A response from KIPP, and related observations

I sent a list of questions to KIPP spokesman Steve Mancini, and he e-mailed me that he has posted the answers on KIPP's website. KIPP, the Knowledge is Power Program, is a nationwide chain of charter schools touted as a miracle solution for low-income students. KIPP is nominally based in San Francisco, reportedly to be close to major funder Don Fisher. Aside from the Fisher funding, it also gets lots more money from the usual billionaire education-reform benefactors.

KIPP schools require students and parents to sign agreements to comply with many rules. They require extra-long hours and extra days in school, including Saturdays. They teach students a set of anti-"ghetto" mannerisms and use a decibel meter in class to keep things calm. They rely on strict discipline systems based on shunning miscreants, plus a reward system paying "KIPP dollars" to spend at a "KIPP store."

The questions and answers about KIPP are more than most people want to know, but click to read them if you're curious. Steve Mancini has invited me to meet with him, which I will try to do soon.

I've been researching KIPP, as a hobby, ever since a happy KIPP parent posted proudly on the sfschools listserve a couple years ago that his daughter had "tested into" KIPP S.F. Bay Academy. Students are not supposed to have to "test into" KIPP schools.

In another incident that piqued my interest, the mother of a child with autism decided that KIPP, with its firmly structured program, was an ideal setting for her son. She applied to KIPP Bayview and was troubled that her son was given what she understood to be the entrance test in a busy setting with lots of distractions — a particular problem for an child with autism. She tells me that she complained to an administrator and was ordered off the property.

What's with the apparent entrance tests? Well, when KIPP schools (which are almost all grade 5-8 middle schools) get applicants who have completed 5th or 6th grade at other schools — who intend to apply for grades 6 or 7 — they're tested to determine their academic grade level before KIPP accepts them. Then apparently they may find out that they're in 5th grade again even though they thought they were in 6th (or 6th rather than 7th) if they want to start the KIPP school. (KIPP doesn't accept incoming 8th-graders.)

Here are some observations about KIPP schools.

1. KIPP targets low-income students of color. Its application process and program inherently self-selects for high-functioning, motivated, compliant students from high-functioning, motivated compliant families. A child from a family that's deeply entrenched in the oppositional, alienated street culture described by sociologist Elijah Anderson in "Code of the Streets" is extremely unlikely to apply to a KIPP school, or to comply with its requirements in the unlikely event that he/she does apply and get in. KIPP and schools like it attract the "decent" families (Anderson's term) — the higher-functioning families seeking a better life for their children, trying to get them away from the street culture.

If the traditional public school down the street also implemented admissions procedures and other processes that self-screened for such families, and if that schools were not automatically assigned students, would that school succeed as well as the KIPP school? We have no way of knowing.

Of course it's a good thing that KIPP schools are elevating disadvantaged students to a high academic level. My concern is the widespread belief and publicity promoting them as doing something they're not — taking the full spectrum of disadvantaged students and elevating them to that high level. That misleading portrayal is then used to compare KIPP schools unfairly to traditional public school down the street — the one that actually is accepting the full spectrum of disadvantaged students. That causes the traditional public school to lose approval and support, harming the children in that school.

2. Beyond the processes and systems that self-select for motivated families and students, which aspects of KIPP contribute most to the successes? Can different aspects of the KIPP culture be disaggregated and studied? How would these students perform without the substantial private funding KIPP gets? It appears that KIPP schools require students to repeat a grade at a higher rate than the traditional public school down the street. How much higher a rate? How does that impact the success of KIPP students? Does requiring a student to repeat a grade work more effectively with those higher-functioning, motivated, compliant students than with a disengaged, resistant, oppositional student? That's the kind of thing we don't know. It would be valuable to have that information, so that all schools could implement the best practices. It appears that because this aspect of KIPP is not illuminated or discussed, it's also not being studied. It's not even clear if it's on the radar of the various entities that study KIPP schools. (There's also the fact that being required to repeat a grade is likely to discourage less-compliant students and families from enrolling in or remaining at KIPP schools.)

3. I have already blogged about the high (in some cases astounding) attrition rate at some KIPP schools. When I researched it, six of California's then-nine KIPP schools showed high attrition overall, and very, very high attrition of the most academically challenged subgroup — either African-American or Latino boys, depending on the school. Why some KIPP schools and not others? Is this true at KIPP schools elsewhere (California's data is unusually accessible, or maybe it's just that I know how to find it)? Once again, if the students who are leaving KIPP schools are the least successful, how is that impacting the schools' success? If the traditional public school down the street had as many students leave — and, a key point, go unreplaced — what would the impact be?

4. Much of the publicity surrounding KIPP exaggerates and oversimplifies its successes. There's the pervasive implication that KIPP enrolls a full cross-section of disadvantaged inner-city kids — that those barely parented children of the street who disrupt class, roam the halls, get combative with teachers and intimidate other kids at some schools have been transformed into diligent, engaged, middle-class-behaving students at KIPP schools.

No. Those kids do not enroll at KIPP schools. Only someone fully out of touch, who has no contact with urban youth, would believe that myth — but a lot of commentators are that out of touch. KIPP enrolls the high-functioning, motivated and compliant among low-income students. Why does this matter? Because again, these claims are used to make KIPP schools look superior to the traditional public school down the street, causing that school to lose approval and support, hurting its students and all of public education.

I asked Steve Mancini about KIPP's claims about how many alumni have gone to college. Here's the way this is typically described, including on KIPP's website: KIPP runs 57 schools serving over 14,000 students. ... 80% of its graduates go on to college. Wow! KIPP has sent 11,200 students to college! But no, actually: KIPP schools are grades 5-8. The only KIPP students old enough to have reached college age attended KIPP schools that existed before 2003 — and KIPP ran only two schools at that time. Steve Mancini didn't give hard numbers, but they're not big schools. It may well be that 80% of those 14,000 current KIPP students will go on to college, after four years in high school, but at this point that implication is not accurate.

Same with the claim that "all KIPP schools have waiting lists," which is not true. Everyone pins the blame on New York Times writer Paul Tough, who made that claim without attribution or backup in a long article last year. Now it's repeated everywhere. Paul! Do-over on Journalism 1A!

5. KIPP depends on these exaggerated claims and on the positive press coverage it routinely gets to win the huge amount of private funding it attracts from the usual roster of billionaire benefactors. That also, in my opinion, leads KIPP to downplay issues such as its rate of requiring students to repeat a grade, and its schools' attrition. And this all makes it much more difficult to know what are the keys to KIPP's success and what can be emulated throughout our schools. But KIPP, being heavily dependent on that private funding, has no choice but to depend on the exaggerated claims and oversimplification, and to downplay the details and nuances that might actually illuminate how KIPP achieves its successes.

I'm not blasting KIPP schools overall. I'm saying that it's all but impossible to learn from them, to find out which parts of their program are best practices that can be emulated, because there's so much misleading publicity about them and so little illumination of the details. They could be beneficial for our entire public school system, but instead they're doing harm.

Should SFUSD emulate LAUSD's magnets?

The link to Sandra Tsing Loh's latest multilayered tribute to urban public education has been getting sent around and posted all month. (It's Tales Out of School in the March 2008 Atlantic.)

