there was no jam for sandwiches, because that had also gone back onto the shelf. And on Sunday, there was no breakfast, no lunch, and not even any brunch – just one meal called “supper” served in the middle of the day, and everyone went to bed with an almost empty stomach. No one thought Momma Bear was the Best Momma Ever – they thought she was mean!

Second ending:
Despite the fact that her kids were making a scene (by now the three other Bear children were chanting “Buy her the honey! Buy her the honey!”), Momma Bear held firm. She picked up her grocery basket and headed out of the store for home. Reluctantly, the children followed her out of the store, but part way home, they all just stopped in their tracks and said, “You’re the Meanest Momma EVER! We’re not going home with you! Not unless you buy that honey!”

“Sorry,” said Momma Bear, and she kept on walking home, thinking all the way about what a jerk Poppa was for putting her into this position. Momma made a nice fish chowder for dinner, with big pieces of trout, just the way the children liked it. As it started to get dark outside, and cold, one by one the kids came home. They weren’t happy with Momma, and they sulked around the house refusing to talk to her. At dinnertime, lured by the smell of their favorite trout chowder, they all appeared at the table, and the Oldest Bear even complimented Momma on her cooking. There were enough beans to go around on baked bean night, and even a couple of jam sandwiches for snacks.

Momma knew that her kids still wanted the honey, though, and she vowed that if Poppa ever stopped being a jerk and started paying the family what they were entitled to for child support, she would find a way to get that honey for her kids.

Why charters mean school closures

SFUSD faces a series of crises right now, including a looming strike, the upcoming departure of our superintendent — and the frighteningly likely closure of a number of schools.

One damaging factor helping to force school closures is the incursion of charter schools. Every charter drains students from existing schools, threatening their survival.

Yet charter schools’ record in our district is mixed. Overall, it’s mediocre. And that’s despite the fact that charters have gotten more district funding than other schools, by law, so that all children in non-charter schools sacrifice to subsidize charters.

Charter schools are a pet project of the Bush administration and the political right — a potent weapon in the arsenal aimed at weakening and ultimately destroying public education. Busting the teachers’ unions is one of their main goals.

Yes, there are some quality charter schools, and there are committed and competent educators involved in charter schools. But they are unwittingly adding momentum to a movement that aims to harm public education, not help it.

There’s a reason that those well-intentioned individuals and many readers may be unaware of these issues. The charter movement is sponsored, slickly marketed and skillfully promoted by well-funded and powerful anti-public-school forces, primarily think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation and the Hoover Institution. Key charter supporters include such controversial names as Wal-Mart’s Walton family and Gap founder Don Fisher.

This wasn’t the way charters were supposed to be. Their original supporters envisioned small, community-run schools that would pioneer innovations, which could then be adopted by traditional public schools. But not even charter schools’ most fervent boosters can name any innovations that have been pioneered at charters. Asked at a recent Commonwealth Club forum, California charter schools’ top dog, Caprice Young, couldn’t name one such innovation. The best she could come up with were admirable but hardly earthshaking ideas such as foreign language classes.

Meanwhile, small communities have too often discovered that it’s a crushing, complex task to run a school on their own. So charter schools are generally operated by chains. They wind up constituting their own separate school systems, parallel to district systems and almost entirely unaccountable.

A school district’s only means of imposing oversight is the threat of revoking the charter. But the charter movement can marshal its ample resources to fight back, creating painful and damaging controversy within a school district.

SFUSD learned that the hard way when it revoked the charter of Urban Pioneer, where two students died in 2003 on a wilderness outing while their chaperones had gone off barhopping. Urban Pioneer was also in financial shambles, was openly committing academic fraud by graduating students with insufficient credits, and posted rock-bottom test scores. But the protests against SFUSD’s obviously necessary move to close the school split our district and ultimately harmed our kids.

Our district can’t undo the damage that has been done by approving previous charters, dating back to Edison Charter Academy in the Rojas era. But we can learn from our mistakes. In the future, I urge the school board to just say no to charter schools.
— Caroline

District Names Schools for Possible Closure

District Names Schools for Possible Closure
11.07.05
By Nicole Achs Freeling
GreatSchools.net Correspondent

Nineteen schools, including Dream Schools, small schools, and schools for newly-arrived foreign students, will be considered for possible closure next year based on low enrollment and under-utilization of their facilities.

