Flawed Grand Jury report on SFUSD: a critique

As a veteran SFUSD parent and blogger about school issues, I read the San Francisco Grand Jury’s report on the school assignment process, “San Francisco Kindergarten Admissions - Back to the Drawing Board,” and felt that it called for a detailed critique. Despite an apparently exhaustive research process, the report indicates a dismaying lack of comprehension about many aspects of the situation.

I agree with the report’s finding that the Diversity Index aspect of the assignment process is “unnecessarily complex and confusing … (and) alienating to … families,” and that it fails to deliver an ideally diversified school population. And I share the view that a good neighborhood school is the ideal situation for a family.

However, I disagree with the implicit conclusions that scrapping the Diversity Index would significantly change the situation. The frustrations families experience when there are more applicants than openings at popular schools are not caused by the Diversity Index and will still exist under any process.

I also strongly disagree with the implication that returning to neighborhood assignment would miraculously improve the assignment process and the schools. SFUSD is a far more successful school district in many ways — including achievement and school diversity — than many other diverse urban school districts with neighborhood-based assignment processes. That fact alone belies the magical-thinking notion that neighborhood schools are a panacea. In a homogenous, high-income school district, neighborhood school assignment is a smooth and simple process, and perhaps that's what the Grand Jurors envision. But a diverse urban school district with many high-need students can't be compared to a district like Mill Valley or Moraga.

In one baffling comment, the report states: “For 20% of the parents to have made Attendance Area Schools their first choice seems to the Jury to be a strong endorsement for the idea of neighborhood schools.” The 20% figure refers to the number of kindergarten applicants who list their local school as their first choice (actually 18%, according to SFUSD). Yet that figure is astoundingly low, meaning that a huge majority — 82% — of parents do not rank their neighborhood school as their first choice. It’s incomprehensible that the Grand Jurors interpreted that figure as an endorsement of neighborhood assignment over a choice system.

The many areas in which the Grand Jury report reveals lack of comprehension of and problematic research into aspects of SFUSD operations motivated me to produce a detailed critique. Here are my observations. In most cases, my responses to portions of the report are given in the order in which those portions appear in the report.

• The implication that parents are unhappier with the current assignment process than with the previous process — or others in the more distant past — is unsupported and inaccurate. The report fails to give a history of SFUSD’s integration programs over the years, and never indicates that the Grand Jury is aware that there has been a long history. The history of such programs is longer and far more contentious and complex than the report indicates.

Under the previous process, pre-Diversity Index, the mandated limits on the percentage of any one ethnicity at a school were especially infuriating to applicants. Also, in one extremely unpopular permutation of a previous process, circa early ’90s, the attendance-area school had to specifically “release” a student (which it would not do if that student’s ethnicity contributed diversity to the school) before the student had the right to apply to another school. The report fails to take note of these past issues or of the fact that previous processes were controversial, infuriating and unpopular — almost certainly more so than the current all-choice process.

• The report’s description of the Ho decision (the court case that led to the elimination of ethnic “caps” at schools) entirely fails to mention the issue at the heart of the complaint. The case targeted the mandated ethnic caps under the previous process, specifically in relation to Lowell High School. The caps meant that a Chinese applicant for Lowell had to score higher than a non-Chinese applicant to be accepted, an apparent civil rights violation. None of this is even alluded to in the report’s description of the case.

• Critics of SFUSD over the years have repeatedly urged the district to focus more on marketing its less popular schools. Yet the Grand Jury report appears to criticize the district for following this advice and trying to market its schools. It cites a principal who says “the District sent out a memo” urging her to recruit parents to her school’s table at the school fair — the report gives no clear reason for mentioning that, but does so with an air of disapproval. The report also conveys a tone of disapproval in a comment that “principals and staff must take time away from educational duties to promote their schools” to touring parents. I would like to ask the authors of the report if they think marketing schools is a bad thing, if they truly don’t grasp that those items they mention pertain to marketing schools, or if they just included those comments in the report for no particular reason. (Also, however, it’s parent volunteers who do most of the work leading tours at many schools.)

• The report is forcefully critical throughout of the Diversity Index process. Yet it also notes that the DI process kicks in only in limited situations: “The impact of the DI processing (sic) is felt only when there are more applicants than available spaces for a particular kindergarten class. When there is competition for a space the DI process resolves the impasse through the application of the ‘diversity’ characteristics.” True enough. But without the DI process, a pure lottery would resolve the impasse instead. Just as many applicants would be rejected. Would that situation make parents any happier? The report leaves that question unaddressed and reflects no awareness of it.

• The report describes the results of the kindergarten lottery for fall 2008 and the number of unhappy families who didn’t get a choice. Again, the report seems to implicitly ascribe that to the Diversity Index process. Actually, it’s simply because some popular schools have more applications than openings. The report does indicate awareness of that fact, but fails to note how a different process would reduce demand for popular schools.

