School Beat on SFUSD's new Special Olympics

School Beat takes a look at SFUSD's new Special Olympics program that we reported on back in January. The article is written by Paul Zager, the veteran special ed teacher who leads the Special Olympic program in SFUSD. He gives an excellent overview of the program and its early successes.

Special Olympics Comes to San Francisco’s Public Schools!:

when students with special needs have the opportunity to learn specific skills, participate in a real sport, and be part of a school team all within their school community, the social, emotional and intellectual potential of these students (and for the school community at large) can be enhanced.

No Witty E-mailer Left Behind

It's a good one, though.

No Child Left Behind - Football Version

1. All teams must make the state playoffs and all MUST win the championship.
If a team does not win the championship, they will be on probation until
they are the champions, and coaches will be held accountable. If after two
years they have not won the championship their footballs and equipment will
be taken away UNTIL they do win the championship.

2. All kids will be expected to have the same football skills at the same
time, even if they do not have the same conditions or opportunities to
practice on their own. NO exceptions will be made for lack of interest in
football, a desire to perform athletically, or genetic abilities or
disabilities of themselves or their parents. ALL KIDS WILL PLAY FOOTBALL AT
A PROFICIENT LEVEL!

3. Talented players will be asked to workout on their own, without
instruction. This is because the coaches will be using all their
instructional time with the athletes who aren't interested in football, have
limited athletic ability or whose parents don't like football.

4. Games will be played year round, but statistics will only be kept in the
5th, 8th, and 11th game. This will create a New Age of Sports where every
school is expected to have the same level of talent and all teams will reach
the same minimum goals. If no child gets ahead, then no child gets left
behind. If parents do not like this new law, they are encouraged to vote for
vouchers and support private schools that can screen out the non-athletes
and prevent their children from having to go to school with bad football
players.

17 dumbest ways SFUSD sabotages the meal program

Last week, many of you read my list of the "10 dumbest USDA policies" as reflected in the National School Lunch Program. It was suggested that I also print a companion "10 dumbest ways SFUSD sabotages the meal program", but really, there are so many, how to choose just 10? In the end, I decided to go with the full list of 17. This list was developed and distributed by the SFUSD student nutrition and physical activity committee in 2007, and shared with Superintendent Garcia during a meeting we had with him in August. He was particularly interested in the part about putting all vending machines under one central contract, said he had done that as Superintendent in Clark County, that it was not something which would require reinvention of the wheel, and that he thought it would be a good thing to go ahead and do. We're still waiting for that to happen.

Now, with the budget disaster looming, Student Nutrition Services is being asked to look at every possible program cut to help save money. But before we go back to serving only carnival food, or denying a student with no money a meal, or axing the afterschool snack program, or eliminating meals in summer school, wouldn't it make sense to work on some of these strategies?

Well-nourished students are higher achievers: How administrators can help support quality meals for students

School food in San Francisco is much better than it used to be, thanks to the district Wellness Policy and strong new leadership in Student Nutrition Services (SNS).

But SNS has other problems. It hasn't been able to balance its budget. That's largely due to factors beyond the district's control – primarily the impossibly low reimbursement rate for low-income students' meals, which are subsidized by the federal and state government, and a threshold for qualifying that's cruelly unrealistic in high-cost San Francisco.

When the SNS budget doesn't balance, the deficit comes out of schools', classrooms' and students' resources. So everyone has an interest in helping ensure that Student Nutrition is as fiscally strong as possible.

School and district administrators should be aware that there are many things they can do to ensure SNS' improved financial health. In fact, most are things they are already supposed to be doing, and could be done at no cost to the district.

Administrators need to understand that competitive food sales drain money away from Student Nutrition. That means the quality of the food suffers and fewer students are likely to eat it, creating a downward spiral – poorer-quality food and less money available for classroom needs.

Here are 17 specific ways administrators can make a difference:

Help Support The Cafeteria

1. Administrators should encourage students to eat the school meals and generally support the cafeteria operations. The more students who eat the meals, the stronger revenues become.
2. School staffs need to remember that all adults must pay the adult price if they eat in the cafeteria; this includes teachers and families of students.
3. Many students have indicated that they choose not to eat in the cafeteria because the lines are too long, and some students push and shove, or cut the line. When SNS is able to implement a Point of Sale swipe card system at every school, the lines will move much faster, but meanwhile it is the schools' responsibility to provide staff to monitor the line and deal with unruly students. SNS does not have the manpower to provide this service.
4. High schools with closed campuses should adhere to this policy and keep their students on campus at lunchtime.
5. Teachers need to let the cafeteria know when students on field trips will miss lunch – giving at least two weeks' notice. Teachers should also be aware that with two weeks' notice, they can request free bag lunches for those days for students who qualify for free/reduced-price meals, and that higher-income students can order paid bag lunches for just $2 each. Principals must make sure their teachers are aware of this.
   
   Enforce The Wellness Policy (Competitive Sales)
   
6. Principals must enforce the longstanding Wellness Policy prohibition on competitive food sales at lunchtime, whether it's teachers selling Cup o Noodles out of their classrooms, Brown Bag Theater lunchtime events selling hot dogs, or classrooms, clubs, Peer Resources or JROTC running fundraising food sales. And they need to halt all sales of non-compliant foods at any time of day. Food sold for fundraising competes with school meals and is often unhealthy.
7. A city ordinance now prohibits catering trucks from vending near schools. Principals need to support that by reporting violators to the School Operations and Instructional Support Office, which then needs to contact the police (both actions required under the Wellness Policy). Vending trucks sell unhealthy items and compete with the school meals.
   
   Enforce The Wellness Policy (Vending)
   
8. Administrators need to enforce the Wellness Policy at all school sites, from Pre-K to 12th grade, including ensuring that all products in school vending machines meet the Wellness Policy's nutrition standards. For a list of approved items, a survey assessing schools' compliance, a sample letter which can be sent to vendors if machines are out of compliance, and more information, go to www.sfusdfood.org . Parents and educators can report non-compliance, with confidentiality guaranteed, through the website.
9. Principals would be relieved of the responsibility for ensuring that items stocked in machines comply with the Wellness Policy if district administrators would follow up on the Policy's longstanding recommendation that all school vending machines be put under one districtwide contract, rather than the wild patchwork of unaccountable arrangements that currently exists. This would almost certainly guarantee a better financial arrangement for schools and would allow accounting for revenues, which are currently entirely unmonitored.
   
   Enforce The Wellness Policy (Parties And Celebrations)
   
10. The newest section of the SFUSD Wellness Policy calls for foods handed out to students, including at class and schoolwide parties, and parent-donated snacks, to meet the SFUSD healthy food standards. Administrators need to enforce this section, which applies to all district sites Pre-K-12th grade. Food provided at parties competes with the school meals and is often unhealthy. A suggested list of healthy school snacks and party food is available at www.sfusdfood.org .
    
