DonorsChoose: Top it off!

DonorsChoose.org is an organization that I've blogged about before, is conducting a timely campaign to direct donations to partially funded projects that require small additional donations to complete.

This is a great way for donors to leverage their donations. By "topping off" a project with a small donation, DonorsChoose will be able to complete the proposed project. Not only will the selected teacher have their project fully funded, but the donors that have already selected this project will see their donations reach the projects they chose. And the timing couldn't be better.

Take a moment to browse the list of Bay Area projects that need less than $50 to complete. Eighteen of them are from San Francisco schools.

Calisphere, a gold mine of primary sources on-line

Last year, around the start of school, we noted the debut of Calisphere, a wonderful resource for California students that publishes a wealth of primary source materials on California history and culture. In their own words:

Calisphere is the University of California's free public gateway to a world of primary sources. More than 150,000 digitized items — including photographs, documents, newspaper pages, political cartoons, works of art, diaries, transcribed oral histories, advertising, and other unique cultural artifacts — reveal the diverse history and culture of California and its role in national and world history. Calisphere's content has been selected from the libraries and museums of the UC campuses, and from a variety of cultural heritage organizations.

The web site has grown and evolved in the ensuing year. I encourage you to visiit the site and browse its collections. For a limited time, they are offering free posters. Check it out.

The image on the right is from the site and documents a CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) picket on the sidewalk in from of 555 Franklin, taken in 1962. Interesting how the struggle for racial equality continues, even if the parameters of the debate are completely changed.

School Beat returns

Summer weather has finally arrived in San Francisco. Must be back to school time! And so it is for Lisa Schiff's School Beat column at BeyondChron which starts the new school year with a nice overview of the state of the district:

School Beat: Welcome Back to School

The challenges facing our district this year are once again familiar and large—the achievement gap between African-American and Latino students on the one hand and Caucasian and Asian-American students on the other, insufficient funding, and declining enrollment, to name some of the top contenders. But what’s different now is the climate, which in contrast to the daunting issues before us has an optimistic and energized feel to it. Some of that is no doubt attributable to the presence of a new top administrator. But fortunately there is more to it than that, both in terms of Garcia himself and in terms of where the entire community of public school supporters is positioned.

She's right about the changed atmosphere. The new board and the new administration appear to be poised to work closely with each other. This weekend they will retreat to their offsite meeting to hash out the priorities. Then the real work will begin. Let's hope the optimism , good will and collegiality continue once everyone rolls up their sleeves and start the hard work ahead.

BOE webcast for August 28, 2007

Here's the link to the webcast for the August 28 BOE meeting. They're getting better at posting these webcasts quickly.

Collegezoid: Meeting your admissions angst needs

"Americans are the only people in the world known to me whose status anxiety prompts them to advertise their college and university affiliations in the rear windows of their automobiles."
- Paul Fussell (professor, cultural and literary historian)

Minneapolis Star-Tribune Aug. 27, 2007
Confused by college admissions? They're here to help -- for a fee
By Jackie Crosby

Kristin Riegel started researching colleges and universities when she was in the ninth grade.

But despite that running start, it was a consultant she and her family hired for $1,700 during her senior year who ultimately helped seal her decision to go to Macalester College in St. Paul.

Boston Globe Aug. 23, 2007
A cruel time for college applicants

By Webster T. Trenchard

ON THE surface, the college admissions process seems like a meritocracy. Students are evaluated on a set of objective components (i.e. grades and test scores) that are interspersed with some subjective ones (i.e. essays, interviews, and letters of recommendation). Those who make the cut are accepted; those who do not are rejected; those who fall somewhere in between are offered the purgatory-like status of wait-list. There is no way to predict, with certainty, how a given applicant will fare at a particular college in a given year.

Voice of America Aug. 14, 2007
Some American Universities Adopt New Admissions Test Policies
By Elizabeth Giergerich

As the new school year approaches in the United States, millions of American students will prepare for and fret over the Scholastic Aptitude Test, the SAT, which has long been a key requirement for college admission. There has been a contentious debate over the SAT and other standardized tests, but now more than 700 colleges and universities in the United States no longer require applicants to submit standardized test scores. From VOA's New York Bureau, Elizabeth Giegerich has the details.

