School Board Notes 4.26.07

School Board Notes 4.26.07
By Nicole Achs Freeling
GreatSchools.net Correspondent

• Interviews to Begin for New Superintendent
• Committee Considers New Administrative Positions
• Board Votes on Cuts to Paraprofessionals

Interviews to Begin for New Superintendent

The board is on schedule with its "aggressive timeline" to hire a new superintendent, Commissioner Norman Yee said on Thursday evening at a meeting of the Ad Hoc Committee on Personnel. So far, the search firm has about 15 to 20 applications, but search leaders said they expected some of the best candidates to apply toward the end of the search to protect against leaks and rumors. The board expects to have all the applications in and begin conducting interviews by the second week of May.

The board will meet as a Committee of the Whole on Saturday from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. to discuss how its role should intersect with that of the superintendent. "We'll be hearing for the first time then about what we have" in terms of applications, Yee said. "But we won't know about a lot of these folks until the last minute."

Committee Considers New Administrative Positions

The committee discussed three new administrative positions it is seeking to fill, one to manage funding and programs associated with Proposition H, the Public Education Enrichment Fund; one to coordinate the district's newly adopted Small Schools by Design Initiative; and one to conduct internal financial audits.

Yee said he expected all the positions to funded through either outside or dedicated funds within the district, rather than unrestricted funds, where the district is facing the most budgetary pressure.

Board members considered the value of hiring an internal auditor. Discussion has come up regularly over the years that the district might save money by having someone investigate spending. At the same time, district financial advisor Joe Graziola said, it should be someone who could create real operating efficiencies. "Just looking to see where we can save money, we do every day," he said.

Board members directed staff to write a job description for the internal auditor position so they would know more specifically what it encompassed. Staff has begun recruiting for the Prop. H coordinator position, although the Prop. H budget has yet to be approved by the Board of Supervisors. One of the district's senior staff members will assume the post of small schools coordinator, according to staff member Orla O'Keefe.

Board Votes on Cuts to Paraprofessionals

Later, the board reconvened to vote on whether to lay off 16 paraprofessionals. The cuts were narrowly approved, after members wrestling with issues of how much the move would save the district and whether there were other options. Commissioners Yee, Jill Wynns, Hydra Mendoza and Jane Kim voted for the cuts; Commissioners Mark Sanchez, Kim-Shree Maufus and Eric Mar voted against them.

"The elephant in the room is that were in negotiation with the union and we want to do everything possible to show we're negotiating in good faith," Sanchez said.

One of the biggest issue was concern over the seniority of the individuals involved. One has 25 years' experience with the district, and many others have long histories of service as well. District staff said that, because many of these positions have not been filled in a long time, there are no less senior staff members to lay off. But Yee observed, "When you've been in the district 25 years, it doesn't make any sense you can't do anything else within the district."

There was also concern about the accuracy of the $680,000 estimate that staff said the layoffs would save the district. "That seems like a large overestimation given the salary numbers we're seeing." Staff, for its part, defended the numbers, saying the district has worked from every angle to reduce the layoffs to the lowest number possible. "I can't stress the enough: we do not like taking this before the board, and we take this very seriously," O'Keefe said. "Nobody is putting their thumb on the scale."

The affected employees will be encouraged to apply for open positions within the district, mainly in special education and child development. Last year, the district was able to re-employ 19 of the 38 employees it laid off.

S.F. teens duck hail of bullets! (Not)

I'd panic if I were raising young kids in San Francisco and read Leslie Kirk Campbell's article BULLETPROOF: When San Francisco teenage gun violence comes too close to home

in today's Chronicle Sunday Magazine. It portrays our teens as being forced to choose between living in a Wild West urban landscape where violent strangers fire bullets into them as a matter of course — or cowering safely at home behind drawn curtains at all times.

Of course I know there are shootings in our city streets, especially in high-crime neighborhoods, in which low-income families struggle to survive and keep their kids safe.

But for a family that doesn't live in a really blighted neighborhood? It doesn't feel to me like my kids are in danger every minute. Fear that he will be shot is not high on the list of reasons that I'm relieved that my 16-year-old is not inclined to go out roaming much — he has too many scheduled activities and is fond of electronic entertainment and books at home. (Though it's not like he stays home at all times.) The article made me wonder if I were in denial and think about whether — like Campbell's son — my son is paying hospital visits and mourning friends and classmates who have been gunned down.

Actually, I can't think of a single one. My kids have been lucky in so far escaping tragedy closely touching their lives (I think I'm supposed to spit three times here to keep the evil eye away — shouldn't there be an emoticon for that?).

• A schoolmate of my son's, whom my son barely knows by sight, has been hospitalized for months with major injuries from an accident involving the L-Taraval.
  
• A popular and widely admired recent graduate of his school was killed in an auto accident on I-80 on the way to Tahoe. My son didn't know her, but his older schoolmates did, and the school held a huge celebration of her life.
• A student at his middle school was tragically shot to death — nowhere near school — the spring before my son started sixth grade there. The boy was killed near his home in the Alemany Housing Projects; as I recall it was a bullet aimed at his brother, a gang member.
• As we have many friends who are families at Balboa High, we know people who knew the student who was tragically shot to death on a Muni bus after school a few years ago.
• And our friends Lynn, Margo and Kenny were held up at gunpoint on Arlington Street in Glen Park/Fairmount years ago, when Kenny, now a high school sophomore, was about 6. It was terrifying, but no shots were fired.

Jeez, I'm running out. How about people known by anyone else in my family? The son of a colleague and friend has made an amazing recovery from nearly fatal head injuries suffered months ago in a skateboard accident. In Ross, wealthiest enclave in Marin, not the gritty urban streets of San Francisco.

Hmm. Maybe we're living in a bubble or a delusion, but my teen seems to be living in a different world from Campbell's. It can't be a totally different world geographically, as she mentions living four minutes from Glen Park, where one of his acquaintances was gunned down, and we also live four minutes from Glen Park. It's hard to speculate on why her son's world and mine are so different. Her son spends a lot of time roaming the city at night, and I can't help wondering what kind of crowd he has fallen into at his "college-prep charter school." If I were this boy's mom I'd be worried too.

Property crimes? We got 'em. Only yesterday my son's school held a fundraising event to replace musical instruments that were stolen in a break-in over spring vacation.

But based on my kids' lives (invoke whatever other charms, superstitions and spells are appropriate here), parents of younger children, assuming they can afford to live outside truly dangerous parts of town, don't need to panic about flying bullets. For the record, I'm a strong opponent of access to guns. But in my world, they're not the scourge of our teens that the Chronicle article portrays.

— Caroline

Admission stats revisited

Since I posted some scary news about college admissions, I'm happy to point to a less alarmist review of the same news. Kevin Carey, a contributor to The Quick and the Ed, takes a closer look at why the rising tide of college applications and the every diminishing admit rates are nothing to fear in this American Prospect article: Admission Impossible?

Every spring, the media send a bolt of fear into the heart of the upper middle class. The message is clear: 'Your children are never getting into a good college.'