    Follow The USDA Regulations
11. Principals must understand that SNS employees report to SNS and are following a stringent set of federal laws. SNS income and federal reimbursements can be jeopardized if Principals try to make their own rules for the meal program. Likewise, although many of the regulations may seem arbitrary (such as requiring each student to hold his own meal card in his hand in the lunch line), SNS does not make these rules (the USDA does) and SNS cannot change them.
12. It's essential that all students who qualify for subsidized meals fill out the meal application forms so Student Nutrition can be reimbursed. Achieving this requires every student to turn in a form (non-low-income families may write "not interested.") This task is the job of Principals, and it should be made mandatory. Currently, Principals vary widely in their effectiveness in – and concern about – collecting the meal applications.
13. Under the current system, SNS relies on meal cards for students' proof of eligibility for reimbursable meals. In some cases, schools delay distributing the cards, which means SNS loses money. Principals should be required not just to distribute the cards (some never do) but to do it within 48 hours after the cards are received at the school. And principals must not forbid cafeteria workers to check students' eligibility. That can mean SNS doesn't get the reimbursements to which it is entitled. That money is the sole source of revenue to pay for the costs of food and labor to run the meal program.
14. Principals at schools with snack programs need to make sure that their after school program coordinator is complying with record- keeping requirements, including daily snack counts, and submitting monthly counts in a timely manner. A delay at even one school holds up reimbursement for all meals – breakfast, lunch, and snack – for the entire district, and each day of delay costs SNS money (about $109,000 in 06-07.)
15. If a Principal has knowledge that a specific student's family would qualify for free meals, USDA regulations allow the Principal to fill out and sign a free meal application for that student if the family does not do so. So long as the Principal is not filling out forms to cover large groups of students, this is a perfectly acceptable procedure. A student who qualifies for free meals, and who eats breakfast and lunch at school every day, brings in about $815 a year in revenue; the same student with no meal application on file brings in only $98 a year to cover the cost of the meals he eats.
    
    Work Cooperatively With SNS
    
16. Principals need to help school communities understand the realities about school meals. Occasionally, Principals encourage parents to demand the impossible – such as scratch cooking at school sites that would require millions of dollars to install kitchens, or meal programs that would violate federal law. Parent involvement and activism is vital in our schools – but crusades demanding changes that are far outside the realm of reality can be counterproductive.
17. The Human Resources Department needs to make every effort to fill job vacancies within SNS in a timely manner. When temporary clerks are needed to process meal application forms at the start of school, and those positions are not filled despite a timely request by SNS, then regular workers must be paid expensive overtime to get the job done by the deadline set by the government. In addition, reimbursement for students who are qualifying for the first time for free meals cannot be collected until after the students' meal applications are processed and meal cards printed and distributed to the students. Every day of delay due to understaffing of SNS costs the department money.

posted by KC for Nestwife

2/26 BOE Meeting videocast

The SFGTV video of the February 26th BOE meeting is available.

For KIPP wonks only

This is only for those who really like to wallow in KIPP minutiae: I e-mailed these questions to KIPP PR spokesperson Steve Mancini. He sent me a friendly response saying he's on the road but would like to meet for lunch when he gets back. I thought I'd share the questions (which I would HOPE someone has asked before, given all the coverage of KIPP schools).

1. I know that incoming KIPP students at grades above 5 are tested to determine their grade level. I am not clear whether students incoming from 4th grade, applying to 5th grade, are also given that testing. Are applicants for 5th grade tested to determine their grade level? If they test below 5th grade, are they still admitted? (If not, I may have follow-up questions.)
   
   
2. I know that students who have completed 5th grade at other schools and are applying for 6th grade ARE tested to determine their grade level. What percentage overall are determined to be at 5th-grade level and told that they will need to repeat 5th grade (this time at KIPP) to be admitted? What percentage are determined to be at 6th-grade level and admitted to grade 6? (I'm assuming there may be some in other categories; see question 3, or they might test ahead of grade.)
   
   
3. If applicants in that category (completed 5th grade at other school, applying to KIPP for 6th) test BELOW 5th-grade level, are they still accepted to 5th grade at KIPP?
   
   
4. Of applicants in that category (completed 5th grade at other school, applying to KIPP for 6th) who are told they will need to repeat grade 5, this time at KIPP, how many of them then enroll at KIPP?
   
   
5. Of applicants in that category (completed 5th grade at other school, applying to KIPP for 6th) who test at 6th-grade level and do not have to repeat a grade, how many then enroll at KIPP?
   
   
6. What percentage of KIPP students who have completed grades 5, 6 or 7 at KIPP are told they need to repeat a grade (disaggregating for each grade)? Do you have information on how that compares to averages at traditional public schools?
   
   
7. What percentage of KIPP students who have completed grade 8 at KIPP are told they need to repeat grade 8 to graduate? Do you have information on how that compares to averages at traditional public middle schools?
   
   
8. I have often read a claim that a high percentage (though the number given varies) of KIPP students go on to college.
   
   Here's the first hit on Google News as of right now, for example: "According to Feinberg, 90 percent of KIPP's middle school students go to college..."
   
   As you are aware, KIPP runs middle schools, so only students who finished 8th grade in 2003 or earlier would be at college age now (high school graduating class of 2007). KIPP has run only a small number of schools for that long — Jay Mathews of the Washington Post told me the number is two. So I know we're talking about quite a small number of students. However, my question is: Does KIPP have an official mechanism/process for tracking those students? What is it and how does it work? Has KIPP succeeded in following 100% of its alumni who finished Grade 8 in 2003 or earlier, and if not, what percentage has it successfully tracked?
   
   
9. I frequently read, including on KIPP's website, that "all KIPP schools" have waiting lists. However, San Francisco's two KIPP schools do not have waiting lists, at least for grade 5, as is clear from multiple indicators. Do San Francisco's two KIPP schools have waiting lists for other grades? Since that information is incorrect about San Francisco's two KIPP schools, can you clarify what percentage of KIPP schools do have waiting lists for grade 5?
   
   
10. Why does KIPP start its schools at grade 5 when apparently most districts where it operates have K-5 feeder schools? Do many students leave the feeder schools after grade 4, or is that to allow a high number of students to repeat grade 5 in the KIPP school?

I will of course post whatever responses I get.

Doomsday scenario takes shape

photo by finepixxler

The looming financial crisis just got personal. The BOE announced that the current projected deficit is a whopping $49 million. As expected, and as has been done many times in the past, the district is covering all bases and sending out layoff notices to about %10 of its staff. 140 teachers and 395 teachers. Ouch. Kim has a detailed accounting of where the layoff notices will hit.

In the past these notices have been pro forma. Headcount reductions, when they have occurred, have been reached by attrition. This time the whole it pretty damned big. Rainy day fund or not, this figures to be painful.

California is better than this

There's a daily list of California education-related print news article posted on the website of FCMAT*. Just a look at the digest today tells a painful story. We've been hearing a lot about George Bush's failed presidency. The story here is Arnold Schwarzenegger's failed governorship.

FCMAT Education Headlines

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

• Stockton USD meeting gets heated over budget
  As Stockton Unified School District's trustees met into the night Tuesday, the most intriguing aspect of the night was what went unspoken. It involved a heated six-minute exchange during the meeting between Trustee William Ross and board President Daniel Castillo. Ross sought to put what he called "emergency" items onto the agenda. Castillo and Stockton Unified legal counsel Marie Nakamura shot him down, saying Ross had not followed proper procedure.
  