• A small point, but the report states: “This spring so many families applied to the same high testing schools that it created an application bottleneck.” This, of course, has happened since time immemorial and is not unique to this spring nor a new situation under the Diversity Index. In addition (though a minor point), the most popular schools are not always those with the highest test scores.

• This quote reveals a lack of comprehension:
“Competition for the relatively small number of schools on the west side of the City compared to the population of children has resulted in the percentage of applicants who did not get a choice being greater than 25%.”
The intended point of that confusing sentence is unclear. But it appears to be claiming that students on the west side have less of a chance of getting into their nearby schools. The quote implies that there are too few schools on the west side. But it misses the point that west side schools are high achieving and are highly popular with families from all over the city. It’s not clear what remedy the Grand Jurors would recommend, besides cutting off others’ access to those schools.

• This quote reveals a lack of comprehension:
“District officials at the highest level claim that the District wants to retain these committed middle-class parents. The District’s commitment to this goal ils understandably questioned in the presence of a first priority diversity process that seems to give admission preference to poverty level children.”
Do the Grand Jurors not understand that the administration of any diverse, high-poverty school district must be committed to putting significant effort into creating opportunity and improving choices for the highest-need children? In a diverse district, it’s always a balancing act to please the middle-class parents while working to devote extra resources to the most disadvantaged children. This quote indicates unawareness of that issue, instead apparently criticizing the district for doing too much for high-need children. One has to wonder whether the Grand Jurors truly feel that district administration should cater more to middle-class families and do less for the disadvantaged.

• The report appears to implicitly call for less diversity, even while it criticizes SFUSD for not achieving more diversity. The report states: “If every kindergarten classroom in the City accurately reflected school enrollment by ethnicity, only two of 20 children would be African American, two White, five Chinese, and five Hispanic. Some parents expressed a desire to have their child go to school with more than just one other child of their own ethnicity.”

That comment seems to both oppose diversity and imply criticism of the school district for its overall ethnic makeup — something presumably beyond the control of the district. (It also doesn’t get the numbers quite right. Based on the overall makeup of the district, that kindergarten classroom would have eight Asian (presumably mostly Chinese) students, four Latino, two African-American and two white. Based on the most recent kindergarten makeup of the district (2007-08), the class would have six Asians, five Latinos, three whites and two African-Americans. Figures are from the California Department of Education.)

• In a further statement implicitly opposing diversity, the report quoted “an African-American civic leader” as saying: “Rather than have their child in school across town and be one of only two African-American children in the class, many parents in largely African American Bayview and Hunters Point prefer that their grade school child enroll in their neighborhood school.” But this fails to address two points. First, most if not all schools in Bayview/Hunters Point are undersubscribed, so the family that requests those schools will be assigned there with no problem. Second, it overlooks the question of whether the largely disadvantaged, low-income, high-need children in Bayview/Hunters Point should have the option of choosing higher-performing schools throughout the city if their parents so desire, and should perhaps have easier access to the schools of their choice than more-advantaged children would. One has to wonder how that “African-American civic leader” would have responded to that follow-up question. The Grand Jury report indicates no awareness that that question exists to be asked.

On a later page, the report quotes the same or another “African American civic leader” as saying: “If our kids are failing in school, I’d rather have them fail in the neighborhood than in a school across town.” But the quote does not address, nor does the report, whether an African-American child from Bayview/Hunters Point is likely to achieve higher performance at a higher-performing school. It also, again, does not address the question of whether that child should have enhanced access to schools around the city if the parents so choose.

• The report comments in a critical tone: “…the SFUSD does not actually know who will be showing up when school starts. On the first day of school, the District now needs to count heads at each school.” The implication is that this is some kind of failure of SFUSD. It’s also inaccurate that the head count is the first day of school. Actually, the 10-day count — a physical head count — is mandated standard procedure at schools in California and apparently, based on a quick Google check, nationwide.

• The report describes some SFUSD marketing efforts and comments on Parents for Public Schools’ work doing outreach to parents. But it fails to note that it’s clear those efforts have paid off and that far more parents consider SFUSD schools than was the case in the ’90s.

• The report describes some (relatively) segregated schools and portrays them as “evidence that School Choice and the Diversity Index are not succeeding at achieving diversity.” Yet the report itself notes that those schools’ ethnic makeup reflects the makeup of their surrounding neighborhoods. So the schools that the report criticizes as segregated appear to be those schools that are functioning as neighborhood schools — while the report yet calls for a return to neighborhood schools partly on the basis that the choice system is not achieving diversity. The reasoning is head-spinning.

• This portion indicates a failure to comprehend:
The report describes efforts of pre-K parents near one low-performing, low-demand school, Daniel Webster on Potrero Hill, to get involved early in the school and try to achieve “school improvements by the time their children enroll.” But the report goes on to paint the school’s potential improvement in a negative light: “If, however, the parents are successful, the school’s reputation improves, and word begins to spread, it will be only a few years before the school is fully subscribed and a wait list forms. Then, ironically, the Diversity Index will kick in and Potrero Hill families with younger children will lose any assurance that they can get into nearby Webster.” The report misses the point that this would happen without the Diversity Index too.