As Ivy League universities report -- once again -- that admissions rates have fallen to record lows, newspapers rush to publish stories documenting the increasingly 'frenzied' (variants: 'frantic,' 'brutal') competition among students vying for a coveted slot in an elite school. The stock characters include the tearful student -- dreams crushed under an avalanche of rejection letters -- the angry parent, the frenzied guidance counselor, and the college admissions official or other expert who notes with grateful wonder, 'If I had to apply to my alma mater today, I couldn't get in.'

There's just one problem: it's not true. The declining odds of getting into an elite college are mostly a statistical mirage, caused by confusion between college applicants and college applications.

His analysis makes sense to me, and fits with comments others made to me after I posted the scary news. Unfortunately, I doubt the general hysteria surrounding the college admissions process will subside any time soon, so students will continue to make ever more applications, which will drive the scary numbers to ever scarier extremes.

KIPP just keeps on losing students

The California Department of Education has just posted school-by-school enrollment figures for the current (06-07) school year, giving us an interesting new look at the KIPP schools right here in our district.

The pattern of attrition continues in both KIPP San Francisco Bay Academy and KIPP Bayview, raising questions. Both schools, which are grade 5-8 middle schools, are in their fourth year and have just expanded this year to 8th grade. At each school, the 5th-grade class that started there when they opened is in 8th grade now.

Here are their total numbers:

KIPP San Francisco Bay, 8th-grade class that started as 5th-graders in fall 2003:
73 students (grade 5, 03-04)
78 students (grade 6, 04-05)
56 students (grade 7, 05-06)
33 students (grade 8, 06-07)

The class has lost 54.8% of the students who started. Note that this figure is from fall of 8th grade. It's unknown how many of those students will graduate from the school, of course.

KIPP Bayview Academy, 8th-grade class that started as 5th-graders in fall 2003:
81 students (grade 5, 03-04)
85 students (grade 6, 04-05)
55 students (grade 7, 05-06)
40 students (grade 8, 06-07)

The class has lost 50.6% of the students who started. Again, this figure is from fall of 8th grade and we don't know how many will be left by graduation.

Here's what's puzzling. If a traditional public school lost all those kids, it would have to replace them, because each kid brings funding, and no school in our district can afford to lose all that funding. Is this not a problem to KIPP, and if not, why not? Is the funding setup different for charters, or does the massive private funding they get make up for the lost funding so amply that it doesn't matter?

I had already been noting the pattern at those schools of extra-high attrition of African-American boys, who are statistically the most academically challenged subgroup. That pattern continues too:

KIPP San Francisco Bay Academy, African-American boys in the 8th-grade class that started as 5th-graders in fall 2003:
13 (grade 5, 03-04)
20 (grade 6, 04-05)
10 (grade 7, 05-06)
3 (grade 8, 06-07)

KIPP SF Bay lost 77% of its African-American boys. Again, we don't know if all of the remaining 3 will graduate.

KIPP Bayview Academy, African-American boys in the 8th-grade class that started as 5th-graders in fall 2003:
24 (grade 5, 03-04)
18 (grade 6, 04-05)
12 (grade 7, 05-06)
8 (grade 8, 06-07)

KIPP Bayview lost 66.6% of its African-American boys. Again, we don't know if all of the remaining 8 will graduate.

These schools are in our district -- KIPP is technically headquartered here -- and they're getting massive private funding along with public money. They are widely touted as the solution for low-income African-American and Latino students. Their success or failure directly affects us. This seems like an issue that deserves some attention.

The Washington Post's Jay Mathews writes: "I continue to look for programs that have done better than KIPP in raising the achievement level of low-income children, the central problem in American education today. I have not found any yet ..."

But is he comparing KIPP with other schools that shed more than half of their students? If not, he's not making a sound comparison.

The California KIPP school with the most striking attrition rate is Oakland's KIPP Bridge Academy, which opened in fall 2002 and thus had an 8th grade class finish last year (2006).

The posted enrollment figures on KIPP Bridge showed that the total enrollment in that grade fell from 87 students in 5th grade to 36 in 8th grade. Mathews interviewed the principal about that, and learned that the number who finished 8th grade was actually 24. That means 72.4% of the students who started in that grade left the school.

In the class behind that one, 82 students started grade 5 in 2003, and the number was down to 39 by the fall of 8th grade. Again, we don't know how many will graduate.

KIPP Bridge's numbers are startling for African-American boys:

KIPP Bridge, African-American boys in the 8th-grade class that started
as 5th-graders in fall 2002:
35 (grade 5, 02-03)
19 (grade 6, 03-04)
15 (grade 7, 04-05)
8 (grade 8, 05-06)

77.2% of the African-American males in the class left by the fall of 8th grade. It's unknown how many graduated -- Jay says he didn't ask how many finished 8th grade.

KIPP Bridge, African-American boys in the 8th-grade class that started as 5th-graders in fall 2003:
38 (grade 5, 03-04)
31 (grade 6, 04-05)
17 (grade 7, 05-06)
11 (grade 8, 06-07)

71.1% of the African-American males who started the class in 5th grade had left by fall of 8th grade. Again, we don't know how many will finish 8th grade.

These numbers raise a lot of questions that aren't getting asked — certainly not by the private funders who are pouring money into KIPP. We do need to ask the questions about the KIPP schools in our own district, though.

— Caroline

Who's behind the KIPP PR machine?

Jay matthews a prominent education reporter for the Washington Post, takes a sober look at KIPP schools in Looking at KIPP, Coolly and Carefully. He admits tht KIPP has been the beneficiary of uncritical praise, which he pins on sloppy journalists. While that is definitely part of the problem, it leaves out the role foundations and other well heeled advocates that promote stories like KIPP to these reporters.

So when Matthews went looking for critics to counter the KIPP-as-inner-city-savior PR, who does he call?

Caroline Grannan, a public school advocate and blogger who follows charter school issues, said "KIPP schools succeed for some students--but it's a select subset of students. KIPP is evidently not the solution to the challenges facing urban public education. It would be wonderful to see the vast private funding that's poured into the KIPP schools, which serve just that limited subset, benefiting a larger segment of high-need students."

Nice to see a more sober assessment of KIPP in a major media outlet. Nice to see our own charter skeptic reaching a wider audience. Caroline has written extensively about KIPP over the years. Here are some of her KIPP realted posts from our archives:

• Where have all the KIPPsters gone?
• A former KIPP insider becomes a skeptic
• Taxpayers fund booze, karaoke for KIPP
• The New York Times and KIPP
• The missing KIPP students
• High-scoring KIPP and its mysterious ways
• Harmful fads 1A: Edison and KIPP
• Charter schools' press vs. reality

School Boad Notes 4.24.07

School Boad Notes 4.24.07
By Nicole Achs Freeling
GreatSchools.net Correspondent

• Teachers Rally for New Contract
• Board Considers Paraprofessional Layoffs
• Update on Proposition H Debate
• New Programs Open to Serve Hearing-Impaired
• Bus Drivers Honored

Teachers Rally for New Contract

Some 300 teachers and school employees gathered before Tuesday night's meeting to turn up the heat on contract negotiations with the district. The teachers hope to have the contract decided by the end of the school year. So far, however, union representatives say there has been little discussion on key issues, namely across-the-board pay increases and increased benefits for paraprofessionals.