Every time it lands in my inbox I click on it again. This part keeps popping out at me:

After a fair amount of heartache, I have to admit I have given up on trying to charm white people, at least a certain NPR-listening, Bobo, chattering class of white people, back into public school. For these shrinking families, the aesthetics alone of public schools are horrifying—the chain-link fence, putty-colored bungalows, fluorescent lighting. Confessed one writer dad to me, about his son’s corner elementary (which he did not have the heart to step inside): “Even the grass made me sad.” Another white mom rejected my daughters’ school because our kindergarten wall art looked “rote.” Asians, on the other hand, tend to overlook the occasional snarl of graffiti (in our city, a way of life). What they see at Van Nuys High, for instance, with penetrating laser vision, are the math and medical magnets embedded within. Indeed, I’ve gradually become aware—via frequent newsletters—that behind those high brown walls flourishes a buzzing hive of Korean Magnet Parents. They are busily committee-meeting, Teacher Appreciation–lunching, and catapulting their children from Van Nuys High School directly into Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Caltech, Berkeley! Why should they spend $25,000 for each year of high school to make the Ivy League? These immigrants know how to find value!

This could be — at least partly — describing Lowell, though I don't perceive a "buzzing hive" of involvement there among immigrant parents. But what about the notion of math and medical magnets? If SFUSD can launch popular language immersion schools every year, how hard could it be to check out those schools-within-schools at big and diverse Van Nuys High and consider replicating them?

Billionaire transforms inner-city lives

From The Onion via Susan Ohanian's blog:

I'm Starting This Foundation So Inner-City Youths Will Have The Pole-Vaulting Opportunities I Never Had


By Paul LaBradford

Take a look around at the state of our schools, the violence on TV, and the drugs on our streets, and you'll see why so many of our children are struggling for a better life. These kids need someone on their side. They need a powerful force to set them on the right trajectory and keep them out of prison, or worse, the morgue. They need pole-vaulting.

That's why I'm donating $11.5 million to start the Paul LaBradford Foundation for Pole-Vaulting — because no child should grow up without access to the world's greatest sport that involves propelling oneself over a horizontal bar.

See, growing up on the hardscrabble streets of Chicago's South Side, I learned firsthand how dirty life can get. I saw friends taken out by addiction, and friends taken out by bullets. My mother was too drunk to buy us food — never mind drive me 25 miles to the nearest pole-vaulting center to distract me from the alluring call of gang life.

But I got out. I went on to Emory University where I majored in microbiology, and then got my MBA at Georgetown before starting an extremely successful private investment fund, Voyage Capital, which now manages more than $1.2 billion in assets in 11 different countries. I don't want to see the children of Chicago struggle to achieve my level of success without an essential foundation in pole-vaulting.

The statistics are sobering. Studies have shown that less than 5 percent of the poorest urban youth have adequate pole-vaulting facilities. Sadly enough, many schoolchildren have never even pole-vaulted at all, and less than 1 percent go on to pursue a career in pole-vaulting after leaving school. By comparison, 9 percent of American college students have received some exposure to the valuable character-building experience that sprinting full speed, stopping suddenly, and then elevating many feet into the air due to altered angular momentum around a fulcrum can be.

Let's make pole-vaulting a right, not a privilege.

For millions of kids, there is no hope of practicing pole-vaulting in a well-maintained, modern facility. Most scrape by with outdated, nonregulation poles and cardboard shoes. Some must rely on broomsticks nailed hastily together, or a rusted length of pipe. These poor forgotten youngsters are often forced to land on an old blood- and urine-soaked mattress or some garbage bags filled with broken glass.

We can change all that. One pole at a time.

I want to make sure that every child living in a squalid, one-bedroom tenement with no heat or hot water has access to the finest high-impact collapsible mats that money can buy. Even if they can't count on a steady father figure or even their next meal, I want them to have one place they can go for high-grade hand chalk and those special spiked sneakers pole-vaulters need to wear when they're pole-vaulting. I want these kids, hardened by grim realities of the 'hood, to trade in their guns for 11-foot fiberglass poles.

When our foundation is in place, no park or schoolyard or juvenile detention center will go without a 131.2-foot runway again. We'll hold midnight pole-vaulting events for teens. Our Head Start program will outfit preschools with miniature pole-vaulting tracks. And we'll even include our nation's at-risk seniors who are young at heart, and provide extra padding in the landing pits for their brittle, brittle bones.

But pole-vaulting is not just a way out of impossibly futile circumstances. It's also a great metaphor: The runway is like life. It's flat, and you have to run over it, planting your hands and your feet carefully at just the right moment. The bar is an event in your life, and the pole is the support of your family and God. Hitting the bar is like not succeeding, but clearing it is like overcoming obstacles. And falling to the mat is like falling onto a huge blue mat. You keep raising the bar, pushing yourself until you've reached the highest heights and there is nothing left to accomplish, no challenge to meet. Then you start a pole-vaulting foundation for underprivileged youths.

Won't you please donate today? Then we can get to work on providing shuffleboards to developing nations.

— Paul LaBradford

The Onion

2008-03-26

How do SFUSD's top earners compare to SF's?

A friend who works in San Francisco city government tells me that all through City Hall, staffers view SFUSD headquarters with disdain as a pit of waste, corruption and overpaid employees. But my informant, who is also quite familiar with SFUSD, says that City Hall is far worse.

I don't have the investigative resources to look into this on my own. The Chronicle has just posted an eye-opening guide to the city of San Francisco's top-paid employees, though. I would really like to urge the Chron to do a similar one on SFUSD staff, whatever it reveals by comparison. (The school district is not run by the city, for the uninitiated — it's technically a state agency.)

The SF Weekly blog actually has the best summary of this I've found so far:

8,000 SF employees take home over $100,000 — and then some

Fri Mar 28, 2008 at 08:19:01 AM

The city of San Francisco pays over 8,000 employees over $100,000 and the Chronicle has a helpful database set up to let you figure out who they are. At the very top, with $350,324 is Christian Kitchin, a Special Nurse with the DPH-Community Health Network. Kitchin is a county jail nurse and his base pay is $117,262. He made $216,277 in overtime and $16,785 in "other pay", which is classified as "compensation for special working conditions or one-time pay-outs of unused vacation and sick leave to employees leaving the city." Next in line is Nathaniel Ford, General Manager of Muni, who makes $325,452 (no overtime, but he scored $27,453 in "other pay".) Third place goes to David Kushner, Department Director for Investments of the SF Employee's Retirement System, who makes an even $289,479, no overtime, no other pay. Three SFPD employees occupy the seventh, eighth and ninth slots, all of whom nearly double their $100,000+ salaries with overtime pay. Supervisor Aaron Peskin will introduce an ordinance on Tuesday asking that the city eliminate staff positions whose base salaries are $150,000 or higher- but that only takes into account salaries, not overtime and fringe benefits. Our city's deficit stands at $338 million. According to an article in yesterday's Chronicle, the city paid more than 1,317 employees more than $150,000 in overtime in 2007. -Andy Wright



And nice work by the Chronicle — maybe this bodes well for the future of newspapers after all. It would be nice to have this information this accessible at all times. And what does this Christian Kitchin DO in his job, exactly?

Oh, also, for those who aren't versed in all this: the SFUSD Board of Education commissioners are essentially volunteers. They get a $500 monthly stipend.

Do charters serve Denman, Excelsior communities?

Back to the saga of the uprooted and disrupted school communities at James Denman Middle School, Excelsior Middle School and also International Studies Academy High School (which has not really been heard from in our public sphere on this issue).

To recap: Two charter schools are demanding space under their Prop. 39 rights. City Arts & Tech Charter High School, currently renting a non-SFUSD-owned site, will move to share the June Jordan High School (SFUSD non-charter) facility, displacing Excelsior Middle School (SFUSD non-charter), which will move to share the ISA (SFUSD non-charter) facility.

(Why isn't CAT moving to ISA? We unwashed masses don't know, but don't forget that the charter operators have say in the matter and can refuse and negotiate.)

Leadership Charter High School, currently sharing the Burton High School (SFUSD non-charter) facility, will move to share the James Denman Middle School (SFUSD non-charter) facility, of which Denman is currently the sole occupant. It's not publicly known why Leadership can't/won't stay at Burton.