• San Marcos USD to send pink slips to 120 employees
  During an emotional meeting Tuesday night, San Marcos Unified School District officials recommended sending pink slips to nearly 120 employees -- everyone from teachers to bus drivers -- in an effort to reduce a projected $9 million budget deficit in the upcoming school year.
  
• Temecula Valley district officials roll out hard budget numbers
  When Tuesday's special session on the school district's budget began, the mantra of board trustees was "Everything is on the table" in attempting to slice $10.4 million in anticipated spending in the next fiscal year. By the end of the evening, at least one item was considered safe: class-size reductions.
  
• At least 50 to get layoff notices in Novato school district
  Students, teachers and staff made their voices heard Tuesday as the Novato Unified School District board of trustees outlined potential cuts, including layoffs, if Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's slashing budget proposal for California schools is approved. District superintendent Jan La Torre-Derby said more than 50 certificated and classified positions will need to be eliminated and layoff notices would be in the mail March 15, the date required by California law to allow teachers to look for new employment.
  
• Fontana district facing cuts
  It is not a matter of if, but how many job cuts are coming to the school district. At a recent school board meeting, Superintendent Jane D. Smith said the next public session will be a time to discuss the "ugly, horrible things" that the school board will be forced to do. Smith said officials are scrambling to "spread the pain" across the Fontana Unified School District.
  
• Willows school board OKs cuts
  Impassioned pleas and difficult decisions ended with a 3-2 vote Monday night to reduce Willows Unified School District's budget and issue at least nine layoff notices.
  
• Bakersfield City SD anticipates loss of $19 million
  Deep cuts for the Bakersfield City School District could lead to the elimination of three administrator positions, an undisclosed number of teachers and staff, money for materials, $1 million in special education and $200,000 in transportation.
  
• San Juan cuts summer school courses
  The San Juan Unified School District trustees approved a controversial plan Tuesday night to slim down summer school offerings beginning this year.
  
• San Marcos school board hears list of recommended cuts
  Grim-faced school board members listened to San Marcos Unified School District Superintendent Kevin Holt present a list of recommended cuts Tuesday to reduce part of a projected $9.1 million deficit for the upcoming year.
  
• Two school districts considering big cuts
  Facing huge state budget cuts, school administrators in Oceanside and Carlsbad are recommending deep reductions – including closing two schools in Oceanside and laying off 185 people in Carlsbad.
  
• Teachers: 'We want everybody to come out'
  Keep any potential cuts away from the classroom. That's the message educators hope to send to the San Leandro Unified School District Board of Education at its meeting Thursday, when trustees are scheduled to discuss budget issues.
  
• First layoffs since '77 eyed for Elk Grove schools
  Teachers, classified workers and library technicians in the Elk Grove Unified School District may face layoffs this fall because of the state's fiscal crisis.
  
• Dems to detail governor's cuts in schools, health
  Senate Democrats mapped out a 10-week budget strategy on Tuesday that will emphasize the impact of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposed cuts to health care and education.

*FCMAT stands for Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team. They are a state agency that "help local educational agencies fulfill their financial and management responsibilities by providing expedient fiscal advice, management assistance, training and other related school business services..." Whatever else they may do, they publish an interesting digest of news articles about education from all over the state.

Sandra Tsing Loh: Cheer up, Jonathan Kozol!

Thanks to Anne for alerting me to this multilayered missive from humorist/bomb-throwing public-school advocate Sandra Tsing Loh to Jonathan "Shame of the Nation" Kozol. Loh's message to Kozol, whittled down, is: The public schools aren't actually the genocidal pits of racist squalor you make them out to be, and maybe small achievements rather than mobilizing the oppressed masses to storm the White House are making the changes.

Tales out of School
How a pushy, Type A mother stopped reading Jonathan Kozol and learned to love the public schools
by Sandra Tsing Loh
The Atlantic, March 2008

I am a longtime, rabid fan of Jonathan Kozol. Yea, I could show you my tower of dog-eared Kozolalia: The Shame of the Nation, Savage Inequalities, Prisoners of Silence, Illiterate America. In my mind, Kozol’s titles appear all in caps, like flaming Hebraic letters on the side of a monument. I am the sort of impressionable woman whose eyes seep tears while reading his heartrending descriptions of racial inequity in public education. Kozol doesn’t just decry what he sees as the pre-civil-rights-South level of segregation that persists to this day, the percentage of African American children in integrated schools having fallen to its lowest level since the death of Martin Luther King. For four decades, he has made visceral this tragic loss of human potential. Through his somber, exquisitely detailed accounts, I’ve watched countless poor black children begin as charmingly inquisitive and hopeful 5-year-olds, and then, as years pass, as concentric circles of chain-link fence close in, to the beat of that grim government drum, I’ve seen their once-bright spirits dim, heard their once-mellifluous questions ebb to dull monosyllables. I have ridden this roller coaster so often that at one point I took my tower of Kozols to my therapist’s office and despairingly set them on her glass coffee table, like a basket of orphaned kittens. Pfizer should develop a special antidepressant—“Zokol: for when you’ve read too much Kozol.”

Naturally this is the paragraph I love, though:

“Speaking of moral leaders, since your work is so admired by such magazines as Harper’s and The Nation, why don’t you simply exhort those readers to SEND THEIR KIDS TO PUBLIC SCHOOL? How many of those staffers’ kids are in elite privates? Talk about Shame of The Nation!”

Read the rest. It's hilarious.

Experiment finds merit pay rewards the privileged

I haven't fully sorted out my views on the merit pay issue, but this article caught my eye. It's from the St. Petersburg Times, a newspaper with a top reputation (in an industry collapsing in flames, but that's another post, another blog). Hillsborough County, Fla., launched a real-life experiment with merit pay for teachers. It showed that the overwhelming majority of teachers who qualified for the bonus pay worked in the very most privileged schools — though the system had supposedly been designed not to achieve that effect.

Hillsborough's merit pay experiment benefits affluent schools

Hillsborough will try to even out its experimental system to reward the best teachers

By Letitia Stein, St. Petersburg Times Staff Writer
Published February 24, 2008

---

TAMPA - Hillsborough County's 15,000 teachers agreed last year to be guinea pigs in Florida's controversial experiment with merit pay, an issue dividing politicians and educators across the state.

The results weren't at all what officials expected.

A St. Petersburg Times investigation shows that almost three-fourths of the nearly 5,000 teachers who received merit pay worked at the county's more affluent campuses.

In contrast, only three percent of the educators deemed worthy of the $2,100 bonuses worked in the low-income schools that struggle most, where at least nine in 10 students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch.

And almost two-thirds taught in A-rated schools, where they arguably were least needed.

That wasn't how it was supposed to work. State and local officials promised that the merit pay program, tied heavily to FCAT scores, would reward outstanding teachers wherever they taught, regardless of how advanced or behind their students started out.