United Educators of San Francisco, the teachers union, is calling for 6 percent raises for its members. The figure, according to union President Dennis Kelly, represents a 4 percent cost of living increase — the same amount given from the state to the district — and the growing costs employees are paying for health insurance. The union is also calling for contract changes that would give paraprofessionals, the assistants who support teachers in the classroom, the same rights as teachers, including bereavement leave, paid time off for jury duty, full binding arbitration for disputes and enhanced retirement benefits.

In spite of the spirited rally, Kelly said the feeling about the negotiations was "much different" this time than two years ago, when a tense relationship with district leadership helped push the teachers to the brink of a strike. This board has generally been more supportive of the unions, including setting up a special committee to deal with personnel and labor issues at the behest of board President Mark Sanchez.

Board Considers Paraprofessional Layoffs

Later in the meeting, the board took up the issue of whether to lay off 16 paraprofessionals. The school site councils have turned in their budgets, and several have identified paraprofessional jobs as an area that could be cut. Employee groups, however, took umbrage at the proposed job cuts. Public school activist Kim Knox pointed out that the board is also deciding on whether to hire three new administrators, at salary and benefit costs of about $100,000 each. One of the paraprofessionals up for a layoff has been working for the district since 1982.

Chief of Policy and Planning Myong Leigh also observed that as the number of students in the district continues to drop, the number of adults serving those children will also decline. Union leaders asked if temporary paraprofessionals, of which their are 450 in the district, could be laid off instead.

The schools at which the paraprofessional position would be eliminated are: Bessie Carmichael (3), Filipino Education Center (1), Daniel Webster Child Development Center (1), Cobb Child Development Center (1), Gloria R. Davis Academy, now at Thurgood Marshall (1).

The board decided to reconvene after Thursday's Personnel Committee meeting for a vote on the issue. If the paraprofessionals are to be laid off, notices must be sent out by Friday to go into effect at the end of the school year, according to a state law requiring 45 days' notice.

Update on Proposition H Debate

Briefing the public on discussions with the Board of Supervisors, Commissioner Jane Kim said the two bodies had reached an agreement on how to define so called in-kind services, those that the city will give the district instead of cash under Proposition H. They agreed on several things, according to Kim:

• In-kind services will cover only new services to the district, not thing the city already provides.
• A committee will be developed comprising members of the Proposition H Citizens Advisory Committee; the city's Department of Children, Youth and Families; district staff; and the city controller's office. That committee will develop a list of potential in-kind services.
• There is no need for the district to put a minimum dollar amount on the use of in-kind services in the next year.

Board members asked what to do about a pending resolution that called for including at least $2.5 million in in-kind services in the next year's Prop. H plan. The resolution was controversial as it represented a large increase over this year's use in-kind services, valued at $250,000. Sanchez, the author of the resolution, has the authority to hold off on the measure. "I don't plan on bringing it before the board any time soon," he said.

Opponents have said using in-kind services limits the district's ability to employ Prop. H funds and robs it of cash to start new programs.

New Programs Open to Serve Hearing-Impaired

Staff working on a program started in 2005 to serve deaf and hearing-impaired students gave the district an update on it progress. In the past two years, the program has hired an administrator and developed a structure. Now it is involved in actually establishing programs in the schools.

This year, the program has opened a learning center for 18- to 36-month-olds at Tule Elk Child Development Center, which uses both sign language and spoken communication. It has opened a K-2 speech-based program at Cesar Chavez Elementary. Magnet programs with special services for deaf and hearing-impaired students have been established at Claire Lilienthal Elementary, Lilienthal and Aptos middle schools and John O'Connell High School. A pre-K program including both speech and sign language is scheduled for completion in October.

Bus Drivers Honored

The district presented an award of commendation to the San Francisco bus drivers, who not only have an excellent safety record but have also pitched in countless hours to support children and the district in their off-duty time, according to board members. The San Francisco bus drivers have never had a fatality, either on board or with students crossing the street to get on and off. Bus driver Brock Estes applauded the efforts of drivers like Jose Perez, who has saved the lives of at least two people in his duties by calling 911 and administering first aid.

Hydra on the "Partnership for Achievement"

Check out BOE Commissioner Hydra Mendoza's post on Gavin Newsom's Act Locally SF blog: Education Policy in America; Education Policy in San Francisco

n recent years, many models for improving our education system have emerged from around the country. Chicago, Boston and New York City went to full mayoral control of their school systems while Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has fought for increased influence over the schools in his city.

Every city has to choose what works best for them. Gavin Newsom and reformers like myself have chosen a different path. By blurring the lines between city government and our school district, we hope to form a collaboration to improve San Francisco’s school district.

Playing the hand that's been dealt

Here's a curious and unfortunate story woven from unexpected threads. Who knew there was a SFUSD page on Yelp? Did you know the Chron has a local news blog? Wasn't that formerly called 'the newspaper'? Did you know that the ed beat reporter, Jill Tucker, is a relatively frequent contributor?

Here's her latest post. I'm not sure it really means much, and it is definitely voyeuristic. But check this out: Oprah -- the ace in the hole for school assignment:

Many San Francisco parents will try to use whatever means they have available to get their children into a preferred public school: political pull, nagging and maybe some crying.

Kati Kim, whose husband James died in the Oregon wilderness in December trying to save his family, says she has an impressive ace in the hole: Oprah.

Kudos to Kati for her determination to go public and for working the process. I'm genuinely sorry for her and for any family that has not secured an assignment at any of their chosen schools. From a safe distance it is easy to note that most families have better luck. And from her perspective, any lever that can be pulled should be pulled. We can be as idealistic as we want, but when it comes to our own kids, anything goes. So if Oprah and Katie Couric are there for her, she should play that ace in the hole if it comes to that. Who could begrudge her?

Let's hope it doesn't come to that. With her evident diligence and patience, I doubt it will.

Why you should care about the "Farm Bill"

Who cares about the "Farm Bill", right? After all, no one I know is a farmer. Farming is big industry here in California, but it has little to do with my life, right? Besides, what could be more off topic to an Ed blog than talk of the "Farm Bill"?

The answers are all found in this very engaging article from this week's Sunday New York Times Magazine: You Are What You Grow by Michael Pollin, author of "The Omnivore’s Dilemma."

The farm bill helps determine what sort of food your children will have for lunch in school tomorrow. The school-lunch program began at a time when the public-health problem of America’s children was undernourishment, so feeding surplus agricultural commodities to kids seemed like a win-win strategy. Today the problem is overnutrition, but a school lunch lady trying to prepare healthful fresh food is apt to get dinged by U.S.D.A. inspectors for failing to serve enough calories; if she dishes up a lunch that includes chicken nuggets and Tater Tots, however, the inspector smiles and the reimbursements flow. The farm bill essentially treats our children as a human Disposall for all the unhealthful calories that the farm bill has encouraged American farmers to overproduce.

The cold hard reality of federal agricultural policy are on full display here in San Francisco USD. The Herculean efforts by the hard working members of the Student Nutrition and Physical Activity Committee are no match for the forces unleashed by this federal policy. They can, and have, done wonders for our kids. But there are stark limits to what can be accomplished without confronting federal farm policy, either with an infusion of money to overcome the economic incentives encoded in the farm bill, or by legislating meaningful changes to those incentive. Which is why I urge you to read this very well written article.