A letter to the editor in today's Chronicle, from someone working for a nonprofit connected with CAT (though she says she works with students from nearby non-charters too), defends the charter schools in the move. (Click and scroll down to see the letter.)

"It is not a power struggle between charter schools and middle schools," the letter-writer says.

"... The faculties and staff of City Arts and Tech, Leadership, Denman and Excelsior work with the same communities of students and all want the same things for their students. Let us not waste energy in fighting among ourselves."

So, sit down and shut up? I'm not really sure that's a solution if disadvantaged school communities feel they are being harmed and need to stand up for themselves — and/or others feel we need to speak up on their behalf.

And no, it's not specifically a struggle between charter schools and middle schools, but it is a struggle between charter schools and non-charter public schools. Sorry, but it is. And the charter schools are the aggressors.

In response to the comment that they're teaching the same communities, naturally I had to check the numbers. I looked at CAT, Leadership, Denman, Excelsior, June Jordan, ISA and also Balboa and Burton, as the two other non-charter high schools geographically closest to Denman and Excelsior middle schools.

In general that's kinda-sorta accurate. All are mostly minority to varying degrees. The significant ethnic outlier is CAT, which is 22.6% white (but plurality Latino). Of all the other schools mentioned, Balboa (plurality Chinese) has the highest white percentage at 5.2%. Excelsior (plurality African-American) is 0.5% white and Denman (plurality Latino) is 3.2% white.

All the schools have a significant percentage of free/reduced lunch students. Denman's is 66.3%, Excelsior's is 64.3%, Leadership's is 49.8%, CAT's is 41.6%. So not quite the same communities, but not totally disparate — free/reduced lunch reporting tends to drop off in high school in general.

The really big difference is that the two charters are seriously underserving English language learners, though June Jordan is pretty light there too.

ELL percentages:

CAT 6.9%
Leadership 9.4%
June Jordan 10.2%
Burton 18.5%
Balboa 18.9%
Excelsior 21.8%
Denman 24.3%
ISA 24.9%

The ELL and free/reduced lunch statistics are for 06-07 from the California Department of Education website. The ethnic breakdowns are for 07-08 from the SFUSD website.

What the father of charter schools would see today

The biographer of teachers' union pioneer Albert Shanker examines how Shanker's idea, charter schools, has evolved (or gone astray):

Education Week March 26, 2008

The Charter School Idea Turns 20
A History of Evolution and Role Reversals
by Richard D. Kahlenberg
Twenty years ago this month, in a landmark address to the National Press Club in Washington, American Federation of Teachers President Albert Shanker first proposed the creation of “charter schools” — publicly funded institutions that would be given greater flexibility to experiment with new ways of educating students. At the time, some conservative education reformers opposed the idea, saying we already knew what worked in education. Today, the positions are reversed: Conservatives largely embrace charters, while teachers’ unions are mostly opposed. How did the notion of charter schools evolve over 20 years? And might a return to Al Shanker’s original idea improve the educational and political fortunes of the charter school movement?

In Shanker’s vision, small groups of teachers and parents would submit research-based proposals outlining plans to educate kids in innovative ways. A panel consisting of the local school board and teachers’ union officials would review proposals. Once given a “charter,” a term first used by the Massachusetts educator Ray Budde, a school would be left alone for a period of five to 10 years. Schools would be freed from certain collective bargaining provisions; for example, class-size limitations might be waived to merge two classes and allow team-teaching. Shanker’s core notion was to tap into teacher expertise to try new things. Building on the practices at the Saturn auto plant in Nashville, Tenn., he envisioned teams of teachers making suggestions on how best to accomplish the job at hand. Part of the appeal of charter schools to Shanker and many Democrats was that they offered a publicly run alternative to private-school-voucher proposals, which they feared would undermine teacher collective bargaining rights and Balkanize students by race, religion, and economic status. A charter school, Shanker said, “would not be a school where all the advantaged kids or all the white kids or any other group is segregated.”
In the early 1990s, Minnesota legislators, working with Shanker, adopted the nation’s first charter school legislation. However, as the idea spread (eventually to 40 states and the District of Columbia), the father of charter schools expressed increasing alarm that his idea of teacher-led institutions had morphed into something quite different. Many conservative advocates saw charters as a way to make an end run around teachers’ unions, and the vast majority of charter schools today lack collective bargaining agreements. Likewise, states disregarded Shanker’s admonition that charter schools should be diverse, as individual charter schools often appealed to specialized ethnic, religious, or racial groups, raising the very concerns Shanker had about private school vouchers.

Shanker argued that in charter schools, rigid collective bargaining rules could be bent, but that teachers still needed union representation. Only when teachers felt secure could they take risks, he said. “You don’t see these creative things happening where teachers don’t have voice or power or influence.” Not surprisingly, lacking a collective voice, teachers in charter schools turn over at almost twice the rate of public school teachers. And while right-wingers assumed that eliminating union influence would make test scores skyrocket, a number of independent studies have found that charter schools do no better than unionized public schools. Moreover, as a practical political matter, as charter schools became a vehicle for anti-union activists, powerful education unions naturally opposed their expansion and effectively limited the ultimate growth of the experiment.

Likewise, instead of drawing diverse student populations, charter schools often explicitly appealed to particular groups, with Afrocentric or other ethnocentric curricula, or, in other cases, effectively “creamed” students, by requiring parents to sign contracts committing them to volunteer a certain number of hours or be subject to fines. Shanker noted that “children whose parents are scared off by the contract’s tone, or don’t have the time to volunteer, or can’t read, or don’t understand what is being asked, won’t be enrolling in one of these schools.” According to a 2003 report from the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University, charter schools tend to be even more racially segregated than regular public schools.

Read the rest of the commentary

The cynicism honor roll: the St. Hope miracle

Even I get sick of peeing on miracles. But I just can't stop myself from checking the numbers whenever I hear another of these claims.

Basketball star Kevin Johnson is winning big acclaim for transforming a troubled Sacramento high school into Sacramento Charter High — his charter-school operation is named St. Hope. Now he's running for mayor based on the acclaim, and working to expand his schools into major districts nationwide.

Why waste words? Here's the shorthand version of what I found when I checked the numbers after I read this on the National Alliance of Public Charter Schools blog:

..." he has turned dysfunctional Sacramento High into St. Hope Charter Schools, that last year sent 73% of graduates to four-year colleges.....and is running for Mayor. ... This guy is real class -- and good news for NYC that he's getting to open a new St. Hope charter there in the fall."

I just can't keep my itchy fingers from looking stuff up via Dataquest on the California Department of Education website.

Sacramento Charter High School, 9th grade (class of '07), 2003-04:

Total students 505

Same class, 12th grade, 06-07:

Total students 277

9th grade, 03-04, African-American boys: 72
Same class, 06-07, African-American boys: 51

9th grade, 03-04, Latino boys: 82
Same class, 06-07, Latino boys: 32

9th grade, 03-04, African-American girls: 107
Same class, 06-07, African-American girls: 81

9th grade, 03-04, Latina girls: 70
Same class, 06-07, Latina girls: 42

What a cynical b****.

Why are so many black boys disrupting class?

It's an inflammatory-sounding question, isn't it?

I've been reading the 1999 book "Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City," by Elijah Anderson, an African-American sociology professor at Yale. Anderson shows that for young people from the violent, impoverished inner city, behavior that's disruptive, oppositional, anti-social and sometimes explosive is not due to poor impulse control or acting out. It's a calculated and effective survival mechanism, completely rational and essential in those kids' life context.

Anderson studies and writes about the segregated African-American inner-city community. I don't know enough to discuss how his portrayal is similar to situations among other demographics that often face economic and other challenges — Latinos, Pacific Islanders, and quite a few Asian sub-subgroups (not to mention poor whites).