With a pure lottery system, if the school becomes oversubscribed, not all families will “win” the lottery. Yet with a neighborhood preference or mandatory neighborhood assignment system, Potrero Hill families with school-age kids would currently be getting preference or mandatory assignment to a low-performing, less-popular school, which is probably not a situation they view as ideal; and with strict neighborhood assignment, if the school’s popularity skyrockets, the boundaries around it will simply become closer in, shutting out families farther out in the neighborhood.

• The report includes a baffling section on alternative schools — though admittedly the existence of alternative schools is baffling in itself. Still, the language indicates failure to understand the facts and draw accurate conclusions.

“Many (alternative schools) have specialized programs such as bilingual education.” True, but so do many non-alternative schools. Bilingual programs are not a function of alternative schools. Also, the report fails to mention language immersion programs or indicate any awareness of a difference between those and bilingual programs. Bilingual programs exist to serve students who are English-language learners, while immersion programs serve native English speakers who are learning another language, as well as native speakers of that target language as a chosen process for learning English. Most immersion programs are wildly popular with middle-class families who are native English speakers.

The report quotes a district staffer in the section on alternative schools: “Some are so small that educational and cost efficiencies cannot be maintained.” Yes, this can be true of very small schools, but there’s no reason it’s any more true of alternative than of non-alternative schools..

A confusing paragraph on bilingual education in the section on alternative schools indicates further confusion and uncomprehension. “There is also an apparent lack of parental support for bilingual classes,” the report states, without elaboration. Actually, as noted, language immersion programs are in very high demand. Bilingual classes are the default for English language learners unless their parents choose immersion programs. Schools with bilingual programs may tend not to be in high demand because schools with a lot of English language learners are likely to be lower-performing; but the existence of the bilingual program is not the likely cause of the school’s lower popularity.

• The report includes the sentence: “One of the goals of Alternative Schools should be to attract students by placing ‘high demand programs in low demand schools’,” (quoted from a district report) without elaborating or giving any ideas as to what “high demand programs” the Grand Jury would recommend. In reality, language immersion is the quintessential example of a high demand program, and the district has been rapidly opening language immersion programs in low-demand schools, exactly as recommended. It’s strange that the Grand Jury report appears unaware that there is such thing as a language immersion program, and does not differentiate such a program from the bilingual programs which it claims lack parental support. The entire section indicates uncomprehension and overall makes no sense. The report notes in at least two places, “The number of Alternative Schools has grown to 15…” without ever noting from what base and over what period of time. Actually, the number has changed little if at all since the ’90s.

• The section on busing further indicates lack of comprehension of the situation, of the purpose of offering busing to some students, and of other issues. “Bus routes,” the report states in a critical tone, “do not provide service equally between schools and different sections of the City. For example, there are seven routes bringing children west from Bayview, Hunters Point and Visitacion Valley where many schools are under attended to the Sunset and Richmond where many schools are oversubscribed. Only one route goes to schools in the other direction.”

The Grand Jurors missed so many points on this issue that it’s hard to know where to start. Most schools in the Sunset and Richmond are high-performing, desirable and popular. Many or most students in Bayview, Hunters Point and Visitacion Valley are low-income, at-risk and high-need. The process has been designed to give those disadvantaged students better access to higher-performing schools, including by providing transportation. There is no similar motivation or benefit to giving more-privileged students coming from the west side transportation to east side schools that they are not likely to request, as those schools tend to be lower-performing and challenged. Again, do the Grand Jurors oppose a policy that offers the most disadvantaged students enhanced access to the city’s higher-performing schools?

• The report’s Finding No. 8 on the busing issue invites challenge. “Schools have not improved or become more diverse, even with the use of busing.” Actually, SFUSD schools have been steadily improving, as their test scores show. And the least diverse schools, as the report itself points out, are those serving as neighborhood schools, not those with students bused in.

• In another statement indicating lack of comprehension, the report states: “Busing further erodes parental … involvement in schools.” This would surely be true if the busing were mandatory, but in SFUSD it is by request. Parents who have specifically requested a school are more likely to become involved in it, not less.

• The report criticizes politicians for giving priority to school diversity supposedly because it’s politically popular. Yet that does not jibe with reality or with the report’s own emphasis on the unpopularity of the school assignment process. Clearly, giving priority to school diversity is politically unpopular. And in one high-profile example of how the report has it backward, one former rising political star launched his career by leading mass protests of west side parents demanding access to their neighborhood high school, Lincoln, back in 2003. The political career of that official, Ed Jew, was killed off by other issues, but he built his initial popularity on opposing school diversity efforts.

• The report points out that 30% of the district’s school-age children do not enroll in SFUSD schools, implying that this is due to the current enrollment process. Yet an SFUSD demographic presentation I attended some years ago emphasized that the 30-33% figure has held steady since 1982 (the demographer had not researched previous years). Undoubtedly the various desegregation programs over the years have contributed to that situation, but the implication that this is a new situation, due to the current Diversity Index process, is inaccurate and misleading.