The National Center for Fair and Open Testing (FairTest)

College knowledge

I'm going to start compiling a regular, updated list of college news and resources. Since I don't have a dedicated format for that yet or the technical knowhow to create one, I'm posting updates here, as regular SFSchools blog entries, for now — till I magically gain new tech savvy or someone takes pity on me and says, "Here, dear, here's a website just for you."

This is the date to start such a thing, because it's the week that the eagerly awaited, hotly controversial U.S. News & World Report college rankings guide comes out.

And the Washington Monthly fights back with its version of college rankings. According to the Monthly, the U.S. News rankings are about what your college can do for you, while its rankings are about what your college can do for its country (and society, and the global village).

Parents and students who are seriously looking at colleges really should buy the dead-trees versions of both. My sympathies are with the Washington Monthly version, though my 11th-grade son disapproves of any ranking system at all.

The scrappy Education Conservancy has dedicated itself to fighting the U.S. News rankings and the culture they encourage. Here's the Associated Press, via Forbes.com, on Education Conservancy founder Lloyd Thacker:

Activist Boycotts School Rankings
By JULIA SILVERMAN

PORTLAND, Ore. - From his haphazard hideyhole of an office in this laid-back West Coast outpost, higher education activist Lloyd Thacker is raising a ruckus about college admissions that's got some of the country's most elite universities paying close attention.

His goal is no less than a wholesale change at admissions offices, the first collegiate stop for the thousands of overachieving students who pour out their hearts, SAT scores and GPAs each year, in hopes of being accepted to their first choice school.

He's taken direct aim at the annual U.S. News & World Report guide to the nation's "best" colleges and universities, the latest version of which hits newstands Monday - though the list was released last week and put Princeton University at No. 1 for the eighth-straight year.

More higher-education news:

Associated Press via Louisville Courier-Journal
Aug. 26, 2007
Colleges seek 'authenticity'

By Justin Pope
Associated Press

If there's a sign of the times in college admissions, it may be this: Steven Roy Goodman, an independent college counselor, tells clients to make a small mistake somewhere in their application -- on purpose.

"Sometimes it's a typo," he says. "I don't want my students to sound like robots. It's pretty easy to fall into that trap of trying to do everything perfectly and there's no spark left."

Orlando Sentinel
Aug. 26, 2007
FSU's mandatory health insurance may be contagious

By Luis Zaragoza

Florida State just became the first public university in Florida to require health insurance for new students, but it may not be the last.

Other state universities, including the University of Central Florida, are keeping a close eye this year on FSU's experiment and may soon follow suit.

And the San Francisco Chronicle's weekly Higher Education column addresses an issue after my own heart (as a public-school advocate):

COLLEGE BOUND
A weekly guide to higher education

Joanne Levy-Prewitt
Question: My daughter is starting ninth grade at a diverse public high school with a strong academic program. She was accepted into a very good private college prep school, too, but decided to go to the public school for the diversity and size. She is a strong and serious student. How do you think her chances of getting into various universities will be affected by her decision to go a public high school instead of a private school?

In addition, is it true that the United States' graduating class of 2011 will be the largest pool applying for college in recent history?

(The latter question is of interest too, since I've previously read definitively that the classes of 2008 and 2009 — the latter my son's class — will be the largest high-school graduating classes in history. This confuses some people, since we all know about high birthrates of the baby boom, 1946-'62. But in that generation (mine), lots more kids dropped out of high school without prompting much concern, and the notion was still that only the academic and socioeconomic elite went to college. It was still a new idea that college wasn't just for white kids from the middle class and up.)


— Caroline

Back to school: SfSchools Calendar

Now that the new school year is upon us its time to bring back the SfSchools calendar! Our calendar is published as a Google calendar, which means that you can access it in many different ways. We maintain a calendar page here at sfschools. You can also view it directly from Google here. Best of all, you can subscribe to it using any iCal compliant calendar software using this iCal feed.

I've been neglecting it all summer, but now I'm starting to hear about a some calendar items. If you have any meetings or events you want to publicize, please send let me know.

