Norman Yee injured
Our prayers go out to Commissioner Yee and his family.
San Francisco Schools
a blog for matters related to schools in San Francisco
Saturday, December 30, 2006
Our prayers go out to Commissioner Yee and his family.
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Oakland charter not for the faint of heart
Interesting doings at the latest "It's a miracle!" charter phenom, Oakland Charter Academy. First, an ad on Craiglist for a teacher at the school. (Is it legal to stipulate "no liberal progressives?" But charter schools are freed from burdensome bureaucratic regulations, so who cares? Legal schmegal.)
Then an excerpt from a feature in the East Bay Express about this interesting institution.
— Caroline
Then an excerpt from a feature in the East Bay Express about this interesting institution.
CraigslistFrom the East Bay Express article: This section describes the school's — um — forceful principal, Jorge Lopez, and his first weeks at the Oakland Charter Academy, when he was supposed to be working with his departing predecessor, Francisco Gutierrez, during a transition period.
Teacher -Oakland Charter School
Reply to: see below
Date: 2006-12-14, 4:44PM PST
The Chess school consortium is seeking a resource teacher to work in Oakland, CA. Interested applicants need to have (or willing to enroll in) a multi-subject credential. Single subject credentials may also be approved upon review. Applicants with a English, math or science background are encouraged to apply. Applicants must pass the CBEST and CSET test.
Multi-cultural specialist, self-esteem experts, liberal progressives or their "klan" relatives need not apply. We want to educate minority students with high academic skills and not brainwash them with non-sense or rhetoric. Do you understand our philosophy?
Starting salary is $43,500.00 with full benefits.
Submit resume and cover letter with transcripts (official or unofficial) via fax (510) 433-0718, ATTN Dr. Goldman) or email, marshaamador@.... We are hiring immediately!
Once aboard, Lopez quickly set about making Gutierrez's life miserable, insulting and demeaning him repeatedly and making a mockery of his staff meetings. Within a couple of weeks, Gutierrez was gone, vowing, he says, to "never, ever, ever again" agree to such a power-sharing arrangement. Next to go was the school's secretary, whom Lopez caught sympathizing with parents upset over the last-minute addition of a mandatory summer school for incoming sixth graders.And Nestwife will appreciate this point:
Then, at the school board meeting in late June, Lopez employed a tactic he had learned from a book recommended by Chavis. The book: Sun Tzu's The Art of War, a copy of which Lopez still keeps in his office. The tactic: to obscure his primary objectives. [Note from Caroline: This mirrors the strategy of the entire charter movement -- obscuring the primary objectives.]
At the meeting, Lopez cited a looming fiscal crisis due to sloppy bookkeeping, and called for a 15 percent reduction in the school's budget. To cut costs, he proposed reducing teaching staff by switching to "self-contained" classrooms, where students stay in the same room with one teacher throughout the day. The board went along, unwittingly paving the way for Lopez to end the school's long tradition of teaching Spanish. In addition, since only one teacher had the necessary credentials to teach a self-contained class, Lopez was able to force the others out. Within weeks, the new principal had curtailed parent involvement and gotten rid of volunteering and planning committees, which were school fixtures. It was no less than a coup d'état. "It became no longer a community-oriented school," says Estella Navarro, an OCA cofounder, parent, and board member bitterly opposed to Lopez' changes. "It became his school."
Even if the school had a cafeteria, Lopez says, he would not offer the free or reduced-price lunches for which 87 percent of his students qualify based on family income. "There's a misperception that there isn't enough food," he says. "That's bullshit. The biggest problem is obesity."It's a miracle!
— Caroline
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
EdTrust: Funding Gaps 2006
EdTrust has released a report detailing the many ways that the most needy students are shortchanged by the existing school funding formulas. The report Funding Gaps 2006 is accompanied by a press release:
School finance policy choices at the federal, state, and district levels systematically stack the deck against students who need the most support from their schools, according to a report released today by the Education Trust.The report contains an interesting inventory of policy problems, some of which could easily be fixed. My take is that California and SFUSD do a pretty decent job of avoiding these problems. As much as I hate the loss of local control, this state does do a decent job at distributing school funds equitably. There is always room for improvement, but for the most part this report takes aim at problems that are more pronounced in other states and other districts.
NCLB and strange bedfellows
Alexander Russo, who generally supports NCLB, approvingly notes that both the left and the right fid different reasons to oppose NCLB. He links to this National Review article: Leaving Behind Bad Federal Education Policy that makes the legitimate argument that the feds should keep their hands off education:
NCLB has reaffirmed the folly of federal meddling in local schools. Most notably, NCLB hasn’t significantly improved academic achievement across the nation.Russo seems to think that disparate opposition to NCLB from the right and the left vindicates NCLB. I'm not so sure. I think both sides make valid points. I do not think it is healthy for either the state or the feds to usurp local control over schools. I also think that NCLB goes way beyond holding schools accountable by imposing impossible goals that are designed to weaken public schools and pave the way for future privatization. Centrists and others remains sold on the value of accountability and standards. It is interesting how this issue render the traditional left/right political axis moot.
Labels: Charters
Edwise exposes local charter backers
Edwise does a good job of exposing the anti-union agenda of charter advocates in New York Charter School Association, Completely Bought and Paid For:
He who pays the piper calls the tunes, and the anti-union troika of Walton-Gilder-Icahn has NYCSA and its allied organizations doing their bidding. NYCSA is completely bought and paid for. The anti-union, right wing economic agenda comes first, and charter schools and the students their serve come in a poor second.We've done our share of reporting on the confluence of anti public school crusaders and the charter movement. Nice to see the NYC teachers union exposing this relationship too. It helps the union's credibility that they are operating their own charter school and have offered to work with charter backers to ease restrictions on new charters. The UTF is clearly not a reactionary force here. They are merely insisting on fair labor practices—which is enough to provoke opposition from the monied charter backers and expose their true motives.
Monday, December 18, 2006
What's the deal with scoliosis?
My seventh-grader flunked her scoliosis screening for being lopsided, so we hauled her off to the doc to find out if back braces and service dogs are in her future. Nope, all is well.
I'm mystified about this, though I have too much on my plate to do the legwork to get answers to my questions. So I'll just ask them. Of the many, many maladies and infirmities a screening could catch, why is in-school screening for scoliosis the one that's an integral part of the system? How many cases are actually caught? How many false positives (it's not really that simple; it was just a referral for further assessment) are there, and how many actual cases missed? How much does this all cost?
I did do enough research to learn about an interesting young woman with scoliosis somewhere in 650-land (the Peninsula just south of San Francisco) who has created a brochure on looking cool while wearing a back brace, "Fashion Rescue." Moira Lyon also seems to do informal counseling. I hope she's getting grants, awards, lots of boosts on college applications, etc.
— Caroline
I'm mystified about this, though I have too much on my plate to do the legwork to get answers to my questions. So I'll just ask them. Of the many, many maladies and infirmities a screening could catch, why is in-school screening for scoliosis the one that's an integral part of the system? How many cases are actually caught? How many false positives (it's not really that simple; it was just a referral for further assessment) are there, and how many actual cases missed? How much does this all cost?
I did do enough research to learn about an interesting young woman with scoliosis somewhere in 650-land (the Peninsula just south of San Francisco) who has created a brochure on looking cool while wearing a back brace, "Fashion Rescue." Moira Lyon also seems to do informal counseling. I hope she's getting grants, awards, lots of boosts on college applications, etc.
— Caroline
Times takes note of Mandarin bilingual ed, but not at SFUSD
Oddly enough, the article makes no mention of any of SFUSD's Mandarin bilingual offerings. You would think that our long history in this field, as well as the BOE's recent votes to enhance the districts bilingual offerings would have been noteworthy. Eric Mar offers his perspective on the Bilingualism/Multilingualism for All over on his blog. This is exciting work in the district and SFUSD desevers more recognition for its leadership.
Labels: SFUSD Politics
Thursday, December 14, 2006
School Board Notes 12.12.06
Thanks, as always, to Nicole Freeling and GreatSchools.net for producing this invaluable notes and allowing us to publish them here. Don't forget, they can also be found here.
In an ambitious plan backed by the school board Tuesday night, SFUSD will aim to give very student in the district the opportunity to be a bilingual or multilingual graduate.
The board passed a unanimous resolution calling for the superintendent to draft a 21-member Blue Ribbon Task Force comprising parents, teachers, school planners, language experts, employee groups, business organizations and civic leaders to develop models for achieving this goal. The resolution also calls for the superintendent to use these findings to develop a plan for multilingual education, which will be presented to the board by Oct 1 of next year.