I'll quote some snippets from the book:

Of all the problems besetting the poor inner-city black community, none is more pressing than that of interpersonal violence and aggression. This phenomenon wreaks havoc daily on the lives of community residents. ... Simply living in such an environment places young people at special risk of falling victim to aggressive behavior. ... (T)he street culture has evolved a "code of the street," which amounts to a set of informal rules governing interpersonal public behavior, particularly violence. The rules prescribe both proper comportment and the proper way to respond if challenged. They regulate the use of violence. ... Knowledge of the code is thus largely defensive, and it is literally necessary for operating in public."

It is this Code of the Street that motivates — perhaps requires — young people, especially males, to display certain behaviors and modes of dress and comportment. Inner-city residents deeply believe — perhaps accurately — that their own behavior can mark them as a victim or as a person to be respected and not messed with. Boys and young men who affect the requisite look and behavior, all of it aimed at credibly presenting themselves as someone who will fight and do damage if threatened, are keeping themselves safe.

A second theme of the book is that inner-city residents are divided by a blurry line into "street" and "decent" people. Anderson writes:

Almost everyone residing in poor inner-city neighborhoods is struggling financially and therefore feels a certain distance from the rest of America, but there are degrees of alienation, captured by the terms "decent" and "street" or "ghetto," suggesting social types.

Yet to survive in the dangerous, alienated street culture, "decent" people must adopt some "street" behavior. An example that makes sense to anyone (even if we abhor it) is parents who teach their kids to fight back physically if bullied.

The greater world — the mainstream culture — doesn't easily distinguish between street and decent when it comes to African-American youth, especially because the decent kids adopt the mannerisms of the street kids. I had wondered why so many young black males dress flamboyantly in ways that seem likely to attract negative attention from the police. Anderson shows us that's because it keeps them safer from another threat, the most violent street elements.

Oakland parent activist Sharon Higgins, who introduced me to this book, has blogged that the divide between "street" and "decent" explains why many disadvantaged African-American families are enthusiastic about charter schools, private schools and other options that will shelter their kids from the more-dangerous street kids. But, as Sharon points out, this also shows why those stopgaps are not a true solution to the greater problems — the academic disengagement of low-income young people, truancy and dropouts, and such pathologies of the ghetto as drugs, crime, violence and single motherhood.

Here's some of what Anderson writes about schools:

The inner-city school is an outpost of the traditions of the wider society. ... During their early years, most of the children accept the legitimacy of the school, and then eagerly approach the task of learning. As time passes, however, in their relentless campaign for the respect that will be meaningful in their public environment, youth increasingly embrace the street code. By the fourth grade, enough children have opted for the code of the street that it begins to compete effectively with the culture of the school, and the code begins to dominate their public culture — in school as well as out — becoming a way of life for many and eventually conflating with the culture of the school itself. ... For many alienated young black people, attending school and doing well becomes negatively associated with acting white. ... "(S)treet knowledge" is esteemed, and the quest for it ... begins to predominate, ultimately competing with, if not undermining, the mission of the school.

With each passing year the school loses ground as more and more students adopt a street orientation, if only for self-defense in the neighborhood. But often what is out on the streets is brought into the classrooms. The most troublesome students are then encouraged by peers to act out, to get over on the teacher, to test authority. ... (M)any students in the upper grades attend school sporadically or stop coming altogether, because street activities effectively compete for their time. Even while in school, they walk the halls instead of attending class, and their encounters there often mirror those on the streets, marked by tension and fights.

... (M)ost of the young people in these settings are inclined toward decency, but when the street elements rule, they are encouraged to campaign for respect by adopting a street attitude, look, and presentation of self. In this context, the decent kids often must struggle to maintain their credibility.

I think of two African-American girls who started my kids' diverse middle school, both from middle-class-oriented families, both identified as Gifted and Talented and placed in honors classes. Both were victimized by harassment and threats by other African-American girls, and their parents moved them to other schools. One switched to another SFUSD middle school that has an almost entirely Asian and white student population; the other went to a parochial school.

Some of this has always been apparent to anyone with any contact with diverse communities. It's easy for the completely out-of-touch to blame teachers and schools for not turning kids who live the street culture into well-behaved scholars, heading diligently toward graduation and college. Obviously, it's not that simple.

We middle-class types might wonder: Well, why can't these people just stop acting like that? But Anderson makes it clear that this isn't so simple either.

For the individual, the "street" behavior, with its edge of a threat of violence, is "a practical code geared toward survival in (the) community." So it's not so easy for that individual, or lots of individuals, to decide to embrace the behavior of the mainstream middle-class. They feel, credibly, that their very safety is at stake.

To the community, it's "a vicious cycle ... The hopelessness many young inner-city black men and women feel, largely as a result of endemic joblessness and alienation, fuels the violence they engage in. This violence then serves to confirm the negative feelings many whites and some middle-class blacks harbor toward the ghetto poor, further legitimating the oppositional culture and the code of the street for many alienated young blacks."

Anderson follows two young men, raised and immersed in the culture of the street yet struggling toward the decent.

One has a conviction for possession of a gun (his mother's gun that he carried when he was passing through a dangerous area in a time of gang violence). His struggle (including with his own worst impulses) to pay the fine for that conviction and deal with probation officers who are un-charmed by his cluelessly offensive demeanor ends up undermining his attempt to go legit with a union maintenance job.

The second, who has a drug-dealing, violent gang past and a prison record, has decided to leave his criminal past behind. He becomes an inner-city entrepreneur, running a fruit stand, a hot-dog cart and eventually a deli counter inside a neighborhood store. But he faces struggles with an array of forces: drug dealers who stake out the sidewalk outside the deli's door; bureaucrats who harass him over petty technicalities (the two described are African-American); his old homies who taunt him and try to lure him back. Anderson describes the businessman's battle of wills with the drug dealers outside his door and eventual, if likely temporary, victory. (I thought of that when I read an article on West Oakland in yesterday's Chronicle magazine that mentioned — without question — holding the owners of a corner store responsible for drug dealing outside their business.)

Are the problems of such a damaged community really something we expect teachers and schools to just magically fix?

Anderson does not present any easy solutions — of course, there are none. He does call for "political leadership that articulates the problem." Well, I'm not "political leadership," but here it is articulated, for what that's worth.

Sharon Higgins is calling for a system that separates disruptive, violent young people from other students and provides intensive intervention and help for them. With millions of private dollars being poured into her school district, Oakland Unified, by well-meaning (if, in my opinion, misguided) billionaires, it doesn't seem so farfetched to wonder if some of that money might be directed toward such programs.

Yet at least in my district, a lot of racial head-counting goes on. We have school board members complaining that a disproportionate number of school suspensions are of African-American students, for example. Yet if those students live in a community that encourages — all but requires — them to behave in oppositional ways that disrupt classes — while young people from other communities don't have that motivation — is that so surprising? Perhaps the problem is more that we punish uselessly rather than intervening in ways that might make a difference and help break the cycle.

Ackerman sworn in at Philly

It's official. Arlene Ackerman is now the Philadelphia School Reform Commission's CEO and she gets a nice raise from what she reportedly earned here. She also inherits a district with, uh, room for improvement.

Congratulations Dr. Ackerman.

Who will protect vulnerable schools?

The Chronicle coverage of the flap over the Excelsior and Denman situations gets it right in pointing to encroachment by charter schools as the problem here.

"Blindsiding ethnic minority school communities to appease aggressive charter school machinations is an injustice," Denman parent Craig Wong told the Chron's Jill Tucker.