• In passing, the report criticizes the district for being overly unwilling to close schools. “The Board seems unwilling to face and to withstand the protests that come when a school closure is calendared.” Yet the notion that the Board of Education should coldly ignore parents’ anguished concerns over school closures seems directly in conflict with the overall thread of the report, which is that the district should base its assignment process on popularity with parents. The section suggests that in choosing to close schools, the district should rely entirely on “fixed criteria” and an “agreed-upon checklist.” Actually, there are such criteria, to which some flexibility and human judgment have been applied in the past. While I agree that the district probably needs to close schools if enrollment continues to drop — and certainly needs to stop opening new ones, including allowing charters to open — the notion that it’s easy to do if the BOE just mans up and tells parents to shut up is out of touch with reality and out of keeping with the report's overall tone.

• In the very next section, the report praises the hiring of Dr. Anthony Smith as a development that gives the Grand Jurors “hope.” While Dr. Smith clearly brings many attributes to SFUSD, he has just proposed opening at least one new school — so his position on that issue is in direct conflict with the Grand Jurors’ notion that closing schools is a fine solution.

• The report also states that the Grand Jurors derive “hope” from the fact that 47% of SFUSD’s elementary school principals will soon be eligible to retire. “With these dramatic changes in leadership the Jury believes that there is the opportunity … to correct the deficiencies” of the district. It’s dismaying that the Grand Jury is so openly contemptuous of SFUSD’s principals as to want as many of them as possible to leave. Parents, teachers and other actual district stakeholders are unlikely to agree. What replacements does the Grand Jury have in mind whom it believes will provide superior performance?

• The report makes a recommendation: “The District should immediately begin preparing a school assignment program strengthening the role of neighborhood schools…” The report stops short of calling for mandatory neighborhood assignment and eliminating the choice system, and does not address the question of whether low-income, at-risk students should be given enhanced access to their choice of schools. The report fails to address the issue that led to this entire complex system: the fact that schools serving many high-need children face huge extra challenges, and that one remedy is to offer high-need children access to the less-challenged, higher-achieving schools that exist in higher-income neighborhoods.

• The report makes a recommendation: “…draw attendance zones with a priority on creating student diversity and proximity to home in each zone.” Yet the report acknowledges that the most segregated schools are those that already serve their local neighborhoods, due to segregated housing patterns (a situation beyond educators’ scope and control). The report fails to reconcile its own inherent finding that recommending both neighborhood schools and a priority of student diversity are contradictory.

• The report makes a recommendation: “The District should form immediately a Task Force to … provide recommendations to reduce the Alternative Schools by one half. … Special emphasis should be placed on assessing if there is need for as many bilingual programs, a number of which are poorly attended.” The poor writing obfuscates this a bit, but apparently the report is calling for closing half the district’s alternative schools. The basis for this recommendation is incomprehensible, largely because the report makes clear that the researchers apparently wound up with a number of misunderstandings about alternative schools and bilingual programs and in general are hopelessly confused about these two areas.

• The report makes a recommendation: “Reduce busing … Parents … choosing not to send their children to the neighborhood school would be responsible for arranging their child’s transportation (Special Education Students) excepted (sic).” The report fails to address the question of whether low-income students who live in disadvantaged neighborhoods with low-performing, challenged schools should receive enhanced access — including perhaps district-provided transportation — to schools of their choice. The implication is that the Grand Jurors failed to grasp that this issue existed at all.

• The report makes a recommendation: “…create good schools system wide.” Apparently new to the area of education, the Grand Jurors seem to be unaware that no diverse school system in the nation or the world has ever succeeded in “making all the schools good.” Schools that serve a critical mass of high-need, low-income students universally face challenges that — to date — have made it impossible to magically “make them good.” The notion that new leadership can achieve this can only be described as astoundingly naïve and ignorant.

Undoubtedly, the Grand Jurors’ attempt to address this issue was sincere and well-meaning. But their report is so poorly produced and reveals so many areas of misunderstanding and incomprehension that it seems likely to do more harm than good. This volunteer critique is an effort to respond to the report’s many problematic portions.

SFUSD news items: JROTC, Prop. H, more

I posted on examiner.com about the latest JROTC and Prop. H maneuvers.
We need to mobilize yet again about Prop. H — more coming soon. And it looks like the JROTC opponents haven't been foiled after all.


In other news, the Bayview Essential School for Music, Art and Social
Justice, a small high school that was announced as opening in fall
2008, won't open due to lack of enrollment. It's not clear whether the
opening is being delayed till fall '09 or whether the plan is canceled
entirely.

Also, final word appears to be that the Metro/MSAT hybrid charter high
school will move into the spot being vacated by Leadership Charter
High School at Burton High. Plans continue for Leadership to move onto
the Denman Middle School campus.