PPS Community Meeting

Saturday's calendar was triple booked, with Support for Families of Children with Disabilities's 2007 Information & Resource Conference at O'Connell High, DCYF's Community Policy Forum on Youth Issues with Mayor Newsom at Excelsior Boys and Girls Club, and Parents for Public Schools' Annual General and Community Meeting at Moscone ES. So what's a poor local ed blogger to do?

I skipped all the meetings and worked out. Then I dropped in on the PPS event to check it out and snap a few shots. Turns out I dropped in on the lunch part of the program where members of the BOE sat down with the attendees and got a chance for some direct one on one dialog. Very cool. Commissioners Sanchex, Wynns, Mar, and Mendoza were in attendance.I discovered what many real photographers understand: it's difficult to get a good shot of someone eating, or talking politics in the lively hubub of a well attended luncheon. It was a welcome chance for yours truly to meet these commissioners and shake their hands. We get very hot-blooded and forceful about our politics, but it is imperative to counter that polarized, charged dynamic with some simple person to person connections.

The agenda for the meeting centered on the recent findings published by the Community Advisory Committee on Student Enrollment Recruitment and Retention (CACSERR). Lisa Schiff has this article about the process and the finding. I'm sorry I missed the business end of the meeting. But luckily the peripatetic Kim Knox did not miss a beat, or at least caught two of the three beats which is a much as one human could do this Saturday. Check out her reports over on LeftInSf: Kudos to Annual Meeting of Parents for Public Schools and Newsom’s Town Hall Meeting on Youth.

New kid in town

One of my all-time favorite web resources for parents in San Francisco is undergoing a massive change today. San Francisco GoKid.org has been replaced by SFKids.org. What had been a non-profit labor of love dating back to the early days of the web is now growing up, moving out of it's old home, and hopefully maturing into an even more comprehensive and sustainable resource for all San Francisco families.

Here's the mayor's introduction to the new site:

We are proud to present this dynamic new website for San Francisco families. SFkids is created by real San Francisco parents from the City & County of San Francisco Department of Children, Youth and Their Families, working with their nonprofit partner GoKid.org. SFkids is designed to help every family in every neighborhood of our beautiful City raise healthy, happy children from babies to young adulthood. Please enjoy this site...and tell your friends!
— Mayor Gavin Newsom

My first impressiions are positive. Gone is the folksy, hand-made look and feel of the old site. The new design is much more polished and readable. The site navigation is clear. The depth of content promises to be more extensive. The old site featured a small number of pages that scrolled enlessly on and on. The type was too small. The pages didn't print well. But we gladly put up with the shortcomings because the site was so useful. On the reborn site we see many more pages that are cleaner, prettier, and more accessible. The downside is that you have to click further into the site to get what you want.

I really like what I see, but I can't help but worry that the new DCYF publishers will not be as responsive and approachable as the original team, or that they will have their own agenda that will be freighted with territorial bureaucracy and city politics. The fact that the front page on launch day features a smiling picture of the mayor along with the DYCF pandering above does not fill me with confidence that the new incarnation of this site will maintain the level of integrity and clear purpose of the old site. If the new owners waste precious space promoting themselves and their political patrons, the site will quickly become irrelevant.

For now let's give everyone the benefit of the doubt and celebrate an impressive upgrade to a venerable local web resource. Congratulations!

Community Conversations On Student Enrollment, Recruitment & Retention

Hat tip to the PEN Newsblast that brings us this notice:

COMMUNITY CONVERSATIONS ON STUDENT ENROLLMENT, RECRUITMENT & RETENTION
With a long tradition of serving as a bridge between the community and public schools, the San Francisco Education Fund, a local education fund, is experienced in engaging individuals, organizations and institutions in positive action around public education. A new report -- "Student Enrollment, Recruitment and Retention: Community Conversations about San Francisco Schools" -- is the culmination of a six-month public engagement effort jointly led by the San Francisco Education Fund (Ed Fund), the San Francisco Board of Education Parent Advisory Council (PAC) the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD), Parents for Public Schools-San Francisco (PPS), María-Fernanda Gonzalez, a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, and Collaborative Communications Group. The report shares what the working group heard about community members’ values, hopes and goals for San Francisco public schools. The more they talked with students, parents and community members, the louder they heard that, while we all might differ on the details, we share a sense of what matters, as articulated in six priorities: (1) Quality Schools - Parents use test scores as shorthand for evaluating academic achievement, but their demand for quality, and what it takes to help their children learn, is much more complex; (2) Safe Schools and Neighborhoods - Parents are concerned about their children’s physical and emotional safety. (3) Strong School Communities - Parents think of their children’s schools as small communities. (4) A System that Works for Families - Parents want to feel that the District is on their side. (5) A Fair System - Parents want consistency, predictability and equity. (5) Effective Leadership - Parents want the district to have a proactive, clear, long-term plan. This report provides the most definitive feedback on what the San Francisco stakeholders need, want, and expect for the future of San Francisco public schools.

You can read the report here. I'm just starting into it, and this teaser:

We held intimate community conversations in nearly every corner of San Francisco to hear what over 900 parents and community members want for and from the schools in our city. What we heard was worth the effort. Within and across conversations, we heard striking commonalities and important differences that we will explore in this report.

Interesting.

CNET resource for kids' on-line safety

This is slightly off-topic, but readers of a site focused on local school issues are pretty likely to be interested in understanding and managing the on-line safety of their kids and students. CNET has just published a site that looks like a promising source for information on many different aspects of kids' on-line safety.

CNET's guide to keeping your kids safe online:

Children can learn a lot from the Internet--and they can also pretty quickly run into trouble, if they're not careful. You parents out there are no doubt already grappling with the challenges of watching where your kids go online and what they see and do.

CNET's Living with Technology feature "Keep your kids safe online" can help you prepare them, and yourselves, for these new rites of passage. This online safety guide features a number of articles, videos and do-it-yourself tips, along with forums where you can post questions and provide answers to your peers. It's designed to be a site you can bookmark and check back with regularly.

The stated intention is for this site to grow and evolve and become a source for current information. Already it boasts an impressive variety of articles, including:

• Keep your kids safe online
• Developing safe and smart Internet citizens
• Parental controls that keep tabs on young Web surfers
• Top 5 Internet dangers for kids: A resource guide

Jefferson Award Presented to Dana Woldow

Congratulations to Dana Woldow, recipient of a Jefferson Award. Dana is a long-standing member of the sfschools list and an occasional contributor to this blog who has worked tirelessly to improve student nutrition.

Jefferson Award Presented to Dana Woldow: San Francisco schools are kissing junk food goodbye. Here's why.

Dana Woldow, a mother of three and school volunteer, was horrified when she found out how much junk food was available to students in San Francisco public schools. So, in 2002, she got together with parents, teachers and students at Aptos Middle School and formed the San Francisco Unified School District's Student Nutrition and Physical Activity Committee.