Tucker's article sums it up here:

The district is required under the state's Proposition 39 to provide classroom facilities to charter schools that request space. Charter schools and their advocacy groups have filed lawsuits against school districts that they say don't fulfill the complicated requirements under the law.

San Francisco Unified has been threatened with such suits, which means the school board can legally meet behind closed doors to hammer out agreements and settlements with the specific charters, district officials said.

"It isn't that the staff hasn't considered the impact on the school," said school board member Jill Wynns. "We wouldn't do any of this if we didn't have to."

In following news coverage about charter schools around the state, I've seen many, many articles about situations like this: charter school demands space; school district has no choice but to come up with some; existing school (somehow always one serving low-income minorities) protests the disruption of having to share space with a second school. Now I'm sorry I haven't been archiving those articles. It's an ongoing problem and one of the ways charter schools harm other schools and their students.

The charter schools have all the power in this situation. The current interpretation of Prop. 39, which requires districts to provide sites for charter schools, allows charters to displace existing programs. The charter schools, I note as usual, are fervently backed by the Bush and Schwarzenegger administrations, their own well-funded lobbying groups such as the Center for Education Reform and the California Charter Schools Association, and the whole array of right-wing "think tanks," advocacy groups and policy organizations. Oh, and oceans of funding from the billionaires whose hobby and plaything is school reform, of course.

It's really time for advocates to stop feeling like they can't speak up lest they offend someone and start protesting this situation. As we've seen in SFUSD, it's the schools that largely serve low-income minorities that wind up the targets. Those who defend this situation need to step up and say, "Put it at my school." Miraloma? McKinley?

SFUSD handled this badly. But that is not the root of the problem. The laws giving charter schools the right to do this and the clout to wreak as much havoc as they want are the problem.
I just wonder when the situation will get extreme enough that activists become willing to step on some toes to raise a protest.

Quoting from Sharon Higgins' Perimeter Primate blog:

Some of the primates position themselves at the perimeter of the group - where they sit, and watch.

Their role is to warn the inner, oblivious members of the group about dangers that approach.

I already know the charter folks' responses will be: "Nobody reads your charter rants ... ho hum ... whatever..." As the charter defenders don't seem to have any actual case they can make in response to this and other criticisms, they routinely resort to ridicule. I'm sorry that's the case, because I would like to hear how they defend this situation.

Excelsior Middle School's shabby treatment

While most observers of the district have been focusing their attention on the enrollment process, there has been another story developing that deserves more attention. Excelsior Middle School, a small, young school serving a predominately minority community, will be moving from its Excelsior district location to be colocated with ISA on Potrero Hill. The move is part of a series of moves that are needed to accommodate City Arts and Technology Charter School, who will move into Excelsior's vacated facility.

Being pushed around to make room for a charter is problematic for many reasons, but it is an inevitable consequence of the way school districts are forced to accept charters and forced to provide facilities for them.

What is inexcusable is the lack of consultation and communication with the affected school communities. In this case the Excelsior families were completely shut out of the process and left in the dark. Only now, after the move was belatedly announced to the school staff and students, has the district finally made some effort to contact the families. Only now, after many activists have raised concerns about the process, has the district granted the affected families priority access to the enrollment process.

All of this is happening too late, and only after the district hand has been forced.

A rough sketch of the timeline of this story goes something like this:

• CAT, the charter school, has been negotiating with the district for a new facility. When I toured there in November they told prospective parents that they were close to finalizing the location and would have definitive word before the enrollment deadline in January.
• We chose not to enroll there, so I don't know when the school told their community about the results of the negotiations. Reportedly, CAT has known about the move for some time.
• On March 6th the district tells the Excelsior staff about the move.
• Round 1 enrollment lottery results are mailed out around March 8th, starting the Round 2 process.
• The students are told on March 12th, but no effort has been made to reach the parents.
• At this point the school officials note that they are trying to arrange a meeting with district staff and parents in the April timeframe.
• News of the move, and the utter failure of the district to involve or notify parents, travels through the activist networks, including PPS and SfSchools lists.
• Finally the district takes steps to contact families and give them access to the enrollment process.

School Beat does some excellent reporting on this story in Excelsior and Denman Middle School Families Deserve Equitable Treatment, concluding with this precient commentary:

We, as public school supporters, as engaged parents, and as fellow residents of this city, have to pull the emergency brake and make sure that SFUSD’s new administration shows that it isn’t business as usual in how they make decisions, especially hard decisions with as big an impact as school mergers, moves and closures. Fundamentally, it really is a question of equity.

The role of the charter school rules in foisting this move on the district and the affected school communities is another story that needs to be told. But the immediate concern has to be the interests of the affected schools and families. I'm glad to see the district and the EPC taking belated steps to correct their mistakes. We need to bear witness to this injustice so that it is not repeated in the future.

College Track says Chronicle got it wrong

Interesting. I sent an e-mail to a contact address on the College Track website this morning asking for info. I just got an e-mail (on a Sunday evening) from the head of College Track. She says information was "taken out of context," and that SFUSD and Carlos Garcia have been "extremely supportive and cooperative" in helping College Track get established in SFUSD.

The original editorial misused data to do some gratuitous public-school bashing, by the way (gee, what a rarity). Written as though College Track were competing with SFUSD — which is obviously not the case, as it's a supplemental college counseling/support program — it compared one or another college readiness statistic, College Track's to SFUSD's, to prove College Track's superiority to SFUSD.

The entire concept of trying to prove College Track's superiority doesn't even make sense here, but also, since it's obviously a voluntary program that participate in if they're interested in college, it's unsound and unfair to compare the College Track program to the SFUSD program in that manner. It's just bugging me because this was once again used as a weapon to bash public schools.

Education across the bay: an Oakland visit

Oakland parent activist Sharon Higgins took me on a drive-by tour of some Oakland schools the other day, the better to expand both of our horizons. I'm sharing a few impressions, for those interested in what's going on across the bay. Sharon was a paid staffer, parent coordinator, at an Oakland middle school for several years, until last month.

Sharon took me past the wildly (widely AND wildly) hailed American Indian Public Charter School, a middle/high school located in a nondescript church, and gave me what would have been a hot piece of breaking news if it were verifiable.

Every year just before standardized testing time, she says, a flock of AIPCS students landed in her middle school, bounced by AIPCS just in time to get rid of low scorers. AIPCS is a favorite of the Bush and Schwarzenegger administrations and the press, and charter schools high priestess Jeanne Allen gave a commencement speech there. I'm shocked — shocked — to hear that they'd cheat. Can't prove it, though.

We looked at a couple of those embarrassingly named schools that are so popular these days in Oakland's flatlands — Think College Now and United for Success Academy. Sharon has written about seeing a gang of school-uniformed kids at United for Success shaking down a schoolmate in a "backpack check." Perhaps it should be renamed Don't Mug Your Classmates Academy.

Oakland is much more sharply divided than SFUSD between middle-class schools and flatland schools attended by black and brown kids. Montera Middle School is the quintessential school for the higher end — higher literally, in a bucolic, wooded hillside setting.

But then check out Skyline High School. It looks like a college, spread across a hilltop with east and west views and big student parking lots. Its playing fields look gorgeous, and boy, would our SFUSD schools like to have one of those expensive electronic events announcement signs like Skyline's. Sharon's daughter, an avid horsewoman, strolls down the road after school to the riding stable where she hopes to "sponsor" a horse (a kind of lease arrangement) soon.

Sharon says Skyline was built to serve the white middle class in Oakland's hills, but they mostly drifted off to high-end privates like Bishop O'Dowd. Its makeup is now 10.8% white, as well as 40.4% African-American, 21.9% Latino, 21.5% Asian — most of those students coming up Redwood Road from the flatlands.