"This would not necessary be an all-immersion model," said Commissioner Dan Kelly, who authored the resolution along with Commissioners Norman Yee and Eric Mar. Immersion programs are expected to play a big part, however. The resolution builds on one passed earlier this year that called for expanding the district's popular two-way immersion programs and creating programs that could serve upper as well as lower grades.
The initiative approved Tuesday seeks not only to serve native English speakers, but also to help non-native speakers become English proficient while receiving a level of instruction equal to that of their English-speaking peers. The task force will work in concert with the district's Bilingual Community Council, which recently issued a report saying that English language learners are not being adequately served by the district's programs.
The move, board members said, could be an opportunity for the district to create a model for multilingual instruction with wide-ranging influence. "This is really cutting against the grain of an English-only wave that is going on in this country," Mar observed.
An obvious obstacle is funding such a large-scale effort at a time when the district faces dire budgetary constraints. "We're going to aggressively seek out external funding sources," Mar said. "We'll use every means at our disposal to find funds to pay for this program."
District Squeezed By Charter Schools Seeking Space
The district is scrambling to respond to an unusually large number of requests for facilities by new and existing charter schools, and may have to force many under-enrolled district schools to share their space, according to a board discussion Tuesday night.
Under Proposition 39, a voter initiative approved in 2000, the district is legally required to provide facilities to approved charters equivalent to those provided to students at traditional public schools. The charters in turn pay rent for the space.
This year, the district is facing requests from five existing schools representing about 1,700 students and four newly formed charters. The district has until April 1 to find a home for these schools.
They include:
Existing Schools
Sites mentioned as possible homes for the charters included DeAvila, which was closed a few years ago and is currently leased by City College; Treasure Island, which closed last year; and Newcomer's existing site if the city is unable to lease it, as hoped. Schools that could be adapted to co-house charters include Mission High School, Balboa High School, Denman Middle School and Everett Middle School, according to David Golden, facilities director. Board members also cited Malcolm X and Gloria R. Davis Academy as possible charter locations, if those schools are closed.
Exiting Board Members Offer Parting Thoughts
In their last meeting before new members are sworn in January, departing board members Dan Kelly, Sarah Lipson and Eddie Chin thanked their colleagues, the staff and the community, and offered thoughts about their respective tenures on the board.
"I'm very proud of our proud of the quality of our schools," said Lipson, who has served four years on the board. "I wish the media would focus more on that." Lipson said if she could give any advice to the new board members, "it would be ... agree to disagree respectfully. We had trouble with that a couple of years ago and it's taken us a long time to rebuild our credibility."
Eddie Chin, who has been on the board eight years, specifically thanked the interim superintendent, Gwen Chan, "for your exemplary leadership through the hardships and difficult times of the last year." He assured the public, "I'll still be around, doing public service if not holding public office."
The most senior member of the board, Dan Kelly, who has served for the last 15 years, praised San Francisco's role as a national leader in school policy, with such initiatives as small class size, restoring arts programs to elementary school, the weighted student formula, site-based budgeting, and even "our innovated consent decree, that highlighted student achievement as the real issue." Kelly said the credit lay not only with the board: "We're just the foam on the very big wave that is the progressive thought and positive influence of the people of San Francisco. We've been very fortunate to be the voice of this community to the nation and to push the rest of the nation to follow San Francisco values."
Lipson and Chin had not sought re-election; Kelly was unsuccessful in his bid for a fifth term. In January, newly elected commissioners Jane Kim, Hydra Mendoza and Kim Shree-Maufus will join the board.
2007-08 School Calendar Adopted
The calendar for the school year starting next fall is as follows:
Board Chooses Firm to Head Superintendent Search
After receiving proposals from five executive search firms and interviewing three, the board chose to hire the firm Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates to lead its search for a new superintendent. The ad hoc committee charged with interviewing the firms had recommended two: California School Board Association which, according to Eric Mar, was seen as having a better sense of the board and of the district's diverse nature, and Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates, which is a national, more experienced firm and was seen as having a wider geographic reach.
- Board OKs Sweeping Language Initiative
- District Squeezed By Charter Schools Seeking Space
- Exiting Board Members Offer Parting Thoughts
- 2007-08 School Calendar Adopted
- Board Chooses Firm to Head Superintendent Search
In an ambitious plan backed by the school board Tuesday night, SFUSD will aim to give very student in the district the opportunity to be a bilingual or multilingual graduate.
The board passed a unanimous resolution calling for the superintendent to draft a 21-member Blue Ribbon Task Force comprising parents, teachers, school planners, language experts, employee groups, business organizations and civic leaders to develop models for achieving this goal. The resolution also calls for the superintendent to use these findings to develop a plan for multilingual education, which will be presented to the board by Oct 1 of next year.
"This would not necessary be an all-immersion model," said Commissioner Dan Kelly, who authored the resolution along with Commissioners Norman Yee and Eric Mar. Immersion programs are expected to play a big part, however. The resolution builds on one passed earlier this year that called for expanding the district's popular two-way immersion programs and creating programs that could serve upper as well as lower grades.
The initiative approved Tuesday seeks not only to serve native English speakers, but also to help non-native speakers become English proficient while receiving a level of instruction equal to that of their English-speaking peers. The task force will work in concert with the district's Bilingual Community Council, which recently issued a report saying that English language learners are not being adequately served by the district's programs.
The move, board members said, could be an opportunity for the district to create a model for multilingual instruction with wide-ranging influence. "This is really cutting against the grain of an English-only wave that is going on in this country," Mar observed.
An obvious obstacle is funding such a large-scale effort at a time when the district faces dire budgetary constraints. "We're going to aggressively seek out external funding sources," Mar said. "We'll use every means at our disposal to find funds to pay for this program."
District Squeezed By Charter Schools Seeking Space
The district is scrambling to respond to an unusually large number of requests for facilities by new and existing charter schools, and may have to force many under-enrolled district schools to share their space, according to a board discussion Tuesday night.
Under Proposition 39, a voter initiative approved in 2000, the district is legally required to provide facilities to approved charters equivalent to those provided to students at traditional public schools. The charters in turn pay rent for the space.
This year, the district is facing requests from five existing schools representing about 1,700 students and four newly formed charters. The district has until April 1 to find a home for these schools.
They include:
Existing Schools
- City Arts and Tech High School (391 students)
- Metropolitan Arts and Tech High School (303 students)
- Kipp Bayview Academy, a fifth- to eighth-grade school (265 students)
- Edison Elementary School (401 students)
- Leadership High School (360 students)
- Bayview Essential School of Music, Art and Social Justice
- Bay Area Technology Charter School
- Sputnik Math, Science and Language Academy
- Aim High Community School
Sites mentioned as possible homes for the charters included DeAvila, which was closed a few years ago and is currently leased by City College; Treasure Island, which closed last year; and Newcomer's existing site if the city is unable to lease it, as hoped. Schools that could be adapted to co-house charters include Mission High School, Balboa High School, Denman Middle School and Everett Middle School, according to David Golden, facilities director. Board members also cited Malcolm X and Gloria R. Davis Academy as possible charter locations, if those schools are closed.
Exiting Board Members Offer Parting Thoughts
In their last meeting before new members are sworn in January, departing board members Dan Kelly, Sarah Lipson and Eddie Chin thanked their colleagues, the staff and the community, and offered thoughts about their respective tenures on the board.
"I'm very proud of our proud of the quality of our schools," said Lipson, who has served four years on the board. "I wish the media would focus more on that." Lipson said if she could give any advice to the new board members, "it would be ... agree to disagree respectfully. We had trouble with that a couple of years ago and it's taken us a long time to rebuild our credibility."
Eddie Chin, who has been on the board eight years, specifically thanked the interim superintendent, Gwen Chan, "for your exemplary leadership through the hardships and difficult times of the last year." He assured the public, "I'll still be around, doing public service if not holding public office."
The most senior member of the board, Dan Kelly, who has served for the last 15 years, praised San Francisco's role as a national leader in school policy, with such initiatives as small class size, restoring arts programs to elementary school, the weighted student formula, site-based budgeting, and even "our innovated consent decree, that highlighted student achievement as the real issue." Kelly said the credit lay not only with the board: "We're just the foam on the very big wave that is the progressive thought and positive influence of the people of San Francisco. We've been very fortunate to be the voice of this community to the nation and to push the rest of the nation to follow San Francisco values."
Lipson and Chin had not sought re-election; Kelly was unsuccessful in his bid for a fifth term. In January, newly elected commissioners Jane Kim, Hydra Mendoza and Kim Shree-Maufus will join the board.