Grappling with a growing budget crisis and falling enrollment, the district, which has lost 1,000 students since last year, expects to close some schools at the end of this school year, although it does not yet know how many. At a meeting Monday of the Board of Education as a Committee of the Whole, school district staff presented a list of 12 elementary schools, five secondary schools and two high schools as candidates for closure or merger with another school. District staff reminded parents that inclusion on the list did not mean their school would be closed. Over the next two months, the schools will be evaluated across a range of criteria to select a few to close or merge.

Staff formulated its initial list based on two criteria: total enrollment and the ratio of enrollment to the size of the building. The list of elementary schools included all those with fewer than 250 students that were operating at less than 70 percent of the capacity of the building. For secondary schools, the list included those with fewer than 350 students operating at less than 70 percent capacity.

The schools on the list are:

• Cabrillo Elementary
• Chinese Education Center (elementary)
• John Muir Elementary
• John Swett Elementary
• John Ortega Elementary
• Malcolm X Academy (elementary)
• McKinley Elementary
• New Traditions Elementary
• Rosa Parks Elementary
• Sheridan Elementary
• Treasure Island Elementary
• Starr King Elementary
• Gloria R. Davis Middle School
• Enola D. Maxwell Middle
• Aim High Academy Middle School
• Luther Burbank Middle School
• Willie L. Brown, Jr. (middle school)
• June Jordan School For Equity (high school)
• Newcomer High School

Chief of Policy and Planning Myong Leigh said that staff had included every school that fell outside the capacity and enrollment criteria in an effort to let Board members make the decisions from there. "Our intent was to not prejudge whether commissioners felt this school or that school should continue to be considered," he said. The schools on the list will now be evaluated according to additional criteria, including academic performance, proximity to other schools, estimated savings in shutting the school, and continued availability of similar curricular programs.

The district will hold community meetings in November and December at each of the affected schools to gather input from the public. According to the proposed timeline, the district would make its final announcement about the closures in early January, enabling children in affected schools to participate in Round One of the enrollment lottery, for which applications are due January 13.

The district has made it a goal to explore consolidating and merging schools when possible, enabling the student body to be transferred en masse to another school rather than be dispersed throughout the system. As for the rest of the process, much has yet to be determined -- for example, whether to involve an advisory committee made up of members of the public and whether to remove any schools from the list before a final decision is made. Board member Jill Wynns noted that, as the Governor's budget figures will not be released until January, the district does not even know how many schools it will need to close to stay within its means.

Rick Reynolds, Vice President of the district Parent Advisory Council, asked the district to set up a community advisory committee to gather input from the public and make recommendations to the Board. Several parents and board members alike expressed concern about the appearance on the list of Aim High, June Jordan and other schools that are part of the small schools movement. These schools, which deliberately cap enrollment in order to offer more personalized learning, had many more students apply than the schools were able to accept.

Commissioner Eric Mar said he thought Jordan and Aim High should be removed from the list "because they are consciously small. When you look at the total requests for enrollment, you see these schools are highly sought after." But Commissioner Jill Wynns said evaluating these schools was part of the hard choices the district had to make. "Small schools were designed that way. The question is whether we can afford them."

Email comments to sfschoolnotes@greatschools.net

Nix All Six!

The last minute polls look good for the No, no, no, no, no, no voters! Kos is reporting the following last minute Survery USA poll results:

73: parental notification	yes	51	no	47
74: teacher probation	yes	48	no	51
75: union political spending	yes	45	no	54
76: Prop 98 exemptions	yes	39	no	59
77: reapportionment	yes	41	no	56

Of course, the only numbers that matter are the vote tallies from Nov. 9th. So don't pay any attention to polls, news reports, or anything else. Just get to the polls and vote. Then help get your friends and neighbors to the polls.

Local 790: What We’Re Fighting For

The following text is taken from the most recent SEIU Local 790 flyer titled, "WHAT WE’RE FIGHTING FOR"

Dependent Health Care beginning March 1, 2006

2% Wage Increase on June 30, 2006

1.25% Wage Increase on December 1, 2006

1.25% Wage Increase on April 1, 2007

Cost of package to District over 2 years = $2.5 million

We also seek to stop the injustice of longtime employees of the District being cheated out of our health care and other benefits by means of "permanent exempt" and "as needed" classifications.

Meanwhile, the District is trying to force us to "choose" between its own two proposals which: A) Give us a total of 2% in wage increases over 2 years, plus dependent care for one year only (after, which point we lost it again), or B) Give us a total of 4% in wage increases over two years, but without even a temporary dependent health care benefit. The cost of the District’s package over 2 years = $1.3 million.