Oakland was setting up its high schools as specialty academies at the time it collapsed financially and was taken over by the state, and Skyline was the music/performing arts academy. Alumnus Tom Hanks funded an auditorium.

Today, Skyline's neighbors (in its sparsely populated, wooded, expensive mountaintop setting) aren't exactly fans. Their complaints have led to a ban on the use of lights for the Skyline playing fields and a requirement that the electronic events announcement sign be turned off at night.

We cruised by the Oakland School for the Arts, currently a dense cluster of portables and a tent amid construction equipment, crammed into the parking lot of the landmark Fox Theater, a 1928 gem being renovated for occupancy by the struggling charter school, supposedly this fall.
If that happens so soon, it'll be a tribute to the determination of state Attorney General Jerry Brown, who conceived that school and has been dogged in trying to make it work. (Disclosure: The principal of my son's high school, Donn Harris, was wooed away by Brown to take over OSA — Harris is splitting his time between both schools this semester.)

Naturally we also drove by the KIPP Bridge Academy, made a bit notorious by this blog for its startling attrition, especially of African-American boys. There was a class in the yard, though in school uniform rather then P.E. clothes, being led by an African-American teacher and observed by a white guy with a clipboard.

One more note about Sharon Higgins and her employment: She held her job at Oakland's Bret Harte Middle School for several years, and was suddenly let go this February. She's quite certain she was fired in retaliation for her writings speaking out about the current state of Oakland Unified, which has basically been turned over to billionaires whose hobby is school reform, to experiment with those oddly named "boutique schools" and whatever other whims strike their fancy. Sharon writes that when outsiders swoop in to renovate a school district, they throw out babies like community and history with the bathwater.

Smaller Classes revisited, again, and again

This short Washington Post article reports on a study that re-examined the results of a large study of the effects of class size on achievement. The new twist? Small classes do benefit students, especially younger ones. But it does not appear to have any effect on achievement gap. That is, it does not help the low-achievers overcome their deficits.

A helpful program thwarted by SFUSD, or...?

Today's San Francisco Chronicle editorializes about a program called College Track, which the editorial says is "having trouble making inroads with the San Francisco Unified School District." The editorial chastises SFUSD for not making College Track's "entry into that city [San Francisco, that is] a little easier."

The editorial gives no details about what the problems are, and I can't find any indication that the Chronicle has previously covered College Track.

College Track's website says its mission is to "help motivated low-income high school students who have the desire but lack the resources and support to attain higher education." College Track opened an office in San Francisco's Bayview District in May 2007, serving "primarily the San Francisco neighborhoods of Bayview Hunters Point, Visitacion Valley/Sunnydale, and Mission/Excelsior."

It's Sunday, but I've sent an e-mail query and will do some reporting on what's going on with this program, what SFUSD is doing or not doing to support it, etc. It's weird that the Chronicle gave this apparently little-known program such a blaze of support and publicity in a high-profile Sunday editorial, while providing so little information on what the problem is. I'll report back.

Is the Governor Joking?

I scratched my head in disbelief this afternoon when I picked up the newspaper and read:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's blue-ribbon committee on education released a list of sweeping recommendations Friday to overhaul California's public school system at an additional annual cost of $10.5 billion.

Is he kidding? This week I've been thinking of little else than the staggering impact of cutting $40 million from our district's budget -- the fallout from the Governor's current budget proposal to cut $4 billion from education statewide. Three fabulous teachers at our school have received layoff notices -- including K/1st grade teacher Kristen Vogel, whose teacher husband was also pink-slipped (the family may have to withdraw an offer for a home they finally thought they could afford); my daughter's 2nd grade teacher also got a layoff notice.
Enough is enough. If the Governor won't get real, the Democrats need to make him. I haven't read the committee's full report yet, but according to the Chronicle, it contains some controversial recommendations, like merit pay for teachers and preventing 4-year-olds from entering Kindergarten. No matter. It's just a cruel joke to play politics with teachers' livelihoods and the health of our schools, even while acknowledging the vast increase in resources that will be needed to achieve true reform.
As one speaker said at the UESF rally this past Tuesday, I'm tired of hearing that our local elected representatives are behind us in our outrage; it's high time for them to get out in front of us and find some solutions to this crisis. What is clear to me is not just that the state needs to adequately fund education; but that California needs to completely overhaul the way it funds and supports schools. The evidence for this has been in for a long time, from the avalanche of Getting Down to Facts studies last year, to the newest report by the Governor's own blue ribbon committee.

KGO: Healthy food at FS Key ES

Check out this ABC news clip about a healthy food program at FS Key. The video features some cute interviews with the kids.

School Beat: Give Arnold a Pink Slip

The budget crisis is personal for School Beat's Lisa Schiff, who's daughter's teacher is among the pink-slipped teachers. Check out her call to action in: Give Arnold a Pink Slip

Junipero Serra ES, the next hidden gem to emerge?

Since we're in the thick of Round 2 admissions, I thought this report that Dana Woldow posted to the sfschools list would be of interest to many families:

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I'm not an incoming kindergarten parent, but I have been checking out some elementary schools lately, looking for one to support as a volunteer. Having been involved with the so-called "turnaround" at both Aptos MS and Balboa HS, I'm now in the market for an elementary school to assist. Actually, the term "turnaround" is a bit of a misnomer, as both Aptos and Balboa were already schools with "good bones" which just had a low profile. By good bones, I mean: a strong Principal with a vision and the energy to inspire the staff with that vision, an experienced staff with just enough new blood to keep the energy level high, a good location in a safe family oriented neighborhood near a park, rising test scores, small class size, and a warm, caring atmosphere. I'm happy to say that after looking for 6 months, I have found my perfect match – Junipero Serra Elementary.

I knew the minute I met Eve Cheung, Principal, that this was a school where I would be welcomed. The winner of the 2008 Schoolmaster of the Year award for SF elementary schools, Ms Cheung is that visionary leader who can take a school and really put her stamp on it. During the entire 2 hours of my visit, she addressed by name every single child who passed her in the hall. She spoke about the school's new focus on science, because she feels it is important for the students to get beyond just the English and math that figure so prominently in the standardized testing. Later this year, the school will host a science night for families, with visiting scientists and some experiments set up, and by next year they hope to host their first science fair; I've already volunteered to help organize this.

The school uses a program to foster cooperation among students (I am sorry to say I forgot the name, but it included the word "Caring"), which includes older students having a buddy in the younger grades, and a daily component when the students share their feelings, especially about their interactions with other students. This helps the staff keep tabs on what is going on when the students are out of the classroom; if someone is being teased on the yard, for example, that will come out immediately during this sharing time, where it can be addressed and the situation defused, so that no child ever has to endure feeling unhappy about being at school, for any reason. As a result, the students all talk freely about their feelings, and exhibit a high level of compassion for each other.

The class sizes are small, and all of the students we saw were engaged and on task. We were in a first grade classroom during the reading lesson, and I have to say I was impressed at the complexity of the story they were reading aloud – a lot of hard words in there which those kids got easily. I shouldn't be surprised, though, because the school's test scores have been steadily rising, despite the fact that 81% of the students qualify for free lunch, and many of them are English language learners. Their API is 755 – the same as Sunnyside – and they rank a 7 on the similar schools index (for those who place stock in that number.)