2007-08 School Calendar Adopted
The calendar for the school year starting next fall is as follows:
- Aug. 27: First day of instruction
- Sept. 3: Labor Day (School closed)
- Oct. 8: Columbus/Indigenous People's Day/Dia de la Raza (School closed)
- Nov. 12: Veterans Day (School closed)
- Nov. 21 — 23: Thanksgiving recess
- Dec. 17 — Jan. 01: Winter break
- Jan. 21: Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (School closed)
- Jan. 24 Last day of fall semester
- Jan. 25: Semester break
- Feb. 7: Lunar New Year (School closed)
- Feb. 8: Professional development day (School closed)
- Feb. 18: Presidents Day (School closed)
- March 24 — 28: Spring break
- Mar. 31: Cesar Chavez Day (School closed)
- May 26: Memorial Day (School closed)
- June 13: Spring semester ends, last day of school
Board Chooses Firm to Head Superintendent Search
After receiving proposals from five executive search firms and interviewing three, the board chose to hire the firm Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates to lead its search for a new superintendent. The ad hoc committee charged with interviewing the firms had recommended two: California School Board Association which, according to Eric Mar, was seen as having a better sense of the board and of the district's diverse nature, and Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates, which is a national, more experienced firm and was seen as having a wider geographic reach.
Labels: Charters, GreatSchools.net, School Board Notes, SFUSD Politics
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
WaPo Challenge Index released
The Washington Post has released its annual "Challenge Index" ranking of US High Schools. The Challenge Index "measures a public high school's effort to challenge its students" by dividing the total number of AP and Baccalaureate tests taken by students at a school and dividing that by the total number of seniors. The rankings are the brain child of WaPo education reporter Jay Matthews. They have been used by Newsweek to developer their own "top schools" list.
The value of this ranking is debatable—but it is interesting to note. The highest ranked school, Gifted and Talented HS in Dallas, has a cringe-inducing 14 AP tests / senior!! What are they thinking? Who's responsible for this child abuse?
The "Excellence and Equity" data is also very curious. Where available, this data measures the percentage of seniors in a school that achieve at least one AP grade of 3 or better. A low E&E score would seem to indicate a school that offers a lot of AP test with poor results. So the Carlsbad HS with an impressive 2.7 APs/senior but only manages to teach 10% of their students enough to gain a 3+ on any one of them is, in my opinion, just torturing their kids needlessly. Either that or the %10 of the school that takes these test are taking 27 AP tests. No, I don't think so. Tossing your students into the deep end is one thing. Drowning them is another.
I've taken the liberty of tabulating the California schools that appear in among the top 500 schools in their ranking. Of parochial interest here are the two San Francisco high schools that make the list: Lowell was ranked 26th nationally and 3rd in California. Washington came in at 318th nationally and 48th in the state. Congratulations to both!
* Schools that offer IB tests
** Schools that offer AP and IB tests
The value of this ranking is debatable—but it is interesting to note. The highest ranked school, Gifted and Talented HS in Dallas, has a cringe-inducing 14 AP tests / senior!! What are they thinking? Who's responsible for this child abuse?
The "Excellence and Equity" data is also very curious. Where available, this data measures the percentage of seniors in a school that achieve at least one AP grade of 3 or better. A low E&E score would seem to indicate a school that offers a lot of AP test with poor results. So the Carlsbad HS with an impressive 2.7 APs/senior but only manages to teach 10% of their students enough to gain a 3+ on any one of them is, in my opinion, just torturing their kids needlessly. Either that or the %10 of the school that takes these test are taking 27 AP tests. No, I don't think so. Tossing your students into the deep end is one thing. Drowning them is another.
I've taken the liberty of tabulating the California schools that appear in among the top 500 schools in their ranking. Of parochial interest here are the two San Francisco high schools that make the list: Lowell was ranked 26th nationally and 3rd in California. Washington came in at 318th nationally and 48th in the state. Congratulations to both!
| Rank | School | City | Index | Equity and Excellence | Subsidized Lunches |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14 | Eastern Sierra Academy | Bridgeport | 5.500 | 50.0 | 30.0 |
| 22 | San Diego High School of International Studies* | San Diego | 4.576 | 47.0 | |
| 26 | Lowell | San Francisco | 4.462 | 90.8 | 31.0 |
| 46 | Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies | Los Angeles | 3.964 | 69.0 | 34.0 |
| 47 | Troy** | Fullerton | 3.956 | 59.8 | Less than 1 |
| 80 | Gunn | Palo Alto | 3.407 | 5.0 | |
| 111 | Torrey Pines | San Diego | 3.056 | 48.8 | 4.0 |
| 112 | School of Creative and Performing Arts | San Diego | 3.049 | 40.6 | |
| 121 | Serra | San Diego | 2.976 | n/a | |
| 145 | La Jolla | La Jolla | 2.823 | 15.3 | |
| 149 | Mission San Jose | Fremont | 2.791 | 65.1 | 3.3 |
| 154 | Monta Vista | Cupertino | 2.772 | 1.3 | |
| 158 | University | Irvine | 2.748 | 60.8 | 6.0 |
| 166 | San Dieguito | Encinitas | 2.703 | 5.4 | |
| 167 | La Costa Canyon | Carlsbad | 2.697 | 9.7 | 10.5 |
| 170 | La Canada | La Canada-Flintridge | 2.649 | n/a | |
| 175 | University City | San Diego | 2.616 | 23.9 | 25.0 |
| 177 | Sunny Hills** | Fullerton | 2.607 | 12.8 | 2.4 |
| 185 | Diamond Bar** | Diamond Bar | 2.575 | 50.1 | 4.0 |
| 190 | Palos Verdes Peninsula | Rolling Hills Estates | 2.537 | 61.4 | Less than 1 |
| 192 | San Marino | San Marino | 2.531 | 1.0 | |
| 193 | Coronado** | Coronado | 2.530 | 24.5 | 0.0 |
| 200 | Westlake | Westlake Village | 2.498 | 35.7 | 7.4 |
| 207 | Mira Costa | Manhattan Beach | 2.466 | 42.7 | 3.0 |
| 215 | North Hollywood | Los Angeles | 2.435 | 42.6 | 74.0 |
| 218 | Saratoga | Saratoga | 2.430 | Less than 1 | |
| 226 | San Jose High Academy* | San Jose | 2.409 | 58.8 | |
| 235 | San Pasqual | Escondido | 2.384 | 34.0 | 17.0 |
| 242 | Malibu | Malibu | 2.356 | 53.4 | 7.9 |
| 248 | Menlo-Atherton | Atherton | 2.342 | 52.4 | 24.1 |
| 251 | Mira Loma** | Sacramento | 2.336 | 12.5 | 35.0 |
| 252 | Palisades Charter | Pacific Palisades | 2.333 | 43.2 | 21.0 |
| 253 | Scripps Ranch | San Diego | 2.319 | 18.0 | |
| 257 | Oak Park | Oak Park | 2.311 | 39.6 | 1.1 |
| 258 | Cerritos | Cerritos | 2.310 | 5.8 | |
| 259 | Mountain View | Mountain View | 2.308 | 27.5 | 8.0 |
| 259 | Patrick Henry | San Diego | 2.308 | 24.9 | |
| 264 | Arcadia | Arcadia | 2.288 | n/a | |
| 269 | Santa Monica | Santa Monica | 2.271 | 45.7 | 22.3 |
| 273 | Foothill | Pleasanton | 2.261 | None | |
| 275 | Leland | San Jose | 2.258 | 47.0 | 7.0 |
| 283 | California Academy of Math & Science | Carson | 2.239 | 41.9 | |
| 284 | Burlingame | Burlingame | 2.235 | 37.0 | 3.0 |
| 288 | Marshall Fundamental | Pasadena | 2.220 | 30.5 | 70.0 |
| 298 | Northwood | Irvine | 2.190 | 55.8 | 2.4 |
| 301 | Los Altos | Los Altos | 2.185 | 45.5 | n/a |
| 309 | Amador Valley | Pleasanton | 2.155 | 2.2 | |
| 318 | George Washington | San Francisco | 2.127 | 27.0 | 42.0 |
| 325 | Piedmont | Piedmont | 2.113 | 0.0 | |
| 330 | Sherman Oaks Center for Enriched Studies | Tarzana | 2.099 | 33.2 | 40.0 |
| 334 | El Camino | Oceanside | 2.075 | 34.8 | 31.0 |
| 335 | Miramonte | Orinda | 2.062 | 60.4 | n/a |
| 344 | Edison | Fresno | 2.047 | 35.1 | 65.0 |
| 351 | Beverly Hills | Beverly Hills | 2.037 | 84.0 | 2.0 |
| 353 | Francisco Bravo Medical Magnet | Los Angeles | 2.028 | 85.5 | |
| 360 | Tesoro | Rancho Santa Margarita | 2.012 | 42.5 | 2.7 |
| 363 | Palo Alto | Palo Alto | 2.005 | 64.3 | 4.0 |
| 364 | Aragon | San Mateo | 2.003 | 35.0 | 3.0 |
| 365 | Crescenta Valley | La Crescenta | 1.989 | 39.0 | 8.0 |
| 380 | Berkeley | Berkeley | 1.955 | 35.5 | n/a |
| 384 | Mills | Millbrae | 1.947 | 3.4 | 4.5 |
| 392 | Acalanes | Lafayette | 1.940 | 2.0 | |
| 394 | Mission Viejo** | Mission Viejo | 1.937 | 24.2 | 2.0 |
| 399 | San Clemente** | San Clemente | 1.927 | 33.2 | 6.0 |
| 404 | Bonita | La Verne | 1.915 | 31.9 | 14.3 |
| 406 | Marshall | Los Angeles | 1.910 | 72.5 | |