08-09 Budget Published

The draft budget that will come before the BOE tonight for approval has been posted to the SFUSD website. In order to ensure that this document remains available, I've reposted it here: FY08-09_Recommended_Budget_2nd_Reading (2.5Mb PDF)

There are other links on the SFUSD site to presentation documents and other sources of information on the budget. My guess is these materials were used in the budget workshop meetings.

Nice to see the recent practice of publishing budget continuing with the new Garcia administration.

Here's Garcia's forword from the budget document:

SUPERINTENDENT’S BUDGET MESSAGE

RECOMMENDED BUDGET FOR FISCAL YEAR 2008-09 (SECOND READING)

June 24, 2008

San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) has distinguished itself by becoming the highest performing large urban school district in the State of California. This distinction has been earned through the hard work of our students, teachers, staff and administrators and the support of our vibrant parent communities and organizations, City and community partners, and the voters of San Francisco. San Franciscans have continually supported strong public schools through the passage of the 2003 and 2006 Proposition A School Bonds, the 2004 Public Education Enrichment Fund (Proposition H), and most recently, Proposition A on the June 2008 ballot – the Quality Teacher and Education Act. This past year has been marked by a remarkable degree of unity toward common goals and a shared commitment to support all SFUSD students through hard work, innovative thinking, and a spirit of partnership.

The proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2008-09 is based on information currently known regarding the State’s ongoing budget development process. California Education Code requires that school district governing boards adopt a preliminary budget by July 1st of each year. As is the case in many years, this deadline arrives prior to the adoption of the State budget. However, at this time, we and other districts are proceeding with the development of our budget based on the Governor’s proposal for K-12 education funding for the upcoming fiscal year.

The Governor has offered California’s school districts an inadequate budget – one that reflects no cost of living adjustment and significant across-the-board cuts in categorical programs. In addition, SFUSD continues to face decreases in student enrollment that affect our revenue limit, a continual rise in operational costs (such as utility costs and health care premiums), and major under-funding in areas including Special Education, student transportation, and child development programs.

As the budget allocates financial and human resources and guides the delivery of programs and services, SFUSD’s budget should reflect our strategic plans, a strong public school system and a commitment to excellence and equity in our schools. Within the constraints of too-limited resources, this budget endeavors to support this vision. This budget contains resources to support our students who are struggling academically as well as some of our most challenged schools. It also looks broadly at our operational systems to make investments that in the long-run will yield more efficient operations and cost savings. I am looking forward to working with the Board of Education, my staff, and community partners to further developing SFUSD’s strategic plan which upon completion will serve as a guide to all our actions, including resource allocation decisions.

In the interest of the SFUSD’s fiscal well-being, our budgetary strategy must consider long- term plans. We are extremely fortunate to benefit from the Rainy Day Reserve from the City Page 1 of 457 and County of San Francisco, but we must plan carefully with these one-time funds, especially considering discouraging financial projections beyond FY 2008-09.

Throughout this process, I encourage all members of the SFUSD community to continue to work together to develop sound decisions that support the academic and developmental needs of our students.

Carlos Garcia Superintendent of Schools

Community Meetings on the SFUSD Budget

Nice to see these budget workshops turning into a regular, annual event. I attended one two years ago and learned a great deal. It is unfortunate that they have been scheduled during the summer break, but it is well timed with the state budget cycle.

Heartily recommended:

Community Meetings on the SFUSD Budget

Topics to be covered include:

• SFUSD Budget Components
• State Budget Impact on SFUSD
• Budget Outlook for 2008-2009

Everett Middle School
450 Church Street
Cafeteria
Saturday, June 21
10:00 am – 12:00 pm

A.P. Giannini Middle School
3151 Ortega Street
Library
Wednesday, June 25
6:30 pm – 8:30 pm

Email your budget questions to budget@sfusd.edu
To request Translation or Child Care, please call 241-6081.

The flyers for this event are available in English, Chinese , and Spanish. And of course, it has been posted to the SfSchools calendar.

Curses, foiled again... JROTC survives

JROTC survived a sneak attack last night, as an attempt to strip PE credit from the program failed to attrack a BOE majority. The vote on the measure broke as follows:

In favor	Opposed
Norman Yee	Hydra Mendoza
Mark Sanchez	Jill Wynns
Eric Mar	Kim-Shree Maufas

Commissioner Jane Kim, a co-sponsor of the resolution had the good sense to be absent.

In spite of the barely legal, minimal 24 hour notice of the meeting, JROTC proponents mobilized and attended the meeting. Why was the meeting called with such short notice? "We would not want us to get into a predicament of getting sued." Principals needed enough time to plan before they left on vacation. So instead of subjecting this proposal to the normal committee review and public scrutiny, they tried to kill the program while no one was looking. Thanks Commissioner Kim for not being a party to this odious maneuver.

Concerns re: the DCYF Budget & Children's Fund

The following message was posted to the SfSchools list and is republished here with author's permission:

Hello Everyone-

I'm a new member of the Department of Children Youth and their Families (DCYF) Community Advisory Committee (CAC) and we were privy to their proposed budget at our last meeting. I have some major concerns regarding the budget, as do other members of the CAC.