"That's a big concern on our part - that we be fair for all teachers," said Hillsborough testing director John Hilderbrand, who said the district tried hard to level the playing field. "I didn't assume there would be a big difference between different types of teachers."

The stunning disparities are fueling difficult questions about teacher quality and equity.

Do the best teachers gravitate to affluent schools, where discipline problems are fewer and support greater? Or are the many failing students at Hillsborough's poorest schools dragging down good teachers?

Hillsborough officials aren't plumbing those questions. Instead, they have responded to teacher concerns by revamping the merit pay program.

Read the rest of the article.

A view of SFUSD from Philadelphia

With Arlene Ackerman just named CEO of Philadelphia's schools, it's interesting reading the Philly press on her history in SFUSD (Yes, I and other parent activists here have talked to Philadelphia reporters.)

Here's veteran Philadelphia Inquirer education reporter Susan Snyder's coverage: Ackerman praised as new chief of city schools

If Arlene Ackerman, the new Philadelphia schools CEO, comes to Philadelphia with any baggage, it's the reputation of having ruffled some school board members and union officials in San Francisco, where she was superintendent for six years.

But at yesterday's formal announcement of her selection, even that was something to praise.

"You show me a big city school superintendent who hasn't had a run-in with some particular constituency, and I'll show you somebody who never tried to accomplish anything," Mayor Nutter, joined by Gov. Rendell, said during a news conference at City Hall.

Nutter, Rendell and Sandra Dungee Glenn, chairwoman of the School Reform Commission, said they were impressed with Ackerman's ability to improve student achievement, work with diverse groups and ferret out corruption. Dungee Glenn said she also admired a funding system that Ackerman developed in which more resources were directed to needier schools. ...In San Francisco, some critics complained that Ackerman had an "autocratic" style and didn't involve the community enough when making plans to overhaul the worst schools. Some local education advocates saw this as worrisome.

But Nutter and Rendell said they had talked with San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who told them that some of Ackerman's disputes were with members of the Green Party, an environmental and social justice group. Nutter cited one conflict over "irradiated meat."

"None of those are tremendously big issues here in Philadelphia," Nutter said.

It's pretty amusing that the irradiated meat kerfuffle is STILL the subject of ridicule, several years later and 3,000 miles away. (For the uninitiated, this was about a Board of Ed resolution to ban irradiated meat from SFUSD's school meals, though it had never been served, discussed or on the radar in SFUSD. Many felt that the BOE should be devoting its time and energy to actual real-life problems, not symbolic statements.)

Here's some more Philadelphia coverage of Ackerman:

• Philadelphia Daily News
• Philadelphia Inquirer

Gates' influence on health policy questioned, too

Bill Gates has been called "the Nation's School Superintendent" with disapproval, because his money (and that of other billionaire philanthropists) is driving big parts of public-education policy, even though Gates and his counterparts actually know nothing about education. They fund those "simplistic solutions" that are often ineffective or even destructive.

But I assumed that Gates' similarly bounteous and high-profile investment in world health was a good thing. It's interesting to learn from this New York Times article that not everyone thinks so:

Gates Foundation's Influence Criticized
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
New York Times
February 16, 2008

The chief of malaria for the World Health Organization has complained that the growing dominance of malaria research by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation risks stifling a diversity of views among scientists and wiping out the world health agency’s policy-making function.

In a memorandum, the malaria chief, Dr. Arata Kochi, complained to his boss, Dr. Margaret Chan, the director general of the W.H.O., that the foundation’s money, while crucial, could have “far-reaching, largely unintended consequences.”

Many of the world’s leading malaria scientists are now “locked up in a ‘cartel’ with their own research funding being linked to those of others within the group,” Dr. Kochi wrote. Because “each has a vested interest to safeguard the work of the others,” he wrote, getting independent reviews of research proposals “is becoming increasingly difficult.”

Also, he argued, the foundation’s determination to have its favored research used to guide the health organization’s recommendations “could have implicitly dangerous consequences on the policy-making process in world health.”

Dr. Tadataka Yamada, executive director of global health at the Gates Foundation, disagreed with Dr. Kochi’s conclusions, saying the foundation did not second-guess or “hold captive” scientists or research partnerships that it backed. “We encourage a lot of external review,” he said.

The memo, which was obtained by The New York Times, was written late last year but circulated this week to the heads of several health agency departments, with a note asking whether they were having similar struggles with the Gates Foundation.

A spokeswoman for the director general said Dr. Chan saw the memo last year but did not respond to it. It is “the view of one department, not the W.H.O.’s view,” said the spokeswoman, Christine McNab. The agency has cordial relations with the foundation, and the agency’s policies are set by committees, which include others besides Gates-financed scientists, she said.

The Gates Foundation has poured about $1.2 billion into malaria research since 2000. In the late 1990s, as little as $84 million a year was spent — largely by the United States military and health institutes, along with European governments and foundations. Drug makers had largely abandoned the field. (China was developing a drug, artemisinin, that is now the cornerstone of treatment.)

[...]There have been hints in recent months that the World Health Organization feels threatened by the growing power of the Gates Foundation. Some scientists have said privately that it is “creating its own W.H.O.”

One oft-cited example is its $105 million grant to create the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. Its mission is to judge, for example, which treatments work or to rank countries’ health systems.

These are core W.H.O. tasks, but the institute’s new director, Dr. Christopher J. L. Murray, formerly a health organization official, said a new path was needed because the United Nations agency came under pressure from member countries. His said his institute would be independent of that.

And by the way, it was Michael Klonsky's Small Talk blog that alerted me to this article. That's ironic, because Mike is increasingly sharply critical of me because of my questions over the push to create new Small Schools by Design in SFUSD — a push that has funding from the Gates Foundation.

10 dumbest things about the Nat'l School Lunch Program

This commentary was written by Dana Woldow, San Francisco public school parent/activist and co-chair of the San Francisco Unified School District Student Nutrition and Physical Activity Committee.

10 DUMBEST THINGS ABOUT THE NATIONAL SCHOOL LUNCH PROGRAM

The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) has provided meals to students since 1946; currently over 30 million children participate in the program. It is overseen by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

If you thought the recent news about tainted beef possibly reaching school cafeterias in some communities indicated some problems with the NSLP and its overseer, the USDA, you'd be right. Failure to ensure the safety of food served to school children is merely the latest problem to surface. Here are some others:

10. Requiring each child to hold their own lunch card results in spread of germs.

This NSLP regulation really drives the teachers of younger kids crazy. It says that each student must hold their own lunch card, which is embedded with a code specifying the student's eligibility for lunch – free, reduced, or paid. Each child's eligibility must be recorded by a caf worker in order to collect government reimbursement, but why is it necessary for each child to physically hold the card in their hand? Some teachers feel that students handling the cards, which are then bundled together and returned to the teacher at the end of the line, spreads germs from one card to the next, and from the cards to the students, increasing pupil absenteeism due to illness. Is there really any reason why the teacher could not keep custody of the cards, hand them to the caf worker as the students pass through the line, and then retrieve them, so that the children don't have to touch them at all?