| 409 | Newbury Park** | Newbury Park | 1.908 | 9.0 | |
| 418 | Eagle Rock | Los Angeles | 1.898 | 30.5 | 63.8 |
| 419 | Rancho Bernardo | San Diego | 1.897 | 4.0 | |
| 423 | Foshay Learning Center | Los Angeles | 1.888 | 5.6 | 85.3 |
| 424 | Mira Mesa | San Diego | 1.887 | 26.2 | |
| 426 | Walnut** | Walnut | 1.884 | 8.5 | |
| 427 | Tamalpais | Mill Valley | 1.880 | 6.0 | |
| 433 | Hillsdale | San Mateo | 1.869 | 10.0 | |
| 442 | Van Nuys | Van Nuys | 1.842 | 80.4 | |
| 445 | Silver Creek | San Jose | 1.835 | 25.0 | |
| 459 | Marina | Huntington Beach | 1.819 | n/a | |
| 461 | King Drew Medical Magnet | Los Angeles check | 1.814 | 63.7 | |
| 465 | Point Loma | San Diego | 1.806 | 32.1 | |
| 469 | Clovis West | Clovis | 1.804 | 32.1 | 17.0 |
| 475 | Arcata | Arcata | 1.788 | 21.0 | 10.0 |
| 476 | Albany | Albany | 1.785 | n/a | |
| 499 | Esperanza | Anaheim | 1.758 | 31.6 | 4.1 |
** Schools that offer AP and IB tests
Labels: Charters
Monday, December 11, 2006
Wellness Policy and Wellness Centers
A blogger on the LeftinSF site, while describing the agenda of an upcoming San Francisco Board of Education meeting, listed the following item on the consent calendar:
One of the requirements of the federally mandated Wellness Policy is that there be people charged with implementing the policy. The mini grant which the School Health Programs Department applied for and got, is to fund a stipend for a teacher at each of 15 schools (5 elementary, 5 middle, and 5 high) to receive training in the district's Wellness Policy and then go back to their own school and help educate the school community about the policy, and make sure it is being implemented (for example, it would be great if a teacher from Martin Luther King Middle School were to make sure that the Flaming Hot Cheetos were removed from their vending machines......)
The Wellness Centers, or Teen Health Clinics, on the other hand, are funded and run by the Department of Public Health. These fabulous community resources are open to the entire community, but especially serve the teens in the schools in which they are located, and schools nearby. Balboa High School has one of the oldest Teen Clinics, having celebrated its 20th anniversary last spring, and it serves Bal students as well as students from nearby Leadership High School and James Denman Middle School. For reasons baffling to me, when Frank Tom (at the time, Assistant Superintendent for High Schools) proposed moving Leadership onto the Balboa campus, he insisted on counting the Teen Clinic space at Balboa as "empty classrooms", despite the fact that the clinic has a long term lease for the space and it is in use daily. Relocating Leadership to the Balboa campus would have necessitated the closure of the Teen Clinic, and the loss of this valuable resource for all students, who use the services of the clinic thousands of times during a school year, for everything from flu shots and sports physicals to mental health counseling and help quitting smoking.
I agree that every high school needs a Wellness Center (every middle school too!) However, to be clear, the mini grant of $10,000 is in no way connected to the Wellness Centers; it is to train teachers to help implement the Wellness Policy (aka nutrition policy) in their schools.
Award $10,000 from the San Francisco Foundation for the Wellness Policy implementation at five elementary schools, five middle schools and five high schools. The grant also requires the District to identify and implement a Wellness Policy implementer at each middle school and high school. Currently, four high schools do not have a Wellness Center — Washington High School, Newcomer High School, June Jordan School for Equity and Wallenberg High School.It made me realize that there might be some confusion between the school district’s Wellness Policy, and the Wellness Centers located in some schools. Except for the use of the word "Wellness" in both names, there is no connection between the Wellness Policy (formerly the Nutrition Policy) and the Wellness Centers. The Wellness Policy is a required part of the Child Nutrition Reauthorization Act of 2004 which required school districts to develop a policy addressing nutrition and a few related issues, like health education, by the start of this school year. Thanks to a Board of Education resolution by BOE Commissioners Dan Kelly and Jill Wynns, the San Francisco Unified School District has had in place since 2003 one of the most stringent and comprehensive nutrition policies in the nation; creating the Wellness Policy required only adding in descriptions of what was already being done to meet the other requirements of a Wellness Policy (in other words, the district was already doing everything required by the federal govt. for a Wellness Policy, and more, but now it is all officially written down in one place.)
One of the requirements of the federally mandated Wellness Policy is that there be people charged with implementing the policy. The mini grant which the School Health Programs Department applied for and got, is to fund a stipend for a teacher at each of 15 schools (5 elementary, 5 middle, and 5 high) to receive training in the district's Wellness Policy and then go back to their own school and help educate the school community about the policy, and make sure it is being implemented (for example, it would be great if a teacher from Martin Luther King Middle School were to make sure that the Flaming Hot Cheetos were removed from their vending machines......)
The Wellness Centers, or Teen Health Clinics, on the other hand, are funded and run by the Department of Public Health. These fabulous community resources are open to the entire community, but especially serve the teens in the schools in which they are located, and schools nearby. Balboa High School has one of the oldest Teen Clinics, having celebrated its 20th anniversary last spring, and it serves Bal students as well as students from nearby Leadership High School and James Denman Middle School. For reasons baffling to me, when Frank Tom (at the time, Assistant Superintendent for High Schools) proposed moving Leadership onto the Balboa campus, he insisted on counting the Teen Clinic space at Balboa as "empty classrooms", despite the fact that the clinic has a long term lease for the space and it is in use daily. Relocating Leadership to the Balboa campus would have necessitated the closure of the Teen Clinic, and the loss of this valuable resource for all students, who use the services of the clinic thousands of times during a school year, for everything from flu shots and sports physicals to mental health counseling and help quitting smoking.
I agree that every high school needs a Wellness Center (every middle school too!) However, to be clear, the mini grant of $10,000 is in no way connected to the Wellness Centers; it is to train teachers to help implement the Wellness Policy (aka nutrition policy) in their schools.
Labels: Nutrition
"An Inconvenient Truth" for free? Get Exxon on the phone!
In case you had not heard, Al Gore has generously offered to donate a large number of copies of his film, "An Inconvenient Truth" to schools to help bring the global warming issue into the nation's classrooms. Unsurprisingly, this has stirred opposing forces to block the deal. Also unsurprisingly, those forces have to be careful to cover their tracks.
The copious details can be found in this blog post, The NSTA Is Feeding Us A Line. The short version of the story: the NSTA, as assoication of science teachers that was given the offer of free DVDs, did not want to alienate benfactors like Exxon. ExxonMobil, Shell Oil, ConocoPhillips and the American Petroleum Institute. So they put their institutional interests ahead of all else. Nice to know that our kids' science education is in good hands, eh? Hat tip to blogger JD2718 for finding this post.
The copious details can be found in this blog post, The NSTA Is Feeding Us A Line. The short version of the story: the NSTA, as assoication of science teachers that was given the offer of free DVDs, did not want to alienate benfactors like Exxon. ExxonMobil, Shell Oil, ConocoPhillips and the American Petroleum Institute. So they put their institutional interests ahead of all else. Nice to know that our kids' science education is in good hands, eh? Hat tip to blogger JD2718 for finding this post.
No Child Left Behind Self-Destructs?
Interesting critique of NCLB that I found on the Huffington Post, courtesy of Digg.com: Things Fall Apart: No Child Left Behind Self-Destructs by Gerald Bracey.