Hooey about U.S. vs. foreign school systems

Education commentator Gerald Bracey often deconstructs the ubiquitous claims about the supposed superiority of other nations' educational systems, using that annoying method of actually checking facts. He has just written a Huffington Post commentary on that new initiative funded with $60 million of Broad and Gates money, ED in '08.

"Why is it that education 'reformers' feel obligated to idealize education elsewhere and demonize it here?" Bracey asks. "Why is it that organizations like Center for American Progress and ED in '08 feel they can write sloppy reports — as long as they put American schools in a bad light — and that it doesn't matter?"

I'll pull out a couple of Bracey's points.

A statement in ED in '08 makes this claim:

"China provides 30% more education than America..."

Bracey asks:

What on earth does this mean? Thirty percent longer year? Thirty percent more curriculum coverage? Thirty percent more years in school? Thirty percent higher test scores (China has never taken part in an international comparison for reasons that will be obvious momentarily)? A 30% longer day? I think this last might be true, but it is also true that most Chinese students get about two hours a day to go home and eat lunch. There is very little difference in how much time American and Chinese kids spend learning.

And he makes some points:

• Only 40% of students in China go beyond 9th grade (which is termed "upper secondary school").
• China's "long-term goals include: a world-class education for the top 5% to 10% of high school students [and] ... universal 12-year education by 2020."
• All schools in China charge tuition.
• A large class of Chinese citizens are called "immigrant," a term for those who have left poor rural regions and moved to cities, "often illegally." Most children in those families don't attend school at all.
• Well-known journalist James Fallows, a former editor of U.S. News & World Report and the Atlantic Monthly, currently lives in Shanghai, and calls the schools "awful."
• Noted educator Deborah Meier recently toured China to consult with educators there. Bracey quotes her: "The idea that they have a superior education system is beyond absurd. ... In many rural areas there are virtually no teachers — even if there are schools." Even successful schools in Shanghai, she adds, "had 50 kids in a class and a relatively ordinary pedagogy."
• And my own note is that as an involved parent in an urban school district that is plurality Chinese-American, I'm well aware that there are many "parachute kids" in my kids' schools whose parents have sent them from China to stay with relatives or friends specifically for the U.S. education. Why would they trouble if China's schools are so wonderful?

In other words, the facts don't bear out the notion that China's school system is superior to ours. Au contraire.

The ED in '08 comments also emphasize that a number of nations have longer school years than the U.S. mandates. Of course, adding days to ours would just require more money, and I'm not faulting anyone for saying that U.S. schools need more money.

However, Bracey points out that the number of days in the school year doesn't correlate with higher scores in the study that ED in 08 cites, the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). There are 13 countries for which enough data is available to break this out.

• The country with the highest TIMSS score, Singapore, has the same number of days in the school year as U.S. schools.
• The two entities with fewer days in the school year, Hong Kong and Belgium, also scored higher than the U.S.
• The three nations with the most hours dedicated to teaching math — the Philippines, Indonesia and Chile — were among the lowest performers in the TIMSS.

Bracey has previously debunked similar claims in an article for Stanford Magazine, "Believing the Worst," July/August 2006. It's actually part of a pro-con debate vs. Hoover Institution public-school opponent Terry Moe. (It was reading Moe's writings that got me started as a public-education advocate refuting the assertions of the charter/voucher/privatization "education reform" crowd.)

— Caroline

Here come salad bars!

From Dana Woldow, parent volunteer/
SFUSD Student Nutrition & Physical Activity Committee Chair:

Thanks to a half million dollar grant from the Mayor's office and
Department of Children Youth and their Families, sixteen SFUSD middle
and high school will be opening salad bars this fall, and ten
elementary schools will be getting salad bars before the end of the
school year. The salad bars offer a mix of fresh greens and several
different fresh raw vegetables, in addition to a variety of fresh
fruit and whole grain breads and muffins; all of this is offered in
addition to the regular hot lunch at no additional charge. Students
who qualify for free or reduced price meals will get both hot entr�e
and salad bar for free, while all other students may purchase the
complete meal including salad bar for $2. Schools with salad bars
will also begin in October to feature a choice of hot entrees each
day, rather than just one choice, and high school students will be
served a larger portion size of the hot entree than previously.