The Jefferson Awards "were established in 1972 to encourage and honor individuals for their achievements and contributions through public and community service." Dana's passionate, tireless, prodigious efforts to reform student nutrition make her an ideal candidate for this recognition.

It's not Dana's nature to promote herself, so she worries that the article and this award makes her look like she's trying to claim all the credit on her own. She has consistently described this as a group effort. Be that as it may, this group effort would never have sustained itself nor accomplished so much without her exemplary efforts.

A college-admissions presentation worth sharing

Reposting this report from Caroline:

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April 14, 2007

An overflow crowd of parents, students and guests jammed the San Francisco School of the Arts library Thursday evening to hear college admissions expert and author Peter Van Buskirk explode myths about getting into college.

Van Buskirk’s presentation, and his new book, are titled "Winning the College Admission Game," a name that’s not terribly appealing to "keep it real" types — but the engaging presentation made up for that.

A former admissions officer at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa., Van Buskirk portrays the array of college choices as a pyramid. The Lofty Status Names cluster at the pinnacle, gazing down upon descending levels of cachet. At the bottom are colleges that accept most students and don’t provide a sticker for Mom’s car window that awes the envious populace. Yet there are excellent colleges all over the pyramid, from peak to base, Van Buskirk announces. He suggests that finding your realistic level on the pyramid and then seeking out excellence in that realm is the most effective way to find the ideal college. "Put yourself on the right playing field," he advises — "a place that values you for what you do well."

Van Buskirk made some points so eye-opening that even though I didn’t intend to take notes, I wound up with a scribbled list of nuggets worth sharing.

• The rich get richer. (Well, maybe that’s not such eye-opening news.) Van Buskirk says the buzzword "need-blind admissions" is a myth. "Resource-aware" is the operative concept. That is, colleges may pretend that they don’t take into account whether an applicant will need financial aid, but that’s hooey. Applicants who don’t need financial aid always have a better shot. Applicants who do simply have to work harder and come in with more impressive records to be considered.
  
  
• An insider term that’s a useful concept to know is "on the bubble." That’s when you’re "good enough to get in the action but not good enough to dominate the action" — worthy of consideration but not an obvious shoo-in. An applicant who’s on the bubble at one level of the pyramid may be highly sought-after at the next level down.
  
  
• Even my teen — a self-proclaimed paragon of purity who spurns anything he views as phony or insincere to tart himself up for college admissions officers — was OK with following this next suggestion. The first time a student makes any kind of contact with a college, the college opens a file on that kid — whether it’s filling out a card at the college fair, visiting the campus or contacting the school for information. Colleges’ "yield" is crucial to them — they don’t want to offer spots to applicants who aren’t likely to accept. "They don’t want to give away spots in the class just because you’re smart and talented," he explains. They look at your level of interest.
  
  If that file is already open when your application arrives, this is a very good thing. If they’ve never heard of you, they’re dubious. The more items in your file, the better — if you see the college’s table at several college fairs, fill out the card every time. "When you visit the campus, where’s the first place you go? The place they’ve got a card to fill out. This is not deceitful or manipulative," Van Buskirk emphasized, staring pointedly at my son sprawled with a cluster of classmates (OK, maybe he was giving that look to the whole group). So go to the college fairs, take the tours, send for the materials, fill out the cards.
  
  
• Van Buskirk is not a big fan of the SAT as a predictor of college success. "The SAT is irrelevant," he said. Many colleges say they don’t require applicants to submit SAT scores, and some actually mean it, he says. But with the others, not submitting SAT scores is suicide. He recommends www.fairtest.org as a trustworthy source of names of colleges that will not toss your application onto the "deny" stack if you choose not to submit SAT scores. Those colleges, of course, are also displaying a level of honesty and concern for substance over a gauge that’s of dubious value, which tells us something about their philosophy.
  
  
• Colleges want students who are not only bright, but also "motivated and high-achieving." Bright, unmotivated and unevenly achieving is not necessarily what they’re looking for. The bad news for those smart, wiseass kids with erratic grades whom some of us know and love is that this is all about transcripts.

Van Buskirk finishes his presentations with a game in which the audience plays admissions officer. He hands out applications filled in by four fictional applicants to a fictional college, so that everyone in the audience has one of the four. In a lively exercise, he leads the "admissions committee" through a rapid-fire evaluation of the hypothetical supplicants. Some notable points:

If there’s anything even slightly negative or suspect about your transcript that can be explained, make a point of explaining it on your application. Took three years of Spanish but not a fourth? Took the minimum required math even though you claim to be interested in a math major? A strong but not tippy-top student because you have to work to help support your low-income family? Explain these things clearly. Each of these examples was a flaw in one of the fictional candidates’ applications.

One (fictional) girl whose passions were creative writing, the classics and Latin had good but not top grades in tough classes. Her application indicated that she lived with her mother, a self-employed artist, that her father’s address was unknown and that she waitressed 18 hours a week. The admissions committee could divine the situation, but such a candidate would be smartest to spell it out. The "candidate" also attended a huge, largely disadvantaged urban high school, implying that she wouldn’t have access to the intensive college counseling at a high-income suburban or private school.

Play the race card, Van Buskirk advised — though cultural identity other than race can be beneficial too. One hypothetical candidate, a top flutist with impressive musical credentials, checked "Korean" but made no further mention of his ethnicity. An indication that he would bring cultural input to the college would have given him a boost, Van Burkirk said. A Caucasian with strong ethnic or cultural identity (Kazakh? Scots? Cajun from the bayou?) would score points too.

Admissions officers love contests and competitions — a piece of information that does not win favor with the purist 16-year-old in my household. Van Buskirk guided our "admissions committee" to take note of the record of science fair, creative writing, music and athletic awards on our prospects’ applications.

The "admissions committee" made up of SOTA parents and students voted in the waitressing, award-winning creative writer — who happened to be the only "applicant" who needed financial aid. "You just cost our school $35,000 a year!" Van Buskirk mock-chided. A close second, and the overwhelming favorite of the kids in the crowd (all of them artists), was the Korean flute virtuoso.

A kid with a strong interest in the environment, science and math and a top statewide science fair award, but an unexplained light math courseload throughout high school, was third. Last, with a tiny sprinkling of votes, was a regional tennis superstar from a country day school who had lackluster SATs — even though, Van Burkirk told us, the college’s tennis coach has been camping out at our office door begging us to let her in. (A SOTA crowd may be self-selected for lack of interest in sports, as all our kids have sacrificed school sports and P.E. to pursue their art.)

This presentation was so engaging that there was no criticism at all — but instead a stampede — over the fact that Van Buskirk was selling advance copies of his new book afterward ("Winning the College Admission Game," not yet available on Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/Winning-College-Admission-Game-Strategies/dp/0768920337 ) Thumbing through the copy I bought but haven’t read yet, the book isn’t as engaging at a glance as the presentation, but if its advice is as seemingly valuable, it’s worth seeking out.