Bracey strips away the rhetoric and finds the privatization and anti-union roots of the act. He also notes that it is failing at both its stated and unstated goals. Here are some highlights.
On NCLB intent:
Bracey strips away the rhetoric and finds the privatization and anti-union roots of the act. He also notes that it is failing at both its stated and unstated goals. Here are some highlights.
On NCLB intent:
NCLB would funnel large sums of public funds into the private sector through vouchers, transfer much control of public education to private companies, and to reduce or destroy the influence of two Democratic power bases, the teachers unions. Congress killed the voucher provisions, substituting "Supplemental Educational Services" (SES) through which mostly private firms currently gobble up about $2 billion a year. SES consists mostly of tutoring programs or small group instruction that must occur outside the normal school day.On the failure of the AYP metric:
First off, she had seen NCLB label as failures schools that she thought were terrific. That can happen because of how NCLB judges schools. The law requires schools to report test scores by many subcategories of students: by grade, ethnicity, special education status, English Language Learner status, etc. Most schools have 37 subcategories. If for two years any one subcategory in a school fails to make an arbitrary, predetermined gain in test scores called "Adequate Yearly Progress," (AYP), the law declares that the whole school has failed and requires it to offer all students the option to transfer to a "successful" school. It is absurd to call a school with one lagging sub-category "failing." It's like saying a pennant-winning baseball team is actually a loser because its stolen-base production is below average.The author has a website, Education Disinformation Detection and Reporting Agency where he posts some intersting reports on the state of public education and hands out Rotten Apples awards—a counterpoint to the "Golden Apples" awards. Interesting reading.
Labels: Charters
Saturday, December 09, 2006
Friday, December 08, 2006
Taxpayers fund booze, karaoke for KIPP
While the bulldogs at the Bay Guardian were exposing Jill Wynns' excess wonkism for slogging to conferences in windowless hotel meeting rooms on school board best practices, and Arlene Ackerman for charging iced tea to SFUSD, the folks at San Francisco-based KIPP were in Cancun partying hearty on the taxpayers' tab. No wonder they get such good press — they know how to have a good time. From a U.S. Office of the Inspector General audit of KIPP grant spending:
(emphasis mine)
— Caroline
Unallowable Alcoholic Beverage and Entertainment Costs Charged to Grant Accounts The Foundation included unallowable alcoholic beverage and entertainment costs in the amounts charged to FIE grant accounts. • The Foundation held a Math Retreat in New York City, New York in January 2005 for math teachers to discuss successful teaching strategies used at two high-achieving KIPP schools. The Foundation charged the U215K040068 grant account for $61,608 in travel-related costs for approximately 70 persons who attended the three-day event. The amount included $1,919 for alcoholic beverages purchased during a restaurant dinner.
Final Report
ED-OIG/A09G0010 Page 5 of 15
• The Foundation held a School Leaders Retreat in Cancun, Mexico in February 2005 for KIPP school leaders to meet and discuss issues relevant to their professional growth and KIPP schools. The Foundation charged the U215K040068 grant account for $90,749 in travel-related costs for the approximately 70 persons who attended the four-day event. The amount included $2,988 for alcoholic beverage purchases, $2,318 for three hours of DJ and Karaoke services, and $537 for basketball equipment setup. • The Foundation held another School Leaders Retreat in Cancun, Mexico in February 2006. The Foundation charged the U215K050531 grant account for $68,147 in travel-related costs for the approximately 70 persons who attended the four-day event. The amount included $3,387 for alcoholic beverage purchases.2 EDGAR 74.27 requires that private non-profit organizations determine the allowability of costs charged to grants in accordance with the cost principles contained in OMB Circular A-122. OMB Circular A-122 Attachment B, paragraph 3 (Alcoholic beverages) and paragraph 14 (Entertainment costs) prohibit the use of Federal grant funds for alcoholic beverage and entertainment costs. Foundation staff did not thoroughly review expenditure documentation to ensure that only allowable costs were charged to the FIE grant accounts. The unallowable alcoholic beverage and entertainment costs charged to the FIE grant accounts did not result in the improper use of FIE funds because the Foundation did not use FIE funds to cover $624,123 of U215K040068 grant expenditures and reduced its draw of FIE funds for U215K050531 by $21,732 to stay within the travel budget in the approved grant. However, the Foundation holds several training events each year. Because we did not review all event-related expenditures, there is a risk that other alcoholic beverage and entertainment costs may have been charged to the FIE grant accounts that were not detected by our review. Additionally, there is a risk that FIE funds may be used inappropriately in the future if the Foundation continues to charge alcoholic beverage and entertainment costs to the FIE accounts and does not adjust expenditure totals for the unallowable costs when determining amounts to be drawn from the grant awards.
(emphasis mine)
— Caroline
Labels: Charters, SFUSD Politics
Thursday, December 07, 2006
School Beat spotlight on Commodore Sloat
Another great School Beat column appears today in Beyond Chron: Coming Back to Commodore Sloat Elementary School. This one was written by parent Chris Leishman, and is about her experiences at Commodore Sloat Elementary School, both as a student herself in the 1960s and now as a parent of 3 students.
School Beat has been doing a great job of highlighting a few lesser known schools and helping all of you who are wrapped up in the school selection process look beyond the most popular schools. School choice and the dreaded lottery may seem like an unwanted burden to some of you in the thick of it. It is hard. It is stressful. Rest assured that there are good options out there, and in the long run we are better off having the choice and being able to pick a school and a program that fits our family needs.
School Beat has been doing a great job of highlighting a few lesser known schools and helping all of you who are wrapped up in the school selection process look beyond the most popular schools. School choice and the dreaded lottery may seem like an unwanted burden to some of you in the thick of it. It is hard. It is stressful. Rest assured that there are good options out there, and in the long run we are better off having the choice and being able to pick a school and a program that fits our family needs.
Labels: School Beat
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Fresh, organic fruit on the menu!
Great news on the school food front, as reported by Nestwife on sfschools:
On December 5th, 6th, and 7th, students in approximately 115 of San Francisco's public schools can enjoy fresh, seasonal fruit from local family farms thanks to a partnership between San Francisco Unified School District's Student Nutrition Services, San Francisco Food Systems, and South San Francisco-based The Fruit Guys. Support for this project has been provided by Columbia Foundation and the San Francisco Foundation.
Tuesday's lunch featured an uncommon apple variety called the Arkansas Black - a derivative of the Winesap which has a dark red skin and a wonderful cherry flavor. Approximately 13,000 apples are coming from Bierwagen's farm outside of Grass Valley (about 150 miles northeast of San Francisco) to grace students' lunch trays. Wednesday, students will be able to try juicy and delicious Satsuma Mandarins from Abe-El Farm in Orosi, reflecting just one of the many unique citrus varieties available this time of year. Finally, on Thursday The Fruit Guys will bring in organic Pink Lady apples from Smit Apple Ranch in Linden (about 95 miles from San Francisco).
"We're excited to see a greater variety of fruit from California farms," said Paula Jones, Director of San Francisco Food Systems. These new additions connect students with fruit from local family farms and provide greater exposure to increasing varieties of produce through their school meal program. This partnership also helps the school district's menu better reflect the changing seasonality of California-grown produce, rather than relying on the typical Red Delicious Apple, Navel Orange, and Banana orders that are standard in most institutional food service operations.
In addition to these lunch offerings, throughout the week of December 11-15, local and seasonal fruit will be added to the School Breakfast Program in fourteen schools operating a special pilot program. Normally, a 4-oz. juice is served every day to fulfill the fruit/vegetable meal component in the School Breakfast Program. For the first time, a fresh fruit option will be added for breakfast in these schools.
Changes in the school fruit offerings are one of many innovations that the San Francisco Unified School District has taken on to improve its overall school food environment since 2003. That year, the Board of Education passed a resolution creating a Student Nutrition and Physical Activity Committee, charged with developing a detailed plan to improve school food. San Francisco's ensuing School Wellness Policy, possibly one of the strongest in the nation, includes goals around increasing the amount of fresh foods (fruits and vegetables) via the school meal programs and giving preference to products which are certified organic and which are grown, processed, and/or packaged in California.
The San Francisco Unified School District purchases about 110 cases of fresh fruit per school day - almost 700,000 pounds per year. This represents a substantial market for local farmers and a great opportunity for using the school meal program as a tool for nutrition education. Connections like this one - between the school district, San Francisco Food Systems, and The Fruit Guys - will inform current and future efforts to connect public institutions with higher quality, local and sustainable food.