The schools which will open salad bars are International Studies
Academy (ISA), Excelsior/June Jordan, Thurgood Marshall, Mission,
Newcomer, O'Connell, School of the Arts/the Academy, Raoul
Wallenberg, Everett, Francisco, Martin Luther King, James Lick,
Horace Mann, Visitation Valley Middle School, and Ulloa Elementary.
In addition, Balboa High School, Miraloma Elementary, and Harvey Milk
Civil Rights Academy, all of which hosted pilot salad bars in the
past, will continue to have salad bars this year, and additional
elementary schools will also be getting salad bars later in the
school year.

Many schools are currently torn up with construction projects related
to the Lopez settlement (disability access), but assuming all work is
completed on schedule, Harvey Milk, Mission, Everett, Newcomer,
Ulloa, and ISA will all see their salad bars commence during
September, with T. Marshall, Francisco, Lick, ML King, Mann, and
O'Connell scheduled for October. Miraloma and Balboa are expected to
have their salad bars open from the start of school.

Reminder: Kids' health takes priority in SFUSD

This message is from Dana Woldow,
chair of the SFUSD Student Nutrition and Physical Activity Committee.

A reminder to school staffs and parent groups:

As school begins again, please remember that the SFUSD’s federally mandated Wellness Policy prohibits the sale of food at school (beyond the cafeteria) during the school day; this includes all sales by parents, school staff, or students, including student or parent run school stores, bake sales, or classroom food sales. Please do not plan fundraising events around the sale of any kind of food, especially any kind of candy, during the school day. The only exception is the 4 days a year when high school students are allowed to sell food for fundraising for their clubs.

In June 2007, the Board of Education amended the Wellness Policy to include all food sent to school for sharing, such as food for parties, celebrations, or classroom snacks. The Child Development Program is included in the Wellness Policy. For more on food sent to school for sharing, click here.

For a quick and easy guide to finding healthy snacks for sharing at school, click here.

Or choose from this list.

Teachers are reminded that they may not sell food from their classrooms during school hours, including lunchtime, nor may they sell food during lunchtime performances, Brown Bag Theaters, etc.

For more on why such food sales are prohibited, click here.

To read the SFUSD’s Wellness Policy, click here.

For more information on student nutrition or the Wellness policy, click here.

STAR test results online

There are plenty of news reports about the newly released STAR test data from last year's standardized testing. The Chron even printed a whole section with data for all Bay Area schools. ZZZzzzzzzzz.......

But you, dear reader, are on-line. Why bother sifting through a lot of printed chaffe? Just go to the STAR 2007 Test Results page and dig in. You can see slice and dice the results to your heart's content.

Or just sit back and enjoy vacation. This data is most useful to the teachers and school administrators that know which tests your student has taken, how their classmates are progressing, which deficiencies may be identified...

I have a large appetite for testing stats. But the STAR results are not really meant for us educational consumers. The SFUSD results are pretty good. Check. With plenty of info about the achievement gaps. Check. Let's hope the teachers are able to harness all this data to help them address their students' needs.

Garcia's first address to the board: Go Team!

The School Board Notes appear to be taking a well deserved summer vacation. I have been too. So I don't have any notes or other reporting to share on the 8/14/2007 BOE Meeting. But we do have the meeting webcast on-line, and I strongly recommend that you take the time to watch the start of it.

This was Superintendent Garcia's first BOE meeting and his first address to the board is a very impressive Go Team! speech.

He hits all the right notes, in my opinion. He takes note of the recent record of solid accomplishments in the district, especially the Prop A facilities improvements. He lasers in on the pressing need to address the budget problems. The need to build trust in the community to build support for the district. The opportunity to collobrate with other urban California districts to address common problems. He commits to work with the board and to be accountable and collaborative through sustained, routine teamwork. He looks forward to moving beyond the endless public input to identify clear priorities and focus the district, his admiistration and the board, on acccomplishing the priority objectives.

Very impressive opening. Its will take 7:00 minutes. Check it out.