9. Offer vs. serve means adults cannot hand students fruit, milk,whole wheat bread, or any other meal component.

In order for a school lunch to qualify for government reimbursement, the cafeteria "offers" 5 meal components (protein, grain, fruit, veg, and milk) and the student must choose at least 3 of the 5; however, the operant word is "choose." That is, the student must reach out and select the items he wishes to eat himself – an adult may not give him milk, or an apple, or anything else (that would be "serving" rather than "offering."). Some teachers, aware that their students will not get much at home for dinner, try to get their kids to fill up at lunch, but if they hand the food to the students, or even put a plate of bread to share on a table where students are eating, that is a violation of USDA policy.

8. The list of "foods of minimal nutritional value", which are disallowed in school cafeterias, is a very short list.

It is comprised only of soda, water ices, chewing gum, sugar coated popcorn, and a few specific types of candies made almost entirely of sugar or other sweetener, such as hard candy, licorice, cotton candy, marshmallow, and jelly candy. Flaming Hot Cheetos (or other snacks of the chips variety), Kit Kat bars (or any other popular candy bars), Capri Sun (or other mostly water/sweetener) "juice" drinks, fried pork rinds, Slim Jims (not to be confused with real beef jerky), chocolate covered double stuffed Oreo cookies (as well as any other type of cookie) – none of these are considered to be "foods of minimal nutritional" value and therefore all are permitted to be sold in the cafeteria under current USDA regulations. A food need only contain 5% of the recommended daily allowance of one nutrient (like, say, Vitamin C, or thiamine) to avoid the FMNV list, yet surely no one really believes that fried pork rinds contribute to proper nutrition for a child.

7. Overt identification – now you see it, now you don't.

The USDA doesn't seem to know what they mean by this one. In theory, "overt identification" is anything that makes it clear to an onlooker that a student is receiving free or reduced price meal. So, any system used in the cafeteria which involves the use of cash by students paying for their meals is "overt identification" because it makes clear that those not paying cash are getting free meals. Likewise, the use of colored tickets or any other system which has one group of students handing over, in exchange for the meal, something different than another group of students, is overt identification.

But, the USDA has no problem with schools operating a la carte food sales; such sales do not have to be of complete meals, like the free lunch, but can instead be just snacks like Gatorade and potato chips. These a la carte items are sold separately and are not available as part of the free lunch, Clearly students purchasing them are paying customers, while those choosing the school lunch are likely to be getting free meals, yet cafeterias selling a la carte is not considered "overt identification."

In fact, it was the USDA which, in the 1980s, began encouraging schools to sell these very popular and profitable snacks, as a way of generating more money to support the free lunch program. This was at the same time that the federal government was doing away with the funds previously available for schools to replace aging or broken cafeteria equipment (no such fund has existed now for over 20 years.) The USDA did specify that foods of minimal nutritional value (see #8) could not be sold in the cafeteria or anywhere that NSLP meals were served or eaten, which led some schools to open separate a la carte facilities, so that they could sell soda and still comply with USDA regulations. This does not seem to be a violation of "overt identification" – indeed, how could it be, when the USDA both encouraged the sale of soda and also prohibited it from being sold in the caf – but surely an impartial observer would conclude that the students lining up to buy the USDA-approved a la carte snacks were not free lunch students.

6. USDA meal regulations limiting sugar and fat apply to weekly averages, not individual components.

This means that high fat fried chicken nuggets (over 60% of calories come from fat in some nuggets) can be averaged with green beans, fruit, bread, and low fat or fat free milk, to produce a meal which has less than 30% calories from fat, as the USDA requires. However, as students can take as few as 3 of the 5 meal components, there is no way to prevent the child from leaving the fruit and the vegetable, taking only the nuggets, bread, and milk, and consuming only the nuggets and milk, thereby ingesting far more than 30% calories from fat. Likewise, the USDA allows the totals to be averaged out over the whole week's worth of meals, so that a higher fat entree like chicken nuggets can be offset by a lower fat meal served later in the week. But there is no way to guarantee that students who ate the nuggets meal also compensated later in the week by eating the lower fat meal. So even offering school meals which meet all USDA regulations for fat and sugar content still doesn't necessarily result in students who are well nourished.

This is why the SFUSD has stricter standards, designed to ensure that each entrée alone (not averaged with all meal components, and over the course of a week) meets the USDA limit for fat; snacks and side dishes must meet USDA limits for fat and sugar, and also are required to contain at least 5% of 8 essential nutrients.

5. Tofu is not allowed as the required protein component of a meal, limiting vegetarian options and making a variety of vegan reimbursable meals almost impossible to provide.

Both peanuts and peanut butter are allowed; I guess the USDA is unaware that some children have such severe peanut allergies that if the cafeteria were to serve peanut butter sandwiches for lunch, they wouldn't be able to come to school at all that day (SFUSD does not serve peanuts or peanut butter in school meals.) Beans are allowed, but most students don't want to eat beans for lunch, not even in combination with hot dogs, so that leaves cheese as the most common vegetarian option. Students who don't or can't eat cheese, either because of lactose intolerance or vegan preference, are simply out of luck.

4. Commodities on which districts must depend are often of low quality or high in fat.

This is because the commodity program doesn't really exist to help support better nutrition for children, but rather to provide price supports for agriculture. After all, that's what the A in USDA stands for (and there is nothing in that name that refers to kids.) Want to make sure the price of milk stays high? Just buy up the excess milk (in years when there is an excess) and turn it into the famous "government cheese", which can then be distributed as a commodity to schools. Not enough milk one year? Well, then there may not be any commodity cheese the next year. Same thing with beef, poultry, pork, and a slew of other commodities. They are dumped into the lunch program in bountiful years, and disappear when supplies get scarce. A lunch program designed with the kids' nutrition in mind would provide a wider selection of reduced fat cheeses, and higher quality meat, as well as fresh locally grown produce, instead of canned fruits and vegetables. It would protect against the use (even by mistake) of tainted beef in school lunches.

3. Food not sold or served by the end of the meal period must, in most cases, be thrown away.

It cannot be given away to children who are still hungry at the end of the day (and who might welcome a heartier snack at their after school daycare program), nor taken home to feed their hungry families.

2. The government reimbursement for free and reduced price meals is woefully inadequate in high cost of living areas.

The federal reimbursement for a meal served to a student qualified for free lunch in the 48 contiguous states is $2.49 (Alaska and Hawaii get more), which, along with about 22 cents more coming from the state, must pay for every single cost of running the school meals program, not just the food. Maybe that is enough in a lower cost of living state like Kentucky, but here in San Francisco, after labor, garbage collection, pest control, utilities, supplies like tin foil and paper towels, napkins, straws, cardboard trays, sporks, and the costs of running the Student Nutrition Services office are all figured in, only about $1 is left for food. Try serving any kind of complete meal for $1, let alone a nutritious tasty one made from the fresh, locally grown food students and parents prefer. School districts located in higher cost of living areas should get high reimbursement, just as Alaska and Hawaii do.