Tuesday's lunch featured an uncommon apple variety called the Arkansas Black - a derivative of the Winesap which has a dark red skin and a wonderful cherry flavor. Approximately 13,000 apples are coming from Bierwagen's farm outside of Grass Valley (about 150 miles northeast of San Francisco) to grace students' lunch trays. Wednesday, students will be able to try juicy and delicious Satsuma Mandarins from Abe-El Farm in Orosi, reflecting just one of the many unique citrus varieties available this time of year. Finally, on Thursday The Fruit Guys will bring in organic Pink Lady apples from Smit Apple Ranch in Linden (about 95 miles from San Francisco).
"We're excited to see a greater variety of fruit from California farms," said Paula Jones, Director of San Francisco Food Systems. These new additions connect students with fruit from local family farms and provide greater exposure to increasing varieties of produce through their school meal program. This partnership also helps the school district's menu better reflect the changing seasonality of California-grown produce, rather than relying on the typical Red Delicious Apple, Navel Orange, and Banana orders that are standard in most institutional food service operations.
In addition to these lunch offerings, throughout the week of December 11-15, local and seasonal fruit will be added to the School Breakfast Program in fourteen schools operating a special pilot program. Normally, a 4-oz. juice is served every day to fulfill the fruit/vegetable meal component in the School Breakfast Program. For the first time, a fresh fruit option will be added for breakfast in these schools.
Changes in the school fruit offerings are one of many innovations that the San Francisco Unified School District has taken on to improve its overall school food environment since 2003. That year, the Board of Education passed a resolution creating a Student Nutrition and Physical Activity Committee, charged with developing a detailed plan to improve school food. San Francisco's ensuing School Wellness Policy, possibly one of the strongest in the nation, includes goals around increasing the amount of fresh foods (fruits and vegetables) via the school meal programs and giving preference to products which are certified organic and which are grown, processed, and/or packaged in California.
The San Francisco Unified School District purchases about 110 cases of fresh fruit per school day - almost 700,000 pounds per year. This represents a substantial market for local farmers and a great opportunity for using the school meal program as a tool for nutrition education. Connections like this one - between the school district, San Francisco Food Systems, and The Fruit Guys - will inform current and future efforts to connect public institutions with higher quality, local and sustainable food.
Labels: Nutrition
School Board Notes 12.5.06
By Nicole Achs Freeling
GreatSchools.net Correspondent
The Board of Education's Curriculum and Program Committee endorsed a resolution last night that would greatly expand the district’s language immersion programs and foreign language offerings. The resolution by Commissioners Dan Kelly, Eric Mar and Norman Yee would seek to provide every student the opportunity to graduate SFUSD with native-language fluency in English and another language. The resolution would "allow parents to decide what second language their children will acquire upon entering the district’s kindergarten."
The proposal calls upon the superintendent to coordinate a one-year study and develop a plan, to be presented to the board by October 1, 2007, that could be phased in over a number of years. The study would be overseen by a 21-member Blue Ribbon Task Force comprising parents, teachers, school planners, language experts, business organizations and civic leaders in consultation with the district’s bilingual community council. The resolution will be voted on by the full board at the next regular meeting, December 12.
The resolution did not lay out specifics for achieving its goal. Mar said one likely component would be to expand the two-way immersion programs that have been highly popular at the district, and to expand opportunities for such programs beyond fifth grade, at which most of the current programs end.
Move to Reconfigure Dream Schools
With Gloria R. Davis, a "Dream School," unable to recruit students to fill its upper grades, the committee endorsed a proposal to reconfigure the Dream Schools in a way that would relocate or phase out the high school portion.
The Dream School program, established two years ago, is aimed at reforming lower-performing schools with a highly academic curriculum, required student uniforms, a longer school day and Saturday schools. The idea at the time was for Dream Schools to present a unified program running from pre-K through 12th grade. The current Dream Schools are Charles Drew, serving K-3; Willie Brown Jr. serving 4-6; and Gloria R. Davis, which, now serves 7-9. Davis was envisioned as a high school that would run through 12th grade. But it has been unable to recruit new students to upper grades, or retain Dream School students once they reach high school age. Its ninth-grade class currently has 26 students and four teachers.
The district has been looking at reconfiguring the grades at several of the Dream Schools to phase out upper grades. Hoover Liddell, a former district leader serving as a consultant to the superintendent, presented several proposals that community leaders in Bayview and at the affected schools had developed. These included:
GreatSchools.net Correspondent
- Big Expansion of Language Programs Backed
- Move to Reconfigure Dream Schools
The Board of Education's Curriculum and Program Committee endorsed a resolution last night that would greatly expand the district’s language immersion programs and foreign language offerings. The resolution by Commissioners Dan Kelly, Eric Mar and Norman Yee would seek to provide every student the opportunity to graduate SFUSD with native-language fluency in English and another language. The resolution would "allow parents to decide what second language their children will acquire upon entering the district’s kindergarten."
The proposal calls upon the superintendent to coordinate a one-year study and develop a plan, to be presented to the board by October 1, 2007, that could be phased in over a number of years. The study would be overseen by a 21-member Blue Ribbon Task Force comprising parents, teachers, school planners, language experts, business organizations and civic leaders in consultation with the district’s bilingual community council. The resolution will be voted on by the full board at the next regular meeting, December 12.
The resolution did not lay out specifics for achieving its goal. Mar said one likely component would be to expand the two-way immersion programs that have been highly popular at the district, and to expand opportunities for such programs beyond fifth grade, at which most of the current programs end.
Move to Reconfigure Dream Schools
With Gloria R. Davis, a "Dream School," unable to recruit students to fill its upper grades, the committee endorsed a proposal to reconfigure the Dream Schools in a way that would relocate or phase out the high school portion.
The Dream School program, established two years ago, is aimed at reforming lower-performing schools with a highly academic curriculum, required student uniforms, a longer school day and Saturday schools. The idea at the time was for Dream Schools to present a unified program running from pre-K through 12th grade. The current Dream Schools are Charles Drew, serving K-3; Willie Brown Jr. serving 4-6; and Gloria R. Davis, which, now serves 7-9. Davis was envisioned as a high school that would run through 12th grade. But it has been unable to recruit new students to upper grades, or retain Dream School students once they reach high school age. Its ninth-grade class currently has 26 students and four teachers.
The district has been looking at reconfiguring the grades at several of the Dream Schools to phase out upper grades. Hoover Liddell, a former district leader serving as a consultant to the superintendent, presented several proposals that community leaders in Bayview and at the affected schools had developed. These included:
- Keep Drew K-3; Have a "Drew" campus at Brown for 4-5 and another campus at Brown for 6-8; and close Davis.
- Close Drew at its current location; open a Drew campus at Brown for K-5; and maintain Davis as a 6-8.
- Keep Drew K-3; Have Brown be 4-5 and Davis serve 6-8. In this model, the focus at Brown would be getting kids to grade level by fifth grade; at Davis, the focus would be on helping students qualify for admission to Lowell, a high school with a merit-based admissions process.
Labels: GreatSchools.net, School Board Notes, SFUSD Politics
New school run by outsiders: a harmful proposal
The proposal by an out-of-town organization, the Coalition of Essential Schools, to create a new school in San Francisco's Bayview district is still on the table. I'm posting an updated explanation about why that plan is misguided.
Enrollment in SFUSD is dropping as families move away, a situation universally blamed on San Francisco's astronomical housing prices. If a new school is started, an existing school will have to close, a painful and divisive process.
A new school would drain resources away from nearby existing schools – and those would be vulnerable schools serving vulnerable kids in the same community, such as Burton, Marshall, June Jordan, Leadership and Balboa.
SFUSD has a number of small schools, and demand for seats in them is not exceeding supply overall. SFUSD also has three larger high schools organized into "small learning communities," a design that combines the benefits of a small school with the resources a larger school can offer.
There is not a clear pattern of higher achievement overall at SFUSD’s existing small schools, nor of higher achievement for African-American and Latino students. So the idea that small schools are so effective that it’s worth harming other schools is not based on reality.
In fact, most of the high schools in greatest demand, with the most applications per opening, and with the highest achievement are the larger, comprehensive high schools.
As an out-of-town organization, the Coalition of Essential Schools may not be familiar with the complexities of our district. Apparently, CES also has no track record of operating schools on its own. (Its website is murky on this issue. Its website, by the way, also lists the Bayview school as a done deal.) A new school would not only do undoubted damage to other schools and probably lead to closures — it would also be a huge gamble.
The implication that SFUSD needs more small schools is based on a misunderstanding of the situation. It would be far more effective to put the resources into the existing schools serving the Bayview, and perhaps to find a home there for one of the existing charters (City Arts & Tech and Metro Arts & Tech) currently seeking a site. In addition, Leadership is relocating to the Burton campus, in the Portola district adjacent to the Bayview, a site that has always served the Bayview community. So that’s a small school right nearby, and CES is already involved with it.