Art students in uniform

I came across the dress code of the Oakland School for the Arts, a charter school (one of Jerry Brown's two signature projects, along with the Oakland Military Institute charter school).

I wonder if any student at San Francisco School of the Arts, the non-charter where my son is going into 11th grade, has ever met this dress code, even one student one day. The hairstyle rules must be somewhere else on the website — I imagine my son's flowing blond ponytail and his classmates' various wild hairstyles wouldn't fly there. And don't even ask about the uncensored language and imagery in some of the creative writing and media projects at SFSOTA.

(And no sunglasses indoors? What's a jazz musician without his/her shades?)

GENERAL GUIDELINES, All Students
• Polo shirts, solid colors, long or short sleeved
• Ankle length khakis, slacks, or corduroys
• Closed toed, closed heeled shoes
• All clothing should be loose, not form fitting or tight, bearing no slogans or designs.
OUTERWEAR
• OSA sweatshirts
ACCESSORIES
• All hats and head coverings (except where allowed for religious reasons) must be
removed when on the OSA campus. Knit hats may be worn when outdoors during winter
months.
• Tattoos or piercing (other than a two pair maximum in ears) cannot be visible during
school hours.
• The wearing of chains, spikes, dog collars etc. is not permissible.
• Sunglasses should be removed when indoors.

I also noted on the Oakland School for the Arts website a pretty startling gender imbalance -- 64.6% girls, 35.4% boys. The class of 2009 is really extreme -- 71% girls, 29% boys. What's that about?

— Caroline

Meet the superintendent and Mayor Newsom

I'm passing on information about a great-sounding event this coming Saturday, and my comment below it on what I'd like to ask the city to do to help our kids and our schools:

Please join Mayor Gavin Newsom, Supervisor Bevan Dufty, and School Superintendent Carlos Garcia for a community discussion on education in San Francisco This is an opportunity to learn about what the School District and City government are doing to improve our schools and
expand educational opportunities, and to share your ideas on improving education in our community.

Saturday, August 11th 2007
at 2:00pm to 4:00pm
at
Fairmount Elementary School
65 Chenery Street (at Randall)
Parking lot is accessible from Randall St. (at San Jose Ave.)
The location is wheelchair accessible; Real-Time Captioning and Assisted Listening Devices will be provided. For other accommodations, please contact the Mayor's Office on Disability:
ph: 554-6789, TTY: 554-6799. Providing 72 hours notice will help to ensure availability of the accommodation.

Comment from Caroline: I don't know if this will be an opportunity for the public to expound
on our ideas. I wanted to share three things our schools need help with. I'll mention them if there's a forum to do so.

1. I keep hearing from eloquent parents that one of the big draws of K-8 private school is the promise of seamless child care before and after school, as compared to the random and uncertain patchwork that has grown up around SFUSD schools. Every parent I know who needs child care in/connected with their SFUSD school has found it satisfactorily, but it's never just right there, guaranteed.

It's time for the city to step in and fill that gap. Just do it!

2. At high school level, the major, undeniable advantage private schools offer is college handholding. Not only do they provide counseling, resources and every other possible type of assistance, they also have greased "rich get richer" connections to prestige colleges. It's standard for high-end private high schools to hire as their college counselors former admissions officers from desirable colleges — they must budget a whopping amount for this expenditure.

Aside from connections and pull, this is about packaging/presentation/marketing, not the actual merit of the students or quality of their education.

At SFUSD high schools, college counseling is a patchwork, varying from school to school. SFUSD would never be able to match the connection/insider advantage that the prestige privates offer, but consistent and greatly enhanced college counseling/resources/handholding would make a big difference. Private funders? City?

3. The city needs to step in and make up the difference between what SFUSD can manage and the top-quality feasible school food. San Francisco should be ensuring that the community's children are fed as well as possible. This should not be a burden dumped on educators,
forcing them to choose between classroom needs and good-quality food for our kids.

(We need to understand that working kitchens in every school and scratch-cooked food are not feasible — but it's possible to serve much better food than SFUSD can currently provide if the will and the money are there.)

So, those are the three things I call on the community and private funders to step in with.

— Caroline