As background, DCYF receives well over half its funding through the Children's Fund. This fund, passed as the Children's Amendment in 1991 & reauthorized in 2000 (Prop. D) to remain effective through 2015, established a dedicated funding stream for children's services in San Francisco, known as the Children's Fund - .03 on every $100 of property tax. You can read the actual Children's Amendment by going to the City's Charter http://www.municode.com/Resources/gateway.asp?pid=14130&sid=5 and searching for Section 16.108 (July 1, 2001).

In brief, the Children's Amendment requires that monies from the Children's Fund be spent "exclusively for the costs of services to children less than 18 years old" and on a list of eligible items (in summary - child care, recreation, health services, job training, leadership development, violence prevention, educational enrichment). It also requires that funding priorities are set by community assessment and that there be a public hearing on all allocations of funds for new programming.

The concerns of the CAC are as follows:

The Mayor, in the last moments of the fiscal year, inserted and deleted a number of items in the DCYF budget without public hearing and/or input from the Community Advisory Committee. The CAC feels that it is better public policy and that more children and families will be better served by following the mandated process.

My personal concerns are definitely about the process, but also about the cost and nature of the items the Mayor inserted into the budget. In particular, there is a 1,478,500 line item for a Baby Bond program (this is only for 6 months, the cost will double next year), which aims to set every newborn in SF with a $250 saving account from this day forward.

Another line item is $375,000 to offer $75 "Cultural Vouchers" to all 6th graders in the city to attend art and cultural events in the city.

Neither of these is necessarily a bad idea, but there has been very little background to explain the value of each program and there certainly hasn't been a public hearing. Not to mention that the Baby Bond initiative doesn't even fit within the charter of the Children's Fund & the Cultural Vouchers are a questionable fit.

All this when departments are being asked to make deep cuts. The Mayor is funding his $3, 743, 500 in new programming by using previously unplanned growth in the Children's Fund & by making 15% cuts to 14 grants made during the add-back process last year. I'm still trying to wrap my head around all of this, but basically it seems to me a use of funds in a way not intended by the voters in 2000. If the newly proposed programs have substance behind them, then let the Mayor go through a public hearing as called for in the charter. If not, than perhaps it is best to wait for flush economic times before funding such long term and costly programs.

If you share any or all of the concerns listed below, please contact your supervisor to let he/she know. Budget committee supervisors are McGoldrik (chair), Elsbernd, Mirkarimi, Daly & Chu.

The public hearing on the full SF budget is this Thursday at 5:00 p.m. at City Hall, Room 250.

Thanks for listening....

Stefanie

Feel free to express your concern to the members of the Board of Supervisors Budget Committee:

jake.mcgoldrick@sfgov.org (chair)
sean.elsbernd@sfgov.org
carmen.chu@sfgov.org
ross.mirkarimi@sfgov.org
chris.daly@sfgov.org

Kim Knox sets sail

The SFUSD community has lost one of its most committed and energetic proponents. Kim Knox has announced her departure to take a position in the DC area.

As I noted in her goodbye announcement:

Thank you, Kim, for your ceaseless efforts on behalf of SF kids over these past few years. You have been there, at seemingly every SFUSD related event, without fail.

No one has come close to your record of being there, reporting, caring, and committing yourself to our schools and our kids. You always give of yourself with a true heart and a genuinely progressive voice.

Congratulations and good luck on your new adventure.

Last summer we lost Nicole Achs Freeling's School Board Notes. Recently the pace here has dropped off. Now Kim signs off. Who will step up now and continue the hard work of shining a light on the often overlooked, but ever important, news and events of SFUSD?

School's Out!

photo by CatPiper

Congratulations to all the hard-working students, teachers, parents... everyone. Another school year ends, and summer vacation becons.

This blog has been unusually quiet for a while now. The pace is likely to continue through the summer.

Have a great vacation!

More on school meals

There was some discussion at last night's BOE meeting (during public comment) about school lunches, largely centering on the packaging, but also touching on the quality of the food. I don't know how many other ways there are for me to say this, but I will keep on saying it until every well-meaning person who is serious about improving the school meal programs gets it: whatever it is you are asking for, be it easier-to-handle packaging, additional cutlery, higher quality food, more organics, or more salad bars - whatever - IT WILL COST MORE MONEY!

Our school district is already directing about $1.5 million of general fund money to Student Nutrition Services to cover the shortfall between the revenue the program brings in, and the cost to provide school meals. That is $1.5 million of money which would otherwise be available for classroom needs, like paying for more paraprofessionals. So, for those of you who want to see improvements, are you saying that you believe that the district should direct even more general fund money to SNS to pay for (as an example) plastic knives to accompany the "sporkette"? This would indeed make it easier for students to handle the entrees which require cutting, but would cost in the vicinity of $200,000 extra per year (at current meal participation levels). Please tell me where that $200,000 should come from. I believe that sum is enough to pay for at least three paraprofessionals; shall we ask that there be more staff layoffs so that the students can have more cutlery? Or should $200,000 in cuts to the cost of food be found to cover the cost of the cutlery. Let's see – we could switch back from the fresh fruit currently served (at a cost of about 18 cents apiece) to the cheap, sugar and fat-laden commodity apple turnovers served in the bad old days (a bargain at less than 10 cents apiece). That would save some money – would that be a net improvement, trading fresh fruit for more cutlery?