The best way to support our students is to support our existing schools, not to harm them.
— Caroline
Enrollment in SFUSD is dropping as families move away, a situation universally blamed on San Francisco's astronomical housing prices. If a new school is started, an existing school will have to close, a painful and divisive process.
A new school would drain resources away from nearby existing schools – and those would be vulnerable schools serving vulnerable kids in the same community, such as Burton, Marshall, June Jordan, Leadership and Balboa.
SFUSD has a number of small schools, and demand for seats in them is not exceeding supply overall. SFUSD also has three larger high schools organized into "small learning communities," a design that combines the benefits of a small school with the resources a larger school can offer.
There is not a clear pattern of higher achievement overall at SFUSD’s existing small schools, nor of higher achievement for African-American and Latino students. So the idea that small schools are so effective that it’s worth harming other schools is not based on reality.
In fact, most of the high schools in greatest demand, with the most applications per opening, and with the highest achievement are the larger, comprehensive high schools.
As an out-of-town organization, the Coalition of Essential Schools may not be familiar with the complexities of our district. Apparently, CES also has no track record of operating schools on its own. (Its website is murky on this issue. Its website, by the way, also lists the Bayview school as a done deal.) A new school would not only do undoubted damage to other schools and probably lead to closures — it would also be a huge gamble.
The implication that SFUSD needs more small schools is based on a misunderstanding of the situation. It would be far more effective to put the resources into the existing schools serving the Bayview, and perhaps to find a home there for one of the existing charters (City Arts & Tech and Metro Arts & Tech) currently seeking a site. In addition, Leadership is relocating to the Burton campus, in the Portola district adjacent to the Bayview, a site that has always served the Bayview community. So that’s a small school right nearby, and CES is already involved with it.
The best way to support our students is to support our existing schools, not to harm them.
— Caroline
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
This week on the SfSchools Calendar
Busy week on our calendar, with lots of school enrollment activities on deck:
Tuesday, December 5
Malcolm X ES Enrollment Workshop
4:00 PM - 7:00 PM
Harbor Road/Middle Point
Enrollment Workshops sponsored by the Educational Placement (EPC) and Parents for Public Schools. District and PPS staff be available at each of the workshops to provide important enrollment information and to collect 2007-08 Enrollment Applications.
Wednesday, December 6
Developing Minds - Learning To Relate to Others
4:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Latino/Hispanic Community Meeting Room, Main Library, Lower Level
The Developing Minds video series is a success oriented approach to understanding and demystifying a student’s learning profile that focuses on strengthening strengths and developing strategies that work for children, adolescents, parents, and teachers.
Cosponsored by the San Francisco Unified School District, Schwab Learning (a service of the Charles & Helen Schwab Foundation), Community Advisory Committee for Special Education, San Francisco PTA, the San Francisco School Volunteers, Support for Families of Children with Disabilities and Friends of the San Francisco Public Library
Latino/Hispanic Community Meeting Room
Main Library, Lower Level
No advance registration needed
All programs at the Library are free.
For information, call (415) 557-4540
Cosponsored by the San Francisco Unified School District, Schwab Learning (a service of the Charles & Helen Schwab Foundation), Community Advisory Committee for Special Education, San Francisco PTA, the San Francisco School Volunteers, Support for Families of Children with Disabilities and Friends of the San Francisco Public Library
Latino/Hispanic Community Meeting Room
Main Library, Lower Level
No advance registration needed
All programs at the Library are free.
For information, call (415) 557-4540
Community Meetings Proposition H
6:00 PM - 7:30 PM
ISA @ Maxwell School, 655 De Haro Street
Please attend a community meeting on the Public Education Enrichment Fund (Prop H).
* Learn how these funds are being used to support students in our schools.
* Meet citizens on the Community Advisory Committee who are advising the Board of Education on Prop H
* Give your thoughts on how funds should be spent in future years.
Presidio Middle School
450 30th Avenue
Wednesday, November 29th
6:00-7:30 PM
Balboa High School
1000 Cayuga Avenue
Thursday, November 30
6:00-7:30 PM
ISA @ Maxwell School
655 De Haro Street
Wednesday, December 6th
6:00-7:30 PM
AP Giannini Middle School
3151 Ortega
Thursday, December 7
6:00-7:30 PM
SFUSD Translation Services will be provided at all meetings in Spanish and Chinese.
* Learn how these funds are being used to support students in our schools.
* Meet citizens on the Community Advisory Committee who are advising the Board of Education on Prop H
* Give your thoughts on how funds should be spent in future years.
Presidio Middle School
450 30th Avenue
Wednesday, November 29th
6:00-7:30 PM
Balboa High School
1000 Cayuga Avenue
Thursday, November 30
6:00-7:30 PM
ISA @ Maxwell School
655 De Haro Street
Wednesday, December 6th
6:00-7:30 PM
AP Giannini Middle School
3151 Ortega
Thursday, December 7
6:00-7:30 PM
SFUSD Translation Services will be provided at all meetings in Spanish and Chinese.
Thursday, December 7
Thurgood Marshall HS Enrollment Workshop
4:00 PM - 7:00 PM
45 Conkling/Silver
Enrollment Workshops sponsored by the Educational Placement (EPC) and Parents for Public Schools. District and PPS staff be available at each of the workshops to provide important enrollment information and to collect 2007-08 Enrollment Applications.
Community Meetings Proposition H
6:00 PM - 7:30 PM
AP Giannini Middle School, 3151 Ortega
Please attend a community meeting on the Public Education Enrichment Fund (Prop H).
* Learn how these funds are being used to support students in our schools.
* Meet citizens on the Community Advisory Committee who are advising the Board of Education on Prop H
* Give your thoughts on how funds should be spent in future years.
Presidio Middle School
450 30th Avenue
Wednesday, November 29th
6:00-7:30 PM
Balboa High School
1000 Cayuga Avenue
Thursday, November 30
6:00-7:30 PM
ISA @ Maxwell School
655 De Haro Street
Wednesday, December 6th
6:00-7:30 PM
AP Giannini Middle School
3151 Ortega
Thursday, December 7
6:00-7:30 PM
SFUSD Translation Services will be provided at all meetings in Spanish and Chinese.
* Learn how these funds are being used to support students in our schools.
* Meet citizens on the Community Advisory Committee who are advising the Board of Education on Prop H
* Give your thoughts on how funds should be spent in future years.
Presidio Middle School
450 30th Avenue
Wednesday, November 29th
6:00-7:30 PM
Balboa High School
1000 Cayuga Avenue
Thursday, November 30
6:00-7:30 PM
ISA @ Maxwell School
655 De Haro Street
Wednesday, December 6th
6:00-7:30 PM
AP Giannini Middle School
3151 Ortega
Thursday, December 7
6:00-7:30 PM
SFUSD Translation Services will be provided at all meetings in Spanish and Chinese.
BOE Buildings, Grounds, and Services Committee Meeting
Friday, December 8
Student Enrollment, Recruitment and Retention Initiative CAC
3:00 PM - 5:00 PM
555 Franklin St. in the board meeting
The Student Enrollment, Recruitment and Retention Initiative Community Advisory Committee will meet to discuss long range student enrollment, public engagement and process/policy on school closures/mergers. This is a very important meeting to come and show how important our schools are. The Board of Education will use the CAC meeting as a guide for their December 12th meeting.
Monday, December 11
Dr. George Washington Carver ES Enrollment Workshop
4:00 PM - 7:00 PM
1360 Oakdale/Jennings
Enrollment Workshops sponsored by the Educational Placement (EPC) and Parents for Public Schools. District and PPS staff be available at each of the workshops to provide important enrollment information and to collect 2007-08 Enrollment Applications.
Monday, December 04, 2006
Catching up with the School Beat
The School Beat column over on the Beyond Chron site has features a few interesting articles in the past month. Time to catch up.