1. The cutoff for eligibility for reimbursable meals is unrealistically low for high cost of living areas.

Imagine a family of 4 in San Francisco - two children, and two parents working 40 hours per week at minimum wage jobs. Believe it or not, these parents will exceed the amount of income they can earn and still qualify for reimbursable meals for their children! The cutoff for eligibility for this hypothetical family is $38,203, but their 40 hour work week at SF's minimum wage of $9.36 an hour would earn them $38,937. Impossible to imagine parents raising two kids in SF on under $39,000 a year, but the federal government thinks that if a 4 person family earns that much, the kids clearly don't need a free breakfast or lunch.

The USDA devotes an enormous amount of effort to trying to make sure that families don't "cheat" – as if anyone could get rich scamming free school meals for their kids! Meal applications must be filled out each year; districts are required to randomly pull 3% of all applications and verify that the information provided is accurate. Every day, cafeteria workers must check the eligibility of every student receiving a meal, to make sure that the government is only billed for those who are qualified. Inspectors from the USDA visit every NSLP school district every four years to monitor compliance with USDA policies, and the quality and safety of the food is not their only concern; they are looking for violations of all of the regulations cited here, and particularly they are looking to see if accurate "counting and claiming" is going on – in other words, they are looking for the "cheaters" who might be scamming a free lunch. Wouldn't it make more sense to forget the meal applications, forget verifying the accuracy of the income information on them, forget the lunch cards and the counting and claiming and the inspections, and just feed the kids?

Arlene Ackerman set to head Philadelphia schools

Philadelphia Daily News 2/18/08

Ackerman to be chosen as city schools CEO
by MENSAH M. DEAN
Philadelphia Daily News
deanm@phillynews.com
After months of closed-door deliberations that included Gov. Rendell and Mayor Nutter, the School Reform Commission is expected to announce that Arlene Ackerman will become the next chief executive officer of the School District of Philadelphia, sources have told the Daily News.
An announcement could be made as soon as Tuesday.

Ackerman, 61, who served as superintendent of San Francisco schools from 2000 to 2006, and Washington, D.C. schools from 1998 to 2000, last month was named among the three finalists for the $275,000 position.C. Kent McGuire, dean of Temple University’s College of Education, withdrew his name from consideration late last month.

Along with Ackerman, Leroy D. Nunery II, 52, a former executive with Edison Schools Inc., is also a finalist to run the nation’s eighth-largest school system.

Ackerman and Nunery, however, failed to spark much public support or enthusiasm from the city’s education activists, many of whom called for the CEO-search process to be reopened to attract other candidates.

Some complained that while in San Francisco Ackerman had rocky relationships with the teachers’ union, some parent groups and three school board members. Others, however, noted that test scores rose each year under Ackerman, and the budgets were balanced.

She was named Superintendent of the Year for 2004-05 by the National Association of Black School Educators. For 2005-06, she was elected chairwoman of the Council of Great City Schools, a coalition of the nation’s largest urban school systems.

Last month, Ackerman told reporters that if selected she would seek higher pay for teachers who work in the hardest-to-staff schools, put more social service programs in the schools, reform 70 schools with input from the community and prove to lawmakers that she can manage the district’s money before asking them for more.

While running the schools in San Francisco and Washington, Ackerman won praise for introducing a weighted student funding formula, which is designed to provide equity in the distribution of funds to all schools based on student characteristics, such as poverty.

Earlier this month the Daily News reported that Ackerman was set to share in a $350,000 contract to help create a similar funding system for Philadelphia’s schools.

In December, the reform commission approved a resolution awarding the contract to nonprofit Education Resource Strategies. The Watertown, Mass. firm hired Ackerman as a subcontractor.
Ackerman told the paper that her participation in the contract did not conflict with her CEO candidacy because her involvement had been halted until a CEO was hired.

School district spokeswoman Cecilia Cummings had said Ackerman’s role in the contract would be terminated if she were selected CEO. Several education advocates, however, felt the matter should have been disclosed prior to appearing in the paper.

“I don’t think it’s the best way to do business when you’re trying to hire somebody who is already doing business with you,” Dolores Shaw, a parent leader with the Eastern Pennsylvania Organizing Project, told the paper.

Ackerman, who is divorced with two grown sons and three granddaughters, is a professor at Columbia University and is a superintendent in residence at the Los Angeles-based Broad Superintendents Academy. Ackerman trains executives to take leadership positions in urban school districts.

Thomas Brady, the school district’s former chief operating officer, has been serving as interim CEO since last year. He replaced Paul Vallas, who resigned the CEO position following last school year to become superintendent of the Recovery School District in New Orleans.

Historical Photoblogging at SFPL.org!

Harrison School

John Swett

F. Scott Key

Fellow photoblogger Sunset Style, in her article on Francis Scott Key ES dropped a link to a great trove of historical pictures at the SF Public Library site.

This is a really cool vein of photoblogging material that is fun to browse. Check these out and head over to the library to search for more!

Keeping it in perspective

Here's another great post from TMAO that made me pause. I've written about the need for more action on truancy, in support of keeping police on campus at SFUSD schools, generally supporting the side that says "Order in the schools!". This powerfully written story challenges the assumptions behind that point of view and makes it clear why there needs to be a clear dividing line that keeps the school a haven from the harsh hard edge of the world outside the school doors.

Teaching in the 408: The Criminalization Of Misconduct:

This isn't even about the absurd rate of suspension, the removal of dignity in discipline situations, or just the daily unpleasantness that has arisen on campus. This is about how the police have been used to undermine and chip away at the very core of what it was that made our school a successful and special place.

This year, officers have been brought into discipline scenarios time and time again in defiance of our norms, understandings, and wishes, but apparently in compliance with the wishes of district leadership. The inclusion of police represents a continued gross escalation and over-reaction. We're not talking about a kid selling drugs or using a weapon in an assault. Those are crimes. Our kids are being put into the system, cited and arrested over actions that, while unacceptable, are nevertheless not criminal.

Make you go, hmmmm.... Read the whole thing.

The Sad Saga of the CAC for Special Ed Newsletter

Today's School Beat column on BeyondChron tells the sad history of the Community Advisory Committee for Special Education's efforts to get basic information into the hands of parents who lack English skills and/or access to the Internet. The Committee has produced two newsletters since November 2006; the first one was delayed (lost?) "in translation" for almost four months before it actually hit mailboxes. The second, which was completed by the Committee in July 2007, has still not been mailed. Why? Because (according to a District lawyer last week) it's apparently not the CAC for Special Education's role to educate parents on their right to advocate on behalf of their children. Committee members have offered to include a disclaimer on this and all future editions of the newsletter, but apparently our parent-to-parent advice is just too inflammatory to print.

To judge for yourself about just who is overreaching, read CAC Member Katy Franklin's full account of the newsletter saga, including the full text of the legal admonition the Committee received from the district. A PDF version of the unsuppressed newsletter is here.

Charters can force L.A. teachers out of classrooms

A lawsuit by the California Charter Schools Association will force existing schools to give up space to charter schools, including leaving teachers with no classrooms, according to the Los Angeles Times. This very same setup was proposed last school year for Balboa High School here in SFUSD, to make room for Leadership Charter High School. After protest, the plan was scrapped (Leadership now shares space at Burton High School, a move that did not force teachers to give up classrooms.)