To repeat – there is NOTHING that SNS can do to improve school meals that won't involve taking money from something else. It is time for everyone who wants to see improvements in the school meal program to take their anger and their rhetoric to the people who CAN do something about it. As Commissioner Wynns so eloquently put it last night, "It is time to make the people who are supposed to be paying for school meals, really pay for them!"

Funding for school meals is covered by the federal Child Nutrition Act, which is up for reauthorization in 2009. The USDA is taking public comment right now and continuing through October 15th. All public comment will become part of the public record and will be provided to Congress to inform their discussions around the reauthorization of the Act.

Congress allocates the money for the school meal programs, and they need to hear two things. First, the school meal funding level for high cost of living areas like San Francisco needs to be increased. At present, the federal government provides $2.49 per free lunch served in all of the 48 contiguous states, but Alaska and Hawaii get more – schools in Hawaii get $2.91, while those in Alaska get a whopping $4.03. This is because of the higher cost of bringing food and supplies into these two remote states, but costs are higher than average here in San Francisco too. As I write this, gasoline prices in 38 states are averaging below $4 per gallon, while California averages $4.24 (only 3 states are higher – Connecticut at $4.25 and yes, Alaska and Hawaii.) The federal government is aware that the cost of living is higher here, and they pay federal employees here a differential to make up for their higher living expenses. If SFUSD received $4.03 per free lunch served, as schools in Alaska do, there would be no SNS deficit, $1.5 million would be returned to the classrooms to provide for students' academic needs, and there would be even better food served in the lunch program too.

The second thing Congress needs to hear is that the income ceiling for eligibility for free meals needs to be raised in high cost of living areas like SF. Presently, a family of 4 with two adults each working 40 hours per week at minimum wage jobs, earn too much to qualify for free meals for their children. The cutoff for eligibility for this family is $38,203, but their 40 hour work weeks at SF's minimum wage of $9.36 an hour earn them $38,937. Impossible to imagine parents raising two kids without assistance on under $39,000 a year in SF, where the rent on even a one bedroom apartment (for 4 people!) would cost about half of their annual income, but the children of this imaginary family would not qualify for subsidized school meals. According to The Insight Center for Community Economic Development, the self sufficiency standard (amount of income necessary to live without government assistance) for this family of four in SF is about $52,500. This is probably why so many students come to school each day ineligible for free lunch, but with no money to pay for their meal. SNS feeds these students anyway, but can collect only about 25 cents of government money for the meal. Raising the limit on how much a family can earn and still qualify for free lunch to a more realistic level here in SF, like $50,000 instead of $38,000, could enable thousands of low income children to qualify, and bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars of additional government funds to help pay for higher quality food.

Over 60 years ago, the federal government recognized its responsibility to ensure that a nutritious hot lunch would be available to every school aged child. It's asking too much to expect schools to fashion tasty and appealing meals out of government surplus commodities. The government must spend enough on school meal programs to provide high quality fresh food, grown and prepared close to home, to allow our children to thrive and achieve.

To let Congress know how you feel about these issues, and why we need both a higher reimbursement rate for free meals and a higher income eligibility ceiling to qualify for free meals, please go to Request for Public Comments for Use in Preparing for 2009 Reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Programs and WIC

Or send comments directly to CNDProposal@fns.usda.gov

--- Dana Woldow

Prop. 13: the You're On Your Own culture

Cross-post from www.examiner.com:

I was pondering where to start on a 30th-anniversary commentary about 1978’s tax-cutting Prop. 13 and its impact on public education – and on the rest of our society – when an excellent Sacramento Bee column by veteran journalist Peter Schrag landed in my inbox. Schrag has been critiquing Prop. 13 for many years.

Proposition 13 did not cause every public service calamity of the last 30 years, much less the Northridge earthquake or the San Diego County wildfires.

But in the years since Proposition 13's passage, it has compounded California's governmental and fiscal mess something awful. California's per pupil school spending, which was among the top 10 states in the 1960s, is now among the bottom 10. Proposition 13 alone is not responsible, but along with two major court decisions that preceded it, it helped decouple school funding from the local tax base and thus undercut voter incentives to fund education generously, as it had been in the generation after World War II. Our roads, once a national model, are an embarrassment. …

California once had a communitarian ethic. That's been turned into a market ethic. It once did serious planning for the future. For now, that's a nearly forgotten hope.

(Read the whole column here.)