In the spirit of other reports like this, I took note of the makeup of the crowd, which was whiter than SOTA’s overall population. I also observed that Van Buskirk seems to assume that the adults in his audience are college-educated, that he’s not talking to parents whose child hopes to be the first in the family to attend college. Many kids like that — from families that lack "college knowledge" — are likely to be doing this process on their own. So presentations like his aimed at kids — with sensitivity to their socioeconomic diversity — and offered during the school day could be valuable. The SOTA PTSA paid for Van Buskirk’s appearance, including some travel expenses. It would be a worthwhile project for private funders (some of whom I’m convinced are way too susceptible to pouring their money into hype-ridden education fads) to underwrite enhanced college counseling and sessions like this directed at low-income public-school kids.

City and School District Select Committee Notes 4.12.07

City and School District Select Committee Notes 4.12.07
By Kate Steinheimer
GreatSchools.net Staff

• Committee Commends Student Nutrition Services Director
• Committee Makes “In-Kind” Services Recommendations

Committee Commends Student Nutrition Services Director

The joint Board of Supervisors and Board of Education committee opened its meeting by recognizing Ed Wilkins, SFUSD Student Nutrition Services (SNS) Director, for his service to the district. Commissioner Jill Wynns read a Proclamation of Commendation that listed Wilkins’ many accomplishments.  It stated that Wilkins is responsible for serving hot meals to thousands of SFUSD students each day, in addition to working to develop and implement the district’s healthy food and wellness policies. His other achievements include maintaining the district’s “No Child Left Hungry” policy where children eat lunch regardless of whether they can pay for it and helping SNS become more fiscally sound, all while maintaining “a wicked sense of humor.”

Committee Makes “In-Kind” Services Recommendations

The main business of the meeting was a discussion of the planning process for the Public Education Enrichment Fund (Proposition H).  The Board of Education Budget and Business Services Committee had previously considered a resolution to accept $2.5 million of Prop. H funds in in-kind services from the city instead of cash for SY 2007-08.  The resolution was controversial because it did not specify that the in-kind services would be new services.  Under the resolution, services the city has long provided to the district could be counted as fulfilling Prop. H requirements. The Budget and Business Services Committee sent the resolution to the joint Select Committee for consideration.

Supervisor Tom Ammiano, who helped author Prop. H, addressed the committee first and stated that the authors of the proposition meant new, not existing, services when they provided that in-kind services could count toward the city’s Prop. H obligations.

Myong Leigh gave an update on the district's implementation of programs funded by Prop. H and the district’s plans for spending next year’s Prop. H funds. A representative from the City Controller’s office reported that the spending plans for next year meet all Prop. H requirements and that the Controller’s office recommended that the Board of Supervisors approve the plan.  She also stated that one third of the total Prop. H funds each year could be supplied in in-kind services instead of cash, which would mean the entire “third third” that is allocated for general education support could be provided in in-kind services.  [One third of the Prop. H funds go to support sports, libraries, arts and music in the schools, one third goes to the First 5 Preschool for All program, and one third is designated for general education support.] Finally, the Controller’s representative recommended that the district come up with more frequent and more outcome-based performance evaluation measures for evaluating Prop. H funded programs, and said an audit of Prop. H expenditures would begin in the fall.

Commissioner Jill Wynns responded to the Controller’s report, stating that she was “stunned” to learn that the entire third third could be provided in in-kind services. She noted that the money had been used so far almost exclusively to put new staff in schools and that the district did not want to lose positions it had added for general education support.

Gloria Corral, Deputy Director of First 5, gave an update on the implementation of the Preschool for All program, and then the floor was opened to public comment.  Many speakers emphasized what a difference Prop. H funds had made to their schools or programs and almost all emphasized that they believed any in-kind services should be new, not existing, services.

Christina Wong from Chinese for Affirmative Action and parent activist Cindy Choy both urged that any in-kind services be both new and directly connected to education and academic achievement.  Lorraine Woodruff-Long, Parents for Public Schools Executive Director, asked the committee to be sure all contributions were new, not existing, and reminded committee members that while in-kind contributions were important, schools are very cash-strapped.

Several parents commented that their schools were already seeing big improvements from Prop. H funds, and students Adrienne Long and Devin Vyas from Miraloma Elementary School and Anna Rubenstein from Aptos Middle School provided reminders that the purpose of Prop H is to benefit children.

Dana Woldow gave several recommendations of how in-kind services could directly support district priorities, and Margaret Brodkin, Director of the San Francisco Department of Children, Youth and their Families, spoke on behalf of Mayor Newsom. She stated that the mayor supported interpreting Prop. H in-kind services as “new services starting today.”

After public comment, Commissioners Jane Kim and Hydra Mendoza both emphasized that in-kind services provided under Prop. H should benefit kids at schools and support the priorities of the school district. Commissioner Kim suggested that the controversial resolution could perhaps be put on hold and noted that there had been some fear that the Prop. H spending plan for next year would not be approved if the resolution were not accepted.

Commissioner Wynns said she was pleased that everyone was on board with in-kind services being new services, noting that concerned parents had flooded the Board of Education with emails and phone calls on the issue.

Supervisor Sophie Maxwell proposed that a small group should get together to come up with a list of in-kind services the city could provide that would support district priorities.  Supervisor Bevan Dufty agreed that Margaret Brodkin’s office, the Prop. H Community Advisory Committee, and district staff should work on the list of services with input from the Controller’s office. 

The committee voted to send a letter to the Board of Supervisors, the Board of Education and other involved parties recommending that any in-kind services provided under Prop. H be new, additional services and that the small group develop a list of appropriate services.  The committee also agreed to recommend putting the proposed resolution on hold as the list of services was developed.

Supervisor Maxwell also expressed concern that art instruction funded by Prop. H include culturally sensitive arts so that children “know and value everyone’s art.”  She requested a hearing to evaluate whether this was being accomplished under the district’s Arts Master Plan. That hearing was tentatively set for May 3.

SFCD Information & Resource Conference

Support for Families of Children with Disabilities (SFCD), a parent-run San Francisco-based nonprofit organization that supports families of children with any kind of disability or special health care need as they face challenges, will hold a free conference for families of children with disabilities, the professionals that work with them, and the community at large:

2007 Information & Resource Conference
Saturday, April 21, 2007
9:00 am - 2:30 pm
John O'Connell High School

Morning Workshops
10:00 - 11:45 AM

• Adaptive Sports
• Early Identification and Intervention for Children At-Risk of Communication Disorders
• Learning Disabilities & Homework
• Planning for Inclusive Transitions Across School Levels
• Toilet Training Children with Special Needs
• Transition to Adult Services
• Understanding Behavior

Afternoon Workshops
12:45 - 2:30 PM

• Ain’t Misbehavin’: Home-based Positive Behavior Intervention
• Curriculum Modifications
• Food & Eating Issues for Children with Autism
• Inclusive Preschool & Childcare Options
• Legal Rights of Public School Students with Disabilities
• Limited Conservatorship
• Positive Behavior Intervention & Behavior Plans in the School Setting

More information on the meeting and workshops is available on the SFCD website

Parents for Public School SF Annual Meeting

Announcing PPS-SF Annual General and Community Meeting

"Building Education Together"
The Possibility to Make Change

Saturday, April 21, 2007
9am to 1pm
Moscone Elementary School
2576 Harrison Street @ 22nd Street

Parents for Public Schools of San Francisco invites you to join us at our Annual General and Community Meeting. This event is free and open to the public.