The cost difference between our proposal & theirs is $1.2 million.

WHY THEY CAN AFFORD US

The $1.8 million in lottery funds SFUSD just received by itself would cover the difference between our proposal and theirs. Add to this the $8.2 million in available Proposition H funds, and you have $10 million. That’s over 8 times the difference between our two proposals, just from those two revenue streams!

TD/SEIU790

Ackerman: S.F. can avoid a school strike

Here is the full text of the most recent message from Arlene Ackerman and her administration concerning the possible strike by SEIU Local 790.

S.F. can avoid a school strike
Viewpoint
BY Arlene Ackerman
Published: Sunday, November 6, 2005 6:14 PM PST

San Francisco’s Board of Education has gone to great lengths to avoid a damaging strike by the Service Employees International Union Local 790, which represents school custodians, cafeteria workers and clerical staff.

The board has offered Local 790 a new proposal that contains a 3 percent raise, expanded coverage for dependent health care, three more paid days off, no furloughs for two years and early retirement incentives.

These enhancements would improve employees’ existing compensation, which includes wages that rank at the top among Bay Area school districts, lifetime health care for retirees and dependents, retirement contributions of more than 14 percent of salary, and up to seven weeks of paid holidays and vacation each year, in addition to sick leave.

The district also currently offers 100 percent coverage of each employee’s health care costs, 80 percent of the cost of an employee plus one dependent, and 60 percent of the cost of family coverage.

Local 790 leaders have demanded 100 percent for an employee plus one dependent, and nearly 85 percent of family coverage.

The board’s new proposal meets these demands for the upcoming school year, which would give benefits worth an additional $2,200 annually to each Local 790 staff member with family coverage. Every Local 790 employee would also receive wage increases totaling 3 percent within the next 20 months.

That health care costs are skyrocketing is common knowledge, and employees of school districts and other employers nationwide are making concessions to reduce their employers’ health care contributions. No employers are offering to increase health care coverage levels as the Board of Education has done. The board simply asks for the right to discuss in future negotiations further increases beyond the initial $2,200.

Local 790 leaders rejected the board’s new proposal and insist that the San Francisco Unified School District commit to covering annual growth in health care costs as far as the eye can see, without discussing these increases in future bargaining.

The costs of the board’s offer for all employee groups would total almost $27 million, which would force the SFUSD to make deep cuts in staff, programs and schools. Local 790 leaders’ demands would total nearly $43 million if applied districtwide. The difference in the two proposals is equivalent to closing an additional 20 schools, laying off 110 more teachers or increasing class sizes by an additional three students in grades 4 to 12.

Local 790 leaders, along with teachers union leaders, are placing the SFUSD in an impossible situation, recklessly forcing the Board of Education to choose between a damaging strike and an even more crippling bankruptcy. I urge Local 790 leaders to reconsider their position. I ask parents and community members to evaluate the long-term impact of these decisions and to keep in mind that the real source of our problems is California’s under-funding of education.

Well-paid union leaders whose own pay will not be interrupted are urging rank-and-file workers to prepare for an illegal strike and go unpaid during the holiday season. (The SEIU may call an illegal strike as early as Nov. 10.) To avoid a strike, I challenge Local 790 leaders to let their members vote on the board’s proposals. I am confident that workers would accept these proposals and choose not to strike if they were allowed to vote.

Considering my plans to step down as superintendent next June, it would certainly be easier for me to let this situation run its course. However, I cannot in good conscience be silent knowing the irreparable consequences of committing to union leaders’ demands. I am convinced that accepting the union’s offer and applying it to all employees would lead to a state takeover of our district within two years. This would decimate both the quality of education for San Francisco’s students, and employees’ wages and working conditions for a decade or more.

In order to avoid a strike and insolvency, if Local 790 leaders agree to let their members vote, I would be willing to work with the board to identify a date before June when I would step down.

All of our schools’ staff members deserve a raise. The Board of Education has made a very reasonable offer including salary and benefits increases. The board’s proposal represents our best opportunity to recognize the hard work of school employees without bankrupting the school system. In the end, it’s our students, not the adults, who will be hurt most by a strike. Don’t you think our children deserve better?