The school has a well-equipped computer lab and a full time technology teacher. The instrumental music teacher was there today and we heard the violins play a pretty good rendition of "Happy Birthday"; 4th and 5th grade have the usual choice of violin, trumpet, flute, or clarinet, while 3rd graders play recorder and 1st and 2nd graders have choral music. There was student art all over the walls, and student writing samples up in most of the classrooms, including Kindergarten. Two of the Kindergarten classrooms are located in the annex across the street from the main building, where they share a nice play yard with the child development program. Next year, a third Kindergarten will be situated inside the main building, and smart parents will sign up soon for a spot, because Serra has an interesting enrollment pattern. The school alternates enrolling 3 Kindergartens with 3 1st grades – so, next year they will have 3 incoming K classes, and 2 1st grades, while the following year they will have 3 1st grades but only enroll 2 incoming K classes. For those with a younger sibling coming up, this means that snagging a place for the oldest in next year's K class will ensure getting a seat for the younger sib a few years down the road, even if it is year when only 2 classes are admitted. You all know how it goes with schools in this town – the school no one ever heard of this year is on everyone's top 7 list a few years later, and then there are tears and recriminations when people get turned away. The smart move is to get in before the crowds descend.

I spoke at length with some of the other school staff, and learned that the school has a PTA, but more importantly, they have a huge number of parents who come to the school on a regular basis, volunteering to go on the field trips, and attending the school events. They have a new partnership with Google, who will be supporting some site improvements and providing more volunteers, and are having some work done by the district as well, including an exterior paint job.

Although the school does not have a language immersion program, it does have a bilingual strand in the early grades for language learners. With a high number of Spanish speakers, the Principal mentioned the possibility of having an after school class for English speakers to learn Spanish. Ms Cheung is committed to the idea that every child should speak at least two languages, she is bilingual herself as are her children, and she is trying hard to be able to offer that option to all of her students as well.

Located right on Holly Park, the school is convenient to Bernal Heights and Noe Valley. I was able to get a parking place within a block of the school, and there is a fire station right across the street, with hunky firemen standing around out front (always a plus, in my opinion), showing off their fire engine to a group of big-eyed preschoolers. For those who worry that they don't have the time or energy to "turn around" a school, all I can say is, this one really doesn't need any turning – it is THERE, and just needs to become known to more parents. If you are not happy with your assigned school, I really urge you to check this one out – it's a winner, and in a year or two, it will be the "hidden gem" school that everyone has on their top 7 list. They are doing tours every day now; you can call the school at 695-5685 to set up a visit.

ABC News: Lunch time deficits

Interesting ABC news story about the district food policy and the potential to capture more federal money for lunch subsidies: Lunch time deficits. Check out the video in particular. Catch it while you can, this link will eventually stop working.

Dream Schools and middle-class families

SFUSD has some schools designated Dream Schools, a program implemented by ex-Superintendent Arlene Ackerman aimed at giving a boost to low-income students of color — those most likely to fail in school. They've been controversial for reasons that are irrelevant to this post, so I won't go into that aspect.

This isn't the official descriptor, but it's clear that the Dream Schools were intended to emulate aspects of the KIPP chain of schools, which are hailed for their success with low-income children. (In this case, my criticisms of the KIPP schools — mainly that they aggressively self-select for the most motivated, high-functioning, compliant students — are also irrelevant.)

Both the KIPP schools and the Dream Schools offer longer school days and school on some Saturdays, and a longer school year. The extra time, obviously, is intended to give more intensive instruction to kids who are likely to need it the most. It also gives children extra time in protective seclusion from the "Code of the Street" (as an illuminating book by the same name terms the dangerous complex of pathologies of the inner city).

The Dream Schools offer enrichments that the KIPP schools don't: extra music and arts; resources such as foreign language and golf lessons. Based on test scores and reputation, they are nowhere near as successful academically as most KIPP schools, and the outside world knows little about them. A Dream School teacher told me bitterly that they can't be successful because they aren't allowed to readily expel problem kids (as the KIPP schools evidently do).

But anyway: in this year's chaotic SFUSD assignment process, a number of non-low-income white families who didn't get any of their requested schools have been assigned to Paul Revere, a Dream School in hip, fast-gentrifying Bernal Heights. It's attractive to those families because of its location, its Spanish immersion program and its K-8 setup, so it sounds like a lot of them will be checking it out.

But on The SF K Files blog, where I'm learning all this, parents are starting to wonder about Paul Revere's extra-long hours. This is not a feature that middle-class families tend to want for their (our) kids.

It's intriguing, because when the KIPP schools implement procedures — such as their discipline policy, ostracizing miscreants from the community — that no middle-class family would tolerate, KIPP supporters avoid discussing it. Since no middle-class white families are ever likely to apply at KIPP schools — not counting my undercover effort to enroll my daughter for purely investigative purposes — there's not likely to be a direct clash over it.

I don't know what Dream Schools' discipline policies are, but it looks like we may be about to see a situation where a policy aimed at benefiting low-income children of color clashes with the values of non-low-income whites. Actually, that has been happening with dress codes and uniforms for some time. When Aptos Middle School experimented one year with banning red and blue due to their popularity with street gangs, it struck the increasing Aptos population of whites and Asians as ridiculous. (Since the ban was lifted, no one has yet mistaken my blonde daughter for a Sureno.)

We may have to start asking tough questions about whether privileged children and kids from the underclass should be treated differently — not to mention the notion of post-integration segregation.

Over and under subscribed schools

The EPC has released preliminary data on enrollment requests for the 08-09 year. I've gone ahead and converted the data to spreadsheet I will post it here soon. Unfortunately, when I convereted to published PDF document, the data showing how many first choice requests each school received was garbled. I'll work on fixing that.

Using the total request data and the stated capacity of each school, I am able to compute ratio of reuests to open seats. This is a decent measure of which schools are hardest (or easiest) to get into, and is offered here in the hopes that it will help families working throug the Round 2 process to find a suitable assignment for this child.

It is true that many of the schools on the over subscribed list are the well known "trophy" schools. But it is nice to see so many new names on this list. It may not be happy news to the families applying to these programs, but it is a healthy sign for the district that more schools are gaining favorable reputations.

20 Most Over Subscribed Schools

• Clarendon
• Rooftop
• West Portal
• Alvarado, SN
• West Portal, CN
• Lawton
• Clarendon, JBBP
• Claire Lilienthal
• Alvarado
• Sherman
• Alice Fong Yu, CN
• Grattan
• Monroe
• Miraloma
• Alamo
• Sutro
• Leonard R. Flynn, SN
• Buena Vista, SN
• Claire Lilienthal, KN
• Dianne Feinstein
• Jean Parker, CB

10 Most Under subscribed

• George R. Moscone, CB
• Jose Ortega, CB
• Bret Harte, SB
• Malcolm X, K
• Bessie Carmichael / Fec, FB
• Marina, 6, CN
• Paul Revere, 6
• Carmichael, 6
• BV Essential High School, 9
• Daniel Webster, CB

At first I was struck by the number of bilinqual education programs made the top 20 list. Clearly there is strong demand for these programs. Then I noticed that there are a number of such programs among the bottom 10 list too. I believe most or all of the under subscribed programs are very new, which makes sense. Parents will be much less reluctant to commit to a program that has been up and running for a while. The Starr King Cantonese program is a good example, where in its third year demand for the program continue to grow.

Round 1 recap from EPC

The Educational Placement Center has released some data about the placement results of this years' enrollment lottery. Some of the highlights are:

• Demand is up for the second year in a row, with 358 more Kindergarten applications than last year.
• As a direct result, the lottery odds were worse:
  • 82% of applicants received one of their choices, down from 87% last year
  • 63% received their first choice, down from 67%
  • 18% of applicants did not receive any of their choices, up from 13% last yar
• Many schools are seeing sharp increases in demand, with 61 schools showing 10+ more applicants this year than last. The schools with large application increases called out by the EPC are:
  • L.R. Flynn, 69%
  • Fairmount, 62%
  • Grattan ES, 45%
  • Miraloma , 42%
  • McKinley, 39% (**)
  • Harvey Milk, 38%
  • S.F. Community, 32%
  • Monroe, 27%
  • Sunset, 26%
  • International Studies Academy, 20%

Kudo's to the EPC for making this information available so quickly.