• Meet parents from public schools all over San Francisco
• Learn the results of the outreach effort: "What Parents Want In Public Schools"
• Participate in the PPS Video project: "Why I Love My Public School"
• Join or Renew your PPS-SF Membership

Register at events@ppssf.org or 415.468.7077 by April 16 for a FREE lunch and to reserve a space in our FREE KidsWatch, featuring Sports4Kids

More information, including the meeting agenda, found on the PPS SF website

School Board groupies converge on San Francisco

The National School Board Assocaiton will be holding their annual conference here at the Moscone Center from April 14-17:
NSBA - Reach Higher: ideas, inspiration & insight

Whether you're new to the Conference or a veteran attendee, 2007 promises fresh perspectives with practical, applicable sessions and workshops. Not to mention the opportunity to network and share solutions with colleagues from school districts across the nation.

Jill Wynns is a long standing member in the NSBA. Of course, the district will get involved by hosting some school tours.

On Saturday from 9:30-noon there will be a demonstration to protest NCLB in from on the Moscone Center. Eric Mar has more information on his blog about the protest, its sponsors, and their goals.

Update: School Beat takes a look at the NCLB protest: It’s Time for a Change

BOS/BOE Meeting on Prop H

An important meeting to consider a resolution which could end up depriving our schools of at least $2.5 million a year in Prop H funds is happening this week, Thursday April 12, at 3:30 in the Board Chamber at City Hall. Pretty inconvenient time for any parent, working or not, to show up and give public comment; however, you can make your feelings known by e-mailing the BOS and BOE. Here is a link to the Meeting Agenda.(PDF)

Many parents and concerned citizens/voters have made their feelings known to both the BOE and BOS in recent days. Thanks to all of you who spoke up, some of our elected officials have seen the light and are now supporting the inclusion of the word "new" into the resolution. This will NOT happen at tomorrow's meeting, as that committee does not have the power to amend the resolution; all they can do is discuss it, and (we hope) send back to the full BOE a recommendation to pass an amended version which would include the word "new".

The last time this resolution was considered, at a BOE budget committee meeting a few weeks ago, a dozen members of the public, including several on the Prop H committee, showed up to give comment, and they all said the same thing - "Any in kind services should be NEW services, not existing services." Nonetheless, the three members of the budget committee (Yee, Maufas, and Kim) could not agree to insert the word "new" into the resolution, and in the end decided to send the resolution to the joint BOS/BOE committee, which is meeting this Thursday.

After tomorrow's meeting, the next step for the resolution will be a return to the BOE budget committee meeting on Tuesday April 17th, 5:30 at 555 Franklin Street (in the board room.) This committee DOES have the power to amend the reso, and it is hoped that this time around, they will see their way clear to doing so. Jane Kim, who voted against adding the word "new" at the March budget committee meeting, has changed her position and is now sending out a form response to those who contact her, saying she supports making all in kind services "new" services. Kim-Shree Maufas seemed inclined to vote in favor of adding "new" last time around, and Norman Yee also thought it was a good idea in March until Jane Kim spoke against it, at which point he changed his mind and voted against his own motion to add the word "new." Let's hope that this time, all three of them will remember that their job is to get the best possible deal for the students of this district, not to try to appease the Board of Supervisors, or try to balance the City's budget on the backs of our kids.

And just in case anyone thinks that this issue is about to be resolved, please be aware that there is still much discussion to be had on the subject of what "new" means. If they are thwarted in their attempt to include services which the City has provided for years as "in kind" services, the bean counters from the City Controller's office will no doubt try to claim "new" status for ANYTHING the City has provided to the schools since 2004 when Prop H passed. That would include expansion of or cost increases for projects and services which the City began funding long before 2004. For example, City- funded health centers at district schools go back at least 20 years to when the Teen Clinic opened at Balboa HS. More recently the City has been opening health centers at all high schools, with the final few set to open next year. This is not a "new" in kind service, but rather the completion of a project begun over 20 years ago, and should not be counted as "new." Look for more hair splitting on this issue before it is finally resolved.

For the complete story, plus an easy to copy e-mail and all the addresses you need to weigh in on this in under one minute, please visit the PASA website for more information

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This message was originally posted to the sfschools list by Nestwife

Hayward strikers on YouTube

Dr. homeslice an "Unabashedly Pro-Union" ed blogger has been covering the Hayward teachers' strike. He has been noting their innovative use of YouTube which is where I found these video clips:



Very interesting use of the media.

DCYF: State of the City’s Children Summit

From the DCYF website:

State of the City’s Children Summit

Thursday, April 19, 2007, 9:00 am to 4:00 pm

Moscone Center South in San Francisco

Join us for a full day of learning, sharing, and renewing our commitment and determination to provide all of the critical supports and opportunities needed for the children, youth, and families of San Francisco.

Advanced Registration Required

Check-in and Continental Breakfast begins at 8:00 am.

The Opening Session begins promptly at 9:00 am.

Featuring:

• State of the City's Children Address: Mayor Gavin Newsom
• Keynote Speaker: Geoffrey Canada, nationally renowned author and Director of Harlem Children's Zone
• Morning and Afternoon Workshops
• Continental Breakfast and Lunch
• Resource Fair (the Resource Fair is full. Please do not contact us about tableing)
• Awards Ceremony
• Performances by SOTA Jazz Band, Touch of Class Choir, and Loco Bloco!

Advance registration required!

Of course, this event is on our calendar.

PASAORG: Our Schools Need Every Dollar!

The Prop H in-kind service issue has been simmering for a while now. It promises to come to a full boil this week:

Opposition gears up as meeting set to hear proposal that would deprive SFUSD schools of $2.5 million

SAN FRANCISCO, April 9, 2007 -- A proposal that parents and children's advocates say could deprive public schools of $2.5 million in badly needed support will be considered by city and school officials at a meeting this Thursday, April 12.

Opponents of the proposal – parents, school activists and children's advocates – insist that meeting children's needs should be a communitywide priority. "What is it about kids, that our politicians are so comfortable taking money away from them?" parent Novella Smith asked in frustration.

The money at issue is part of the funding promised to San Francisco schools under Prop. H, a 2004 ballot measure that committed city money to support financially strapped schools. The amount of Prop. H support builds year by year from $10 million in 2005-'06 to $60 million in '09-'10. The measure stipulated that part of the support could be through "in-kind services" provided by the city to the schools, rather than cash.

Controversy has flared because some city officials, including city supervisors, argue that in-kind services that the city was already providing to the schools should be counted against the total. While school and children's advocates agree that in-kind services can be a legitimate way to meet the Prop. H commitment, they counter that the measure meant for the city to provide new, additional support to schools and children. Trying to redefine pre-existing services as Prop. H support shortchanges schools and children, as well as subverting the will of the voters, those advocates charge.

Now a San Francisco Board of Education resolution (No. 72-27A3) is bolstering the effort to count pre-existing services against the Prop. H total. The resolution mandates that "the Board of Education include[s] not less than $2.5 million of its 2008-2009 proposed Prop H spending plan as in-kind services from the City," and omits the word "new" before "in-kind services."