Prop I: Alternatives to Military Service

One school ballot measure that has attracted very little attention is San Francisco Proposition I. Quoting from the SFGov: Department of Elections web site:

No Military Recruiters in Public Schools, Scholarships for Education and Job Training

PROPOSITION I

Shall it be City policy to oppose military recruiting in public schools and consider funding scholarships for education and training that could provide an alternative to military service?

Digest

by the Ballot Simplification Committee

THE WAY IT IS NOW: The San Francisco Unified School District operates the City's public schools. The District receives federal money to pay part of its operating costs. By accepting federal money, the District must permit U.S. military recruiters access to its schools. Colleges and universities that receive federal funds are subject to similar requirements.

THE PROPOSAL:Proposition I is a declaration of policy that the people of San Francisco oppose the federal government's use of public schools to recruit students for service in the military.

Proposition I is also a declaration that San Francisco should consider funding scholarships for higher education and job training that could provide an alternative to military service.

A “YES” VOTE MEANS:If you vote “yes,” you want it to be City policy to oppose military recruiters’ access to public schools and to consider funding scholarships for education and training that could provide an alternative to military service.

A “NO” VOTE MEANS:If you vote “no,” you do not want this to be City policy.

A quick google news search turns up... not much. There is this WaPo article: San Francisco Issues Spark Scant Interest and this one from the SJ Merc: Groups against recruiters

A coalition of San Francisco peace and social justice groups is rallying behind efforts to pass Proposition I, a largely symbolic measure stating that the people of San Francisco oppose the presence of U.S. military recruiters in the city's schools.

If city voters pass the non-binding resolution Tuesday, it is believed it would be the first of its kind in the country.

But in practical terms, it would not end the ability of military recruiters to spend time on high school and college campuses. Because the San Francisco Unified School District accepts federal funds, the district must provide military recruiters the same access to high school students as colleges or prospective employers.

I'm a bit surprised that it has not provoked more discussion. Not on our list. Not anywhere. It seems like an initiative that is designed to be talked about. It does not actually do much—in this era of ever tighter budgets it seems unlikely that SFUSD will be underwriting any new scholarships. So if no one is talking about it, and it won't really change anything, what's the point? How can this be the start of something when it provokes neither discussion nor action?

I'll probably vote "yes" if I cast a vote at all. But really, why?

Slapping down schoolkids

Self-styled education scholar Kathy Emery has done an analysis of SFUSD's test scores that purports to debunk the notion that student achievement has improved.

While Emery's presentation is pretty close to utterly incomprehensible, her point appears to be that SFUSD's achievement hasn't actually risen because SFUSD's demographic profile has become significantly higher-income.

But actually, that isn't true. The percentage of students qualified for free/reduced lunch in SFUSD has increased over the past five years, not decreased as Emery apparently believes.

Just a caution in case this inaccurate information starts getting circulated.

It's a slap at our kids, teachers and school district to disdain their improved achievement, and there seems to be a faction just scrambling for ways to do that. As an SFUSD parent I rather resent the effort going into putting down my kids and their schoolmates, but in this case it's also done in error. I hope Emery will correct the misinformation on her website.

— Caroline

Gangs in the schools?

I'm working on an article about school dress codes that ban gang colors. My daughter's SFUSD middle school, Aptos, now bans red and blue. It's a ban that was technically in place in the previous years, when my son was at Aptos, but wasn't really universally enforced.

Announcement of the ban alarmed a lot of parents, predictably. "You mean Aptos has a gang problem?"

Here's what I learned from my reporting. Low-income Latino communities are permeated — dominated — by the Sureño and the Norteño gangs. They are a far more significant presence than the other powerful institution, the Catholic Church. (Which makes me wonder where the Church IS on this issue &mdash pretty much 100% of those violent gangbangers are baptized Catholics.)

So any school with a population from that community includes kids who live with that presence in their lives. The practical goal is to make the schools a safe haven, a place assumed and understood to be free of gang influence, presence and activity. Police and school administrators feel that the color ban is an effective part of that. Many schools simply require uniforms, of course.

Aptos, by the way, has no dominant ethnicity. Latinos are the largest single group, at 26 percent of the school population (2004-’05 figures). The school is also 21 percent Chinese, 19 percent African-American, 13 percent white and the rest an array of other backgrounds.

Other ethnicities have gangs, but the color signal seems to be a Sureño and Norteño hallmark. It's an issue nationwide, in every community with a low-income Latino presence, from the rural Midwest to New England to the Pacific Northwest to the South. The private sector should envy the ubiquity and effectiveness of the "branding" these gangs have achieved with their colors.