Settlement opens door to charter schools in L.A.
By Howard Blume
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
February 13, 2008

More Los Angeles campuses will have to make room for charter schools, even if some teachers are forced to give up their classrooms and become roving instructors, under a litigation settlement approved by the Los Angeles Board of Education on Tuesday.

The agreement requires the school district to inventory all properties and work directly with charter schools to find space on or off campus.

Charter advocates say finding and paying for facilities is their No. 1 challenge.The settlement signals "new cooperation" toward serving all students -- whether they attend a charter or a traditional school, supporters said. "We share the pain of overcrowding equally," said Caprice Young, president of the California Charter Schools Assn., a party to both suits. "We in the charter school movement recognize that the Los Angeles Unified School District has a space crunch, and we all have to work together to create great facilities for all kids."

Agreeing to the possibility of roving instructors, called "traveling teachers," was perhaps the major -- and most controversial -- concession by the school district. Because of classroom shortages, these teachers move from room to room with cartloads of materials throughout the day, an intensely unpopular assignment.

The school district could provide no figures on how many teachers travel, but their numbers have declined dramatically in recent years with the construction of new schools and declining enrollment.Two lawsuits were filed in May under a state law that calls for public school campuses to be "shared fairly." Charters are independently run public schools freed from many provisions that govern other schools, including adherence to union contracts and district curriculum.

Click for the rest of the story.

The presidential candidates on education

Newsweek, with assistance from education "experts" Jeanne Allen and Thomas Toch, summarized Clinton's, Huckabee's, McCain's and Obama's positions on education, and then gave each candidate a grade.

It's hard to know how Newsweek decided on the grades, because it depends entirely on one's perspective — it's not like there's a clear right or wrong. I'm not inclined to trust the judgment of a reporter whose education coverage I haven't followed. For the record, Newsweek gave Obama and McCain each a B+, Clinton a B- and Huckabee a D+. (Charter school fans, McCain's your guy.)

Newsweek's two-person panel of education experts covers a span from center to far-right, too — not exactly inclusive. Thomas Toch is an academic whose work I've run into when I was following Edison Schools closely; he's Mr. Centrist. Jeanne Allen is an anti-public-education firebrand closely linked with the Bush administration, head of the Center for Education Reform, which promotes privatization, charters and vouchers — part of the previously discussed conservative infrastructure.

Read the candidates' views and decide for yourself.

L.A. Times: The Myth of Charter School Success

Two academics hit back at billionaire developer Eli Broad's praise of charter schools.

The myth of charter school success
Los Angeles Times
Feb. 12, 2008
By Walter P. Coombs and Ralph E. Shaffer

Philanthropists say their donations help create a winning system;
two professors say the game is rigged.

Critics of public education have argued for years that throwing money at public schools doesn't solve the "education crisis." Now come Eli Broad (who revealed his formula for charter school "success" last week), Bill Gates, the Annenbergs, Hunts, Waltons and other billionaires who willingly pour vast sums of money into "public" education provided they can designate where it goes and how it will be used. Apparently, throwing money at the schools is acceptable if you get to call the shots.

In the last decade, conservative philanthropists have given hundreds of millions of dollars to establish their own agendas. The most recent announcement, January's grant of a paltry $23 million by Broad, was typical of this modern philanthropy. Instead of truly aiding public education, Broad chose to subsidize several privately operated charter school conglomerates in the Los Angeles area. Principal beneficiaries of his largess were the highly-regimented KIPP schools and the misnamed Aspire Public Schools. The only thing public about either system is that they are supported by California taxpayers. Broad's grant is but a fraction of the amount given to these schools by the state.

Typical charter schools such as Green Dot, which Broad also subsidizes with what are probably tax-deductible gifts, are privately controlled and run by unelected, self-appointed boards that are effectively unaccountable to the public. The State Board of Education and the state agency that "oversees" charters are now dominated by pro-charter appointees.

KIPP, Aspire and Green Dot have "succeeded" because a relatively small number of motivated parents and students have voluntarily withdrawn from the Los Angeles Unified School District, believing that the district has not coped with the massive problems facing public education in urban California today.

From the day the Supreme Court ruled that schools must end segregation, including the de facto system in California's urban schools, a steady flow of white children left our public schools. Forced busing dramatically escalated that. Education-oriented parents who might have kept the schools on their toes no longer had any interest in the public schools, as their children were now attending private institutions.

Simultaneously, the percentage of nonnative students enrolled in the public schools skyrocketed. Many had extremely limited English language skills and their parents often could not speak English at all. That's a recipe for educational disaster.

KIPP, Aspire and Green Dot don't face that problem. Through what amounts to a contract with parents and students, they screen their applicants and admit a clientele that, in a traditional public school, would do as well or better than they are doing in the charter school.

If Broad's pet charters had to accept 3,000 limited-English, low-income students from ethnic backgrounds that include a high percentage of single-parent families, with widespread gang involvement and little commitment to education, scores that the charters now trumpet would fall significantly. But working with a select group of students who would score well at any school, Broad's charters garner only somewhat better-than-average test scores — despite the massive amount of public and private money poured into them.

Charters claim that their schools score far better than traditional public schools serving similar students. That's not true. The students at Locke or any of the other at-risk high schools in LAUSD are not "similar students" when compared to those who have left the public schools and moved to the charters. What Broad, Green Dot and the others do not reveal is the scores of those charter students when they were in regular public schools. It's our belief that those students were already outscoring their fellow students in the traditional schools before they moved into charters. Low-scoring students do not enroll in Broad's charters. His charters have skimmed off the education-oriented kids who otherwise would be raising test scores for traditional public schools.

We challenge Broad or any of his fellow privateers to fund a demonstration project within the conventional public schools. Let LAUSD administrators and faculty develop an experimental public school for all types of students, giving the teachers the opportunity to develop an initiative on their own consistent with traditional educational values.

Walter P. Coombs and Ralph E. Shaffer are professors emeriti at Cal Poly Pomona.

Tomatoes & Romaine & Carrots - Oh My!

School foodie extraordinaire Nestwife has posted a fabulous 11-minute video about the SFUSD salad bar pilot program on YouTube. The veggies are fresh, crisp and mouthwatering, and it's pretty great to watch the kids scarf them up. Check it out!

Alas, this year might be it for the salad bars, unless we can figure out a way to keep funding the ones we have, let alone an expansion to other schools. On sfschools today, Nestwife writes:

It pains me to have to let people know that [due to the district/state budget crisis], instead of looking at better food,
right now Student Nutrition Services is being asked to put on the
table every possible program cut which could be implemented while
still meeting compliance regulations for a USDA child nutrition
program. Possible cuts could include:
- A return to the old carnival style menu of corn dogs,
quesadilla, bean burrito, cheeseburger, etc. – the 10 cheapest
entrees – served in an endless two week rotation
- No more whole wheat bread or fresh fruit; brown rice and
whole grain pasta scheduled to be introduced next month would be
discontinued
- Closure of all a la carte lines at middle and high schools
- Closure of all salad bars
- Elimination of SNS-provided after school snack program
- Application for exemption for summer meal service (ie – no
meals at summer school)
- And, in case you are not already wailing, an end to the district's longstanding policy of feeding every child who comes through the lunch line, regardless of whether they qualify for free meals; those students who haven't qualified and bring no money to pay for their food would be turned away to go hungry.