Lisa Schiff wrote a nice election recap: Election Day Not Bad for Schools
Lisa Schiff wrote a nice election recap: Election Day Not Bad for Schools
The financial choices voters made were wise ones, strongly supporting the need to repair education facilities. For San Francisco, the combined threats of unsafe, inaccessible school buildings and the possibility of a takeover by a federal facilities master have been averted. Together Proposition A and 1D provide the infusion of funds required to meet our legal obligations as specified under the Lopez settlement, not to mention our ethical obligation to provide adequate buildings for our kids and their educators.Special Education is a topic that gets a lot of attention here and on the sfschools list. There are many enormous challenges that any district faces in meeting SpEd needs. Often it feels like the district is simply not getting the job done. So it is nice to read about a success story, such as the November 16th article, Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy—A Long Way From Ohio
The 2006-2007 school year has been great. Jack adores his teacher and is doing a great job with his schoolwork. He runs out to join the kids on the schoolyard at recess, and his buddies make sure to include him in their games. These are experiences he wouldn't have had if we were still in Ohio. We are so happy to be here. With a supportive environment and the right philosophies, inclusion works. Jack is living, succeeding proof that it does.Next up comes this glowing appreciation of Creative Arts Charter School from CACS parent John Perry:
Our decision to leave one of the area’s most sought-after private pre-K-to-8th-grade schools made us seem as freakish as the duck-billed platypus to some friends and acquaintances. But we’ve steadily reiterated our reasoning: The school we left was great, but after touring 14 elementary schools in the District, we couldn’t see enough of a delta between private and public. And CACS was our first choice.We do our share of debunking charter school myths around here. And Caroline will be the first to tell you that all charter schools feed into the same public school abolitionist dream. Yet charters are here. They are offering differentiated programs that in some cases are not found in other district schools. For some families, CACS might be the best option out there.
Labels: School Beat
NYT Comments on Desegregation case before the Supreme Court
The Time is reporting on the Supreme Court litigation challenging the use of race in Seattle’s "open choice" enrollment program. They cover the development in the courtroom in "Supreme Court Case Focuses on Race and Schools" and come down in favor of the Seattle and Louisville plans in this editorial: "An Assault on Local School Control"
The Louisville and Seattle plans are precisely the kind of benign race-based policies that the court has long held to be constitutional. Promoting diversity in education is a compelling state interest under the equal protection clause, and these districts are using carefully considered, narrowly tailored plans to make their schools more diverse.If you have not been paying attention to this case, this is a good time to catch up. This case will have a direct bearing on SFUSD, especially if the BOE chooses to re-introduce race into our enrollment policies.
It is startling to see the Justice Department, which was such a strong advocate for integration in the civil rights era, urging the court to strike down the plans. Its position is at odds with so much the Bush administration claims to believe. The federal government is asking federal courts to use the Constitution to overturn educational decisions made by localities. Conservative activists should be crying "judicial activism," but they do not seem to mind this activism with an anti-integration agenda.
Friday, December 01, 2006
Correlating Socioeconomic standing with API scores
Over on LeftInSF, Kim Knox takes a look at the correlation between the prevalence of socioeconomically disadvantaged students at a school and the schools API test scores. Her post is here. The discussion relates directly to the ongoing discussion about the merits of re-introducing race as a factor in school assignments.
Kim published a table showing the school's SD% and API scores and correctly concludes that the correlation between them is weak. Being a spreadsheet kind of geek, I pulled the data into Excel and looked at the correlation myself. The results are shown in this figure. Clearly, the API results are all over the place. The correlation is not only statistically weak, but fails to explain any significant portion of the variation among schools.
I took it a step further and looked at the schools that deviate furthest from the correlation. In theory, if there were a significant correlation, this should reveal the schools that have done the best or worst at overcoming their socio economic status. The "best" and "worst" are shown below. Noe that the variance from the API "predicted" by the regression is shown in the Var column.
The five "worst" schools:
And the five "best" schools are:
One thing to note is that I excluded Newcomer and Lowell from the list. They are both outliers in different direction and they both serve a select community that invalidates any API regression.
The next thing that jumps out is that elementary schools are doing relatively well compared to the high schools and middle schools. The "best" list is all elementary schools while the "worst" is predominately HS and MS. The other compelling result is that schools with a high percentage of SD students that are also majority Asian dominate the "best" list. This confirms various other analysis of SFUSD test score results that have come before. Asian kids do very well, even if they come from poor households.
In spite of this weak correlation, I feel it does not justify using race in the enrollment process. Not only would SFUSD be stepping into a legal swamp, I just don't think it is the best way to serve the neediest AA and Latino students. If the goal is to help these students, the best place to aim is in the schools they attend.
Kim published a table showing the school's SD% and API scores and correctly concludes that the correlation between them is weak. Being a spreadsheet kind of geek, I pulled the data into Excel and looked at the correlation myself. The results are shown in this figure. Clearly, the API results are all over the place. The correlation is not only statistically weak, but fails to explain any significant portion of the variation among schools.
I took it a step further and looked at the schools that deviate furthest from the correlation. In theory, if there were a significant correlation, this should reveal the schools that have done the best or worst at overcoming their socio economic status. The "best" and "worst" are shown below. Noe that the variance from the API "predicted" by the regression is shown in the Var column.
The five "worst" schools:
| SD% | School | API | Var |
|---|---|---|---|
| 48% | Gloria R. Davis MS | 561 | -192 |
| 45% | John O'Connell HS | 565 | -191 |
| 52% | Bessie Carmichael ES | 562 | -188 |
| 53% | Mission HS | 562 | -187 |
| 60% | Everett MS | 558 | -184 |
| 24% | Metropolitan Arts and Technology Charter School | 594 | -181 |
| SD% | School | API | Var |
|---|---|---|---|
| 32% | West Portal ES | 900 | 132 |
| 45% | Lawton ES | 891 | 135 |
| 80% | John Yehall Chin ES | 873 | 149 |
| 55% | Ulloa ES | 897 | 150 |
| 26% | Alice Fong Yu ES | 944 | 171 |
The next thing that jumps out is that elementary schools are doing relatively well compared to the high schools and middle schools. The "best" list is all elementary schools while the "worst" is predominately HS and MS. The other compelling result is that schools with a high percentage of SD students that are also majority Asian dominate the "best" list. This confirms various other analysis of SFUSD test score results that have come before. Asian kids do very well, even if they come from poor households.
In spite of this weak correlation, I feel it does not justify using race in the enrollment process. Not only would SFUSD be stepping into a legal swamp, I just don't think it is the best way to serve the neediest AA and Latino students. If the goal is to help these students, the best place to aim is in the schools they attend.
Deadline for meal applications approaching!
The deadline for meal applications to be returned to Student Nutrition Services (SNS) in order to qualify as part of this year's "official" free/reduced percentage is December 15th. Note that applications must be received at SNS by the 15th, which means realistically that they need to be returned to the school by the 13th or 14th, in order for there to be time to get them downtown by the 15th.
Although it is never too late for a family to turn in a meal application for their child to qualify for free or reduced price meals, there is a point at which the percentage of qualifying students at each school is "fixed" for the year for data purposes. This figure then becomes the "official" figure for free/reduced lunch for that school for that year. It is used for things like determining eligibility for grants, and as a factor in calculating the school's Academic Performance Index.
This is a good time for schools to make one final pitch to their parents to please fill out the meal application if they have not already done so. You can help by asking your Principal what your school is doing between now and the 15th to get more meal apps returned. Some schools are holding competitions among homerooms for the most meal apps returned, or raffles for kids who turn in their meal application now. Lists showing which students in a school have not yet turned in a meal application are available from Student Nutrition Services; the Principal can call and ask for their list if they have not already received it.
A letter explaining to parents why it is so important to get their forms returned, and reminding them that a meal application will not affect or endanger their immigration status, is available in English, Spanish, and Chinese here.
Again, although it is better for the school if parents return their meal applications before December 15th, the forms are still accepted later, and a family which, for whatever reason, has not been able to return the form by December 15th can still get free or reduced price meals for their kids by turning in the form in January or later.
For more on school food in the SFUSD, please visit www.sfusdfood.org
Although it is never too late for a family to turn in a meal application for their child to qualify for free or reduced price meals, there is a point at which the percentage of qualifying students at each school is "fixed" for the year for data purposes. This figure then becomes the "official" figure for free/reduced lunch for that school for that year. It is used for things like determining eligibility for grants, and as a factor in calculating the school's Academic Performance Index.
This is a good time for schools to make one final pitch to their parents to please fill out the meal application if they have not already done so. You can help by asking your Principal what your school is doing between now and the 15th to get more meal apps returned. Some schools are holding competitions among homerooms for the most meal apps returned, or raffles for kids who turn in their meal application now. Lists showing which students in a school have not yet turned in a meal application are available from Student Nutrition Services; the Principal can call and ask for their list if they have not already received it.
A letter explaining to parents why it is so important to get their forms returned, and reminding them that a meal application will not affect or endanger their immigration status, is available in English, Spanish, and Chinese here.
Again, although it is better for the school if parents return their meal applications before December 15th, the forms are still accepted later, and a family which, for whatever reason, has not been able to return the form by December 15th can still get free or reduced price meals for their kids by turning in the form in January or later.
For more on school food in the SFUSD, please visit www.sfusdfood.org
Labels: Nutrition
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