There is further controversy about what types of services can be legitimately defined as services to the schools. City officials are calling for including museum admissions, Internet access at public libraries and health clinics operating on school property on the list of services to schools. Children's advocates counter that those are services provided by the city to children and youth, but not services to schools as intended by Proposition H.
.
The resolution will be addressed at the meeting of the City and School District Select Committee, Thursday, April 12, at 3:30 p.m. in the Board of Supervisors Chambers in City Hall.

Advocates have put up a web page giving complete information about the controversy: PASAORG: Our Schools Need Every Dollar!

Gavin's High Tech High?

We thought it was curious when we saw an article on the Mayor's blog exploring the idea of the Mayor opening charter schools. Now the idea gets some more ink in the Examiner: Should Newsom have power over charter schools? For now, it seems the answer is,

"I’m not inclined to support that," Newsom said on Thursday. "But I think the purpose of the Web site is to allow different views to be processed and have a public debate."

But wait. The article goes on to cover plans being aided and abetted by the mayor to open a new science and technology high school at Mission Bay, on the former site of the golf driving range. Add it all together and Gavin's quote sounds like a non-denial denial. He is pushing for a new high school and helping get the idea off the ground. It may take the form of a charter, if that's the fastest way to get the job done. Maybe he doesn't really want to get into the business of granting charters. But if that's what it takes...

Curiouser and curiouser...

2006 SFUSD API data

Here are the latest updates of our SFUSD API data spreadsheets. These include the 2006 Base API data published this spring. The data is included in these three files:

sfusd-api-base-summary.xls	Summary of base API data from 2000-2006. Includes Base API, State Rank, Similar Schools, and SCI. Seven years of API data for each school are displayed on one line. Handy for spotting long term trends.
sfusd-api-base-99-06.xls	Complete Base API data for all SF schools since the start of API reporting: 1999-2006. This is a fairly large file best suited for tinkerers that want to see all the gory details.
sfusd-api06bdb.xls	Complete Base API data for all SF schools: 2006. All of this data is included in the sfusd-api-base-99-06.xls file, but this file is a lot smaller.
Academic Performance Index (API)	The California Department of Education source for all of this data. Their website includes lots of useful descriptions of the data, what it means, how it is derived, etc.

Criteria Desired in San Franciscoís Superintendent

The recent series of community meetings about the superintendent search process yielded a summary of the desired characteristics for the next superintendent. This was published some time ago, but I had not had time to review it, and I bet not many of the readers here have either. So I've taken the liberty of republishing the full text here:

Criteria Desired in San Francisco ís Superintendent

The Board of Education of the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) seeks a visionary leader to be the District ís new Superintendent. SFUSD is the highest-performing urban district in California, serving about 58,000 students. The community is well known for the cultural, recreational, and educational opportunities it offers.

After consultation with administrators, teachers, support staff, parents and community members, and with the expectation that the new Superintendent will move the District to a new level of excellence, the Board of Education has developed the following criteria as desirable for a successful candidate to possess. These fall into five broad categories:

Primary

• Believes that all decisions are made on the basis of what is in the best interest of children and youth.
• Recognizes that parents are the primary educators of their children and must be engaged as partners with the School in their on-going education.

Academics

• Communicates a vision for high expectations and on-going improvement for academic achievement in every classroom.
• Holds him/herself, central office staff, principals, teachers, and other staff accountable for meeting these high expectations.
• Demonstrates knowledge and practice of emerging research and best practices in instruction, learning and systemic reform.
• Shows willingness to innovate to achieve clear District priorities.
• Focuses on meeting the needs of diverse learners.
• Commits to securing staff, materials and resources necessary to meet high academic expectations for all students in the district.

Experience

• Possesses senior level administrative experience in a medium to large urban school district or similar institution.
• Has had effective experience working with an elected board, and the ability to work with an involved, activist board.
• Demonstrates successful leadership ability and life experiences.
• Demonstrates experience in an environment that is culturally, economically and linguistically diverse (ability to speak a second language is a plus).
• Partners effectively with business leaders, elected officials, neighborhood organizations and other community agencies and organizations.

Management/Leadership Style

• Is a strategic thinker and planner who recognizes the need to achieve the Districtís goals in a collaborative environment.
• Is committed to outreach in developing inclusive, collective perspectives, yet is decisive in execution.
• Demonstrates an ethical, transparent, ìopen door/open bookî approach to decision- making, budgeting and resource allocation.
• Creates a culture of accountability across all stakeholders: administrators, teachers, staff, parents, students and community members.
• Focuses on increasing morale among all district employees: teachers, classified staff, administrators, other staff and volunteers.
• Responds to criticism in a reflective, responsible and transformative manner.
• Understands the role of unions and has worked effectively with them.

Communication Style

• Is open, direct and respectful.
• Is an empathetic listener.
• Communicates comfortably and effectively with people of varied linguistic, educational and economic backgrounds.
• Provides accurate and complete information to board members and others, as appropriate, in order to ensure informed deliberations and/or decision-making.
• Is a visible, articulate city wide spokesperson for the District.

Wow. I guess it's good to aim high. Me, I'll be happy if we get someone with half these traits and even happier if this individual manages to outlast the average tenure of an urban superintendent—around two years.

Sanchez running for D9 BOS already?

We have heard that Mark Sanchez is considering a run for the Board of Supervisors. This BeyondChron report confirms the rumor:
District 9 Candidates Discuss the Issues

Sanchez, who is President of the San Francisco School Board, told the audience he was "trying to think of some good news" to say about education. Sanchez said he is looking for a school district superintendent who does things a little bit differently. "Too many people just look at test scores and not enough at drop out rates," he said.

I guess there's nothing inherently wrong with political ambitions, so long as it motivates people to do their job so they can climb based on their record. 18 months from now, if Sanchez does run, struggling to think of something good to say about our schools just won't cut it.

Chilling report on college admissions

Spring break is a time for high school families to hit the road and tour college campuses. It is a time for college bound seniors, hopefully, to make choices about which school to attend next year. Our 10th grader is dropping in on a few schools just to get a taste for what lies ahead—and to have some fun on the road.

Against this familiar backdrop comes some chilling stats from the NYT: A Great Year for Ivy League Schools, but Not So Good for Applicants to Them

Harvard turned down 1,100 student applicants with perfect 800 scores on the SAT math exam. Yale rejected several applicants with perfect 2400 scores on the three-part SAT, and Princeton turned away thousands of high school applicants with 4.0 grade point averages. Needless to say, high school valedictorians were a dime a dozen.

For so many years I shrugged off the alarming reports of college admissions competition. Hyper parents get hysterical over just about anything. No need to fall prey to the collective neurosis, right? My kid's doing fine. Well, reports like this just have to give you pause. Times are pretty insane out there for college applicants.

The article notes that the record low admit rate are in part due to students applying to more and more colleges. Statistically this should lead to a massive game of musical chairs as the lucky kids who receive multiple acceptance letters make their choices, opening up seats for wait listed students. That may not be a very comforting thought for students that did not secure any of the admissions they were counting on, but on paper this should help a lot of kids that have been stung by the arrival of too many "skinny" envelopes. Good luck to you all. I know we'll be banking on that in a few years!