The salad bar project represents a big step forward in our student nutrition programs, and it's quite dispiriting to worry if financial pressures will force us to take two steps back to the bad old days of taco pockets.

You think the SUSD lottery is bad?

Here's a chilling article from the NYTimes, India’s School Shortage Means Glut of Parental Stress:

NEW DELHI — They offer prayers. They set aside bribe money. Their nights are restless.

This is the winter of disquiet for parents of small children in India, especially here in its prospering, fast-growing capital, where the demands of ambition and demography collide with a shortage of desirable schools.

The Examiner says call the cops on truants

More attention to the truancy issue, this time from the editorial board of the SF Examiner: Truancy plague costs city millions:

A basic chronology reveals the story of how ineffectual The City’s attempts have been to reverse the schools’ rising tide of chronic truancy. In October, District Attorney Kamala Harris pledged to prosecute parents of children who consistently missed at least 20 school days without a parental note or phone call. Parents could potentially spend a year in county jail and be fined up to $2,500 for neglecting a child’s education.

But by January, halfway through this school year, the San Francisco Unified School District showed a nearly 80 percent increase in chronically truant students since the fall. There were 528 students who missed class between Sept. 1 and the end of 2007. That jumped from 294 in 2006 and only 158 in 2005 during the same four-month periods.

The conclusion is that the school administration did not sufficiently publicize the possibility of criminal charges and the District Attorney’s Office didn’t move forward on any prosecutions.

I think the editors have missed the mark in this editorial on a number of fronts. The headline focuses on the financial cost to the district when that is the least important impact. Second, they focus on the need for a law enforcement response when I would argue that is far less important than simply following up to contact the families and figure out why these kids are failing.

These chronic truants are clearly on a bad trajectory. If we are seriously intersted in addressing achievement gaps and helping steer more kids off the hard streets and not leaving them behind, undertaking a more ambitious effort to intervene in these kids life would be an obvious and important step to take.

Who keeps the Martians under wraps? We do!

I know I'm always yammering about the "right-wing publicity machine" and similar wording. I know such an entity exists, but I still probably sound like a paranoid.

Hendrik Herzberg in the New Yorker had just the right phrase, though: "...the conservative infrastructure of think tanks and policy journals." That's what I mean when I refer to the force behind the push for privatization, charter schools, vouchers, the KIPPs and Edisons and Green Dots and White Hats and the rest of the simplistic solutions — and the notion that public schools are a disaster and doomed to oblivion.

(The title of this post is a line from the song of the Stonecutters secret organization on "The Simpsons.")

Today! Tell Newsom, supes to save our schools

Today (Thursday, Feb. 7) at 3:30 p.m., the joint Board of Supervisors/Board of Education committee meets to discuss the state budget crisis and the possible use of the City's Rainy Day Fund to defray expected catastrophic cuts to schools in the State budget.

The Superintendent has told administrators that the Mayor is "not there yet" in supporting the school district's tapping the Rainy Day fund for next year, and that community advocacy will likely be neededto help him and the Board of Supervisors understand the depth of the crisis we're facing.The meeting is at 3:30 p.m. in City Hall, Room 250.

If you can (and I know these meetings are at a pretty much horrible time for anyone whohas a job -- 3:30 p.m.), try to come to this meeting to give public comment on how drastic the situation could be. We could be looking at getting $800 per student LESS than we got this year, which is pretty much unimaginable.

Today is a school holiday, so for parents who don't have outside jobs, it could be feasible to make it to the meeting — bring your kids! Don't have kids in SFUSD schools yet? This matters to you too!

Here's the agenda for the meeting.

Here's the background on the budget crisis SFUSD is facing, and here.

Here's information about the Rainy Day Fund.

This is an update of a post by Rachel Norton.

Ron Paul, the homeschoolers' choice in '08?

I'm writing an article on homeschooling, as a paid assignment for Bay Area Parent.

I Googled to double-check a reference to Perpetual Recess, a monthly all-day family mass playdate for unschoolers. (Unschooling is an offshoot of homeschooling that lets the child just be rather than imposing a schedule, subject matter, curriculum etc.)

In Googling, I found a homeschooler's blog that describes Ron Paul, the Libertarian Presidential candidate, as the most homeschooling-friendly candidate.

Actually, my take is that few of the homeschoolers I interviewed sound like Ron Paul types, but I could be wrong. I didn't ask them about their politics.

Photoblogging Francis Scott Key ES

I've always hope that our school photoblogging series would become a more participatory effort. So I'm really happy to share the spotlight with fellow blogger Janice of Sunset Style who has an excellent series of pictures of Francis Scott Key ES. Check it out:

I just love this school. The details, the shape, the color. It was built in 1936. I have no training in architecture, I'm just posting things I like (or not).

Thanks for the excellent photos, Janice. Anyone with photos to share are encouraged to get in touch. I'd love to publish more of your photos!

Camp Mather: Its time for a party

OK, this is a bit off topic. But when this long time Camp Mather fan saw this in my inbox, I had to pass it along. From the Friends of Camp Mather newletter:

COME ONE COME ALL
2nd Annual Mather Family Celebration
this Saturday, February 9, 2008, 10am - 3pm
SF County Fair Building
9th Avenue at Lincoln
Music by the Flapjacks and the Shut-Ins
Lunch by Mather Chef, Mike Cunnane

Manager Claudia will be there helping with last minute Camp Mather registrations.

AND -

Claudia is looking for staff for Summer 2008, see more info on her webpage:

I could imaging worse summer jobs. If only I was 20-something and living on a shoestring...

Bad news about truancy

Looks like a bad problem is getting much, much worse. Check out this report from the Examiner: Students increasingly skipping school

At the halfway point of the school year, San Francisco schools have seen a near 80 percent jump from last fall in the number of students who are chronically truant, despite a pledge by The City’s district attorney to get tough on parents who neglect their children’s education.

In October, District Attorney Kamala Harris vowed to prosecute parents of children who continuously missed school days without a note or phone call. But with nearly twice the amount of chronically truant students reported last fall from previous years, it appears as if parents aren’t listening and Harris isn’t prosecuting.

There were 528 students who missed 20 days of school between Sept. 1, 2007, and Jan. 1, according to the San Francisco Unified School District. That’s up from 294 for the same period in 2006 and 158 in 2005.

As I said back in October, nothing that anyone has done or proposed doing is in any way commensurate with the problem. This is a crisis that needs to be addressed with greater urgency.

Surprise! Eli Broad likes charter schools!

An anonymous commentator has requested that we post a commentary by development multigazillionaire/megafunder Eli Broad (rhymes with toad) praising charter schools. Here it is!