It goes almost without saying that Prop. 13 devastated California schools. It knocked them from the top in the nation to near the bottom not only in funding, but also (this is more complex) in achievement. (Our schools face more challenges in other ways than many other states’, including a very large number of limited-English newcomers and the impact of our high cost of living.)

As Schrag and others note - there are, of course, many pro-Prop. 13 commentaries floating around too - Prop. 13 was a social/cultural movement that went beyond just slashing homeowners’ tax rates as their property values soared. (The increases accompanying California’s newly skyrocketing real estate prices were what ignited the furor.) It was all about sticking it to those crooks and bums in Sacramento and, by extension, D.C.. "Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem,” Ronald Reagan declared in his first inaugural address, 2 1/2 years after Prop. 13 passed.

It’s ironic, because Prop. 13 was a movement of my parents’ and grandparents’ generations – born roughly 1895-1930. And those generations, which suffered hugely through the Depression and one or both World Wars – also benefited hugely from government leadership and spending. The New Deal helped pull many of them out of desperation during the Depression, and the G.I. Bill transformed the fortunes of the entire World War II generation. There seems to have been a massive disconnect when so many of them turned hostile to government and tax spending after having benefited so greatly from both.

We saw a similar disconnect displayed in a quote in an unrelated Chronicle article a few months ago, about the question of charging tolls to use Doyle Drive at the south end of the Golden Gate Bridge, to cover needed safety work. "Doyle Drive needs to be taken care of by the city, not the taxpayers,” declared a San Francisco driver. If the reporter asked him where he thinks “the city” gets money, the answer wasn’t included in the article.

In my opinion this boils down to the fact that too many people don’t grasp that taxes are the price we pay for the services that keep our society civilized. You don’t hear many people proclaim their willingness to give up public services – that San Francisco driver wasn’t opposing making the repairs on Doyle Drive.

A new Field Poll says that 57% of Californians would vote for Prop. 13 today, while 23% would oppose it. But do all those Californians understand that taxes pay for services they are likely to need someday, or are they all soulmates of the guy who thinks “the city” should pay for those services instead of “the taxpayers”?

In some ways I see it as a conflict between those who want a “You’re On Your Own” (YOYO) society – social Darwinist, dog eat dog, every man for himself – and those who prefer to believe that “We’re In This Together” (WITT). But there needs to be a third category for the disconnected, the descendants of those who thrived under the G.I. Bill and somehow failed to grasp that it was tax-funded government programs that benefited them, their families and their communities.

There’s no doubt that homeowners needed relief back in the ‘70s, when their taxes soared along with their home values. (Let’s not forget, however, that these folks were getting enormously land-rich due to sheer lucky timing.) Legislators could have worked out ways to meet that need without starving government, and they blew it. Says Schrag:

Sacramento diddled in its futile effort to provide relief. But it's inconceivable that … Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature wouldn't have gotten the message in the 1978 general election and offered a more workable solution, even if it had taken legions of geezers with pitchforks to deliver it.

I worry that the generations behind mine (I was 24 when Prop. 13 passed) find it too deeply inconceivable that a society would actually be willing to provide for its members’ needs; that they’re too numbed to fight the YOYO mentality. We need a “Never Forget!” movement for a more optimistic, more determined spirit. It seems un-American to shrug “oh well” and give up on building a better society.

Rally for schools (with Sandra Tsing Loh) June 17!

A cross-post: This rally being promoted by the deliciously witty commentator/performance artist/public school advocate Sandra Tsing Loh is obviously the place to be this summer if you want to speak up for children and schools! (Those Grateful Dads — that’s my husband, a classroom regular with his guitar, banjo and harmonica.)

FIRST-EVER "CALIFORNIA CHILDREN’S RALLY"
Tuesday, June 17, 2008 at the Sacramento Capitol (front)

SACRAMENTO — 2008 marks both the 30th anniversary of the passage of Howard Jarvis’ Proposition 13 (June) and the 160th anniversary of California public schools. On Tuesday, June 17, parental frustration over perennial public education budget cuts (California currently ranks 46th in the U.S.) will be transformed into a rally celebrating a group who has no lobbyists, California’s future, and the most important "special interest" in the world — our children. Also celebrated will be some extraordinary heroes of California public school culture whose hearts, despite many odds, beat strong.

WHO: A grassroots group of California public school families, and friends

WHAT: The California Children’s Rally - Working Schedule (subject to change):

10 a.m.-11 a.m. Children visit their legislators, invite them to lunch

11 a.m.-12 noon Kid’s cafeteria-style lunch provided for all, building begins of

"ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM"* led by Trash for Teaching, also
"Mission Impossible!" ("Are You Smarter than A Fourth Grader?
Can you build a mission out of clean recyclables?")
Music: The Kids of Widney High, Grateful Dads (w/ Foremen)
Children sing "California Public School Songbook"
California Autoharp Gathering - Fresno Migrant Scholars

12 noon-12:40 "Barndance!" with Evo Bluestein and company
(Learn to squaredance on the Capitol Steps