For the record, the Norteños show red, and consist largely of Americanized, higher-income kids. The Sureños are mostly the kids of overwhelmed immigrants struggling to cope with poverty and assimilation. Police and school administrators tell me that the parents are unaware, absent, in denial or sometimes gangbangers themselves -- and some, of course, are in the know but are unable to get their kids to stop, as with many parents and their teens' acts of rebellion.

Crime coverage in today's Chronicle adds some dubious PR spin to the gang story.

[Convicted murderer] Sands and [victim] Ramirez had known each other from St. Cecilia's parochial grammar school, and both were later in a group made up mainly of Sacred Heart students that called itself Sunset District Inc., or "the Bros."

(Emphasis on "group" mine.) If it's a violent organization of low-income and/or public-school thugs, it's a gang &mdash if it's based at parochial school, it's a group? I've e-mailed the reporter and the Chron's reader rep about this and will add their response, if any.

udpate: formating fixes by KC

This Week In Education BlogMap

This Week In Education is an interesting, fairly conservative or establishment, ed blog. They have recently published a cool google map page that was announced in this post Where The Education Blogs Are:

the This Week In Education BlogMap... it's a GoogleMap that will let everyone in the edusphere add their own colored pin showing (a) where they are geographically and (b) what they do/what they're all about.

With it, you can find other education blogs near you

Of course I've added our humble blog to their map. Check it out. (You will have to navigate over to SF using the normal google map controls. They haven't provided any way to link directly to a specific blog's marker.)

Also, check out our California neighbors. I've been reading Joan Jacobs for a while, but I had no idea she was from Los Gatos until I saw it on the map. More interestingly, I discovered this local teacher's blog: Teaching in the 408. More about his blog soon.

Shout out to "Teaching in the 408"

My latest find in the ed blogging world is a teacher, apparently living very close to me, publishing Teaching in the 408. Check out his current post,
When Words Lose Their Meaning:

An educational blogger, http://www.joannejacobs.com/, writes about the growth of charter schools, coupled with Americans' lagging accurate perception of charter schools; apparently, only 20% of Americans see them as public schools.

Good, because they're not.

We can play intellectually dishonest games to twist and bend the English language until the results fit the needs of an agenda, but all that crazy-yoga-semantic-altering does not effect the reality. These schools aren't public. Not in the way that speaks of open to all, regardless of attitude or ability, address or aptitude. Not in the way that speaks of egalitarian social change, the closing of gaps, and the empowering of those in the most need.

Sounds like our kind of blogger! Check him out.

Urban teachers have it tough

The Eduwonk blog recently ran a post relevant to SFUSD, "Urban and suburban teaching: 2 totally different jobs (duh)":

Mutual fund managers and venture capitalists have different job descriptions, even though they both nominally do the same thing - invest in companies.

Yet suburban and urban teachers, despite very different customers, end up with the same job description.

• Teach about 20 hours a week
• Write lesson plans
• Grade papers
• Patrol the cafeteria at lunch, make photocopies, attend (often pointless) meetings, etc

The implicit job description for teachers in high-poverty schools (you think inner-city but don't forget rural), however, also includes:

• Single-handedly create order in the classroom (while the rest of the school is chaotic)
• Single-handedly remediate enormous, accumulated basic skill deficits
• Single-handedly enforce homework completion among kids who’ve historically done almost none
• Communicate with parents that have often, until that point, been disengaged in their children’s education

These tasks are essential. But now we’re talking 80-hours-a-week to do reasonably well. At most schools, a few teachers - the Jaime Escalantes, Rafe Esquiths - do the full job description.

This comparison really struck me. SFUSD teachers not only have the same job description as their suburban peers, they have more or less the same pay scale. Actually, they are comparitively underpaid. And they have gone a while with no pay increase. Yet their job is, in many cases, so much more difficult than their peers that work with less challenged students.

Some sort of pay differential based on the school demographics makes a lot of sense. It was one of hte findings of the recent EdTrust West study, "Shortchanging Poor Schools", though they characterized the problem far differently.

Yet the chances of this happening any time soon seem to be negligible. No amount of labor action by UESF will address this problem -- it goes beyond any one district. And there is no political leadership at the state level to make this happen. What powerful pol will go to bat for the relatively less experienced urban teachers at the expense of their suburban peers? How would that ever come to pass?

Sorry, I don't have any answers. Just questions.