** Update: How ironic that EPC was singling out McKinkley ES for its increased demand. Turns out they grossly over-enrolled McKinley's kindergarten class and are now scrambling to address their mistake. Anyone who has received a placement at McKinley is urged to contact the school, or EPC, immediately. I'm sure EPC will do everything possible to resolve this mistake, but they can only help if you get in touch. My sympathies to all involved.

About that school you were assigned to...

Now that the lottery has run its course, now that you know which school you're child has been assigned to, it's time once again to do some research. And SfSchools has some resources for you:

• The San Francisco Schools Map
• SFUSD API Data
• SfSchools discussion group
• The SfSchools Calendar
• Comments right here

If anyone has any ideas about other resources we could provide, or want information that is otherwise hard to find, please let us know and we'll see what we can do.

But the greatest resource for families in the enrollment process is ultimately each other. That is the genius of the SF K Files blog. The best way to know if your assignment is right for your child and your family is to seek others in the same situation, other families assigned to your school. The best way to do that will generally be by contacting parents at that school, either through PPS or directly through the school.

Yes, it has been a long process. Yes, for some families the results are unsettling, traumatic. But this is not the end of the road for those that are not satisfied. If there is anything we can do to help, speak up!

Joy and angst as lottery results arrive

The SFUSD lottery results arrived in mailboxes all over the city yesterday, prompting joy and relief or bitterness. I know the background and I understand the complexities, but I agree that this process needs to be fixed.

The wildly successful blog TheSFKFiles — run by the pseudonymous Kate, an incoming kindergarten mom, at this moment has 178 comments on it since yesterday, almost all from parents about their kids' school assignments. Lots and lots of them are disappointed and angry. "Kate's" family got none of their seven choices and were assigned to Junipero Serra Elementary.

I tallied the results posted on that blog. Some of them prompt questions that I urge Parents for Public Schools, because it has access, to ask the SFUSD Educational Placement Center.

One obvious one: of the posters on that blog, some families who had McKinley Elementary on their lists didn't get any of their choices — but three families who had NOT listed McKinley were assigned to it. To me that appears to be a clear-cut glitch. Am I correct that it's a glitch? If it isn't, the process definitely need immediate fixing. And if a family gets messed up by a glitch, can they get immediate attention?

Another who had not asked for it (or heard of it) was assigned to New Traditions, an alternative school that is not supposed to get default assignments, unless the system has suddenly, silently changed. Glitch?

Some posters are bitter and angry about getting schools that many families (in their demographic) view as just fine and/or up-and-coming. The one who got New Traditions and at least one of the McKinleys were in that category.

Over the course of the discussion, a number of parents evolved from unbridled outrage to "let's get a group of us and go check out the (assigned) school." Junipero Serra and Hillcrest prompted that discussion. We'll see. I keep reminding everyone that many of the schools they now view as oversubscribed and impossible to get into were viewed as pits of danger and illiteracy not long ago. Those include the middle school from which my daughter will graduate in June, following her older brother, Aptos class of '05. Both thrived in middle school and had a much happier time than I did in junior high (Edna Maguire Junior High, Mill Valley, 1965-67).

I counted up the results reported in those blog posts. Here's a very rough and unscientific tally.

Parents who got one of their seven choices and are happy got: Harvey Milk, Alvarado general ed (2), Flynn (2), Fairmount (2), West Portal (2), Argonne (2), Dianne Feinstein, McKinley, Jefferson, Grattan, Clarendon 2nd Community, Miraloma, Monroe and Rooftop. Another parent listed Harvey Milk, changed his/her mind, got it and is unhappy.

Parents who didn't get one of their seven choices got: Sunnyside (3), Hillcrest (7), William Cobb (7), Rosa Parks, McKinley (3 -- glitch??), John Muir (6), Starr King General Ed, Bessie Carmichael Filipino Education Center, Daniel Webster, New Traditions (glitch?), Jose Ortega, Sheridan and Paul Revere. (I thought Paul Revere was now a Dream School and that they were by request only, but I could have that wrong. Possible glitch?)

Most of those parents are pissed off, though a few even initially were willing to take a look at the assigned school, especially those assigned to Sunnyside.

So far every family I've heard of has gotten the middle school they wanted. The fact that Aptos and its fellow former pariah James Lick are now considered acceptable has helped that situation a lot, I think.

Even though I have an 8th-grader myself (a SOTA-bound trombonist), I haven't heard that much from fellow 8th-graders yet. We dropped off my daughter's friend at her house after a sleepover yesterday and went in to watch the celebratory opening of her assignment letter to Lowell. Others, heartbreakingly, just missed out on Lowell (as most of you know, a magnet high school that admits based on a combination of grades and test scores). That leads to another question for PPS to ask SFUSD: What is the wait pool/second chance process for Lowell? If there isn't one officially, what about unofficially? Just like any school, Lowell gets openings all along the way, and it does fill them — so, how?

Condolences to everyone stressing and congratulations to those for whom it worked out. Please don't forget that I have never, ever met anyone who stuck it out through the process who hasn't gotten a school they were happy with. Hang in there! And once you're in the wait pool, I do advice you to make regular, brief, polite calls to the Educational Placement Center, 415-241-6085, to remind them that you want a spot promptly if it opens.

A bit more about high schools in a later post.

No artist left untested

An amusing piece of satire from the blog NYCpublicschoolparents — or maybe it's not amusing, or maybe it's not satire:

March 7, 2008 (GBN News): The NY City Department of Education, as part of its effort to expand arts education in the schools, announced today the creation of a new administrative position, a “Chief Creativity Officer”. The $1.9 million a year position will be filled by billionaire philanthropist Smellington Worthington III.

At a Tweed Courthouse news conference, Schools Chancellor Joel Klein told reporters, “The advent of this new position should demonstrate once and for all the importance we place on arts education. Mr. Worthington has a great deal of experience not only as a patron of the arts, but as one with a passion for educational reform, which has long been a hobby of his.”

The Chancellor went on to outline some of the ways in which the DOE plans to increase the role of the arts in the curriculum. Foremost among them will be the integration of the arts into standardized testing. “At a time of tight budgets, it is essential that we avoid waste and duplication. Therefore, we have devised an innovative way not only to teach the arts, but to test it in tandem with academic subjects so that we can assess it efficiently and maintain accountability.”

Mr. Klein explained that the DOE is partnering with McGraw Hill to modify its standardized tests to include the four major creative arts. Students will now be expected to be more creative in their answers. For example a question on an ELA test might require that a student sing the answer instead of filling in a bubble. Such a question would be graded not only on the basis of accuracy, but on tonality and artistic impression. Or, a math question requiring an answer in graph form would expect the graph to meet certain artistic standards such as color coordination and straightness of lines, and might require the student to draw a background picture for embellishment.

The Chancellor, anticipating critics who will undoubtedly contend that such a program is not practical, said, “If you can measure it, it can be successful. We expect every student will graduate with enough proficiency in the arts to compete on American Idol. And if they get voted off, the teachers and the principals will be held accountable – and we will vote them off as well.”

In a more serious vein, Oakland parent/blogger Sharon Higgins is posting an interesting series on her blog, The Perimeter Primate, about the experiments being run by multigazillionaires on Oakland's most vulnerable children, and on the pathologies of street culture.

If you're in the wait pool....

SFUSD applicants who are in the wait pool for a preferred school: I strongly suggest making regular, polite, brief phone calls to the SFUSD Educational Placement Center to say you want the spot; you are waiting by the phone; you are easy to reach immediately. (And, of course, make it so.) I know that's not the official advice. 415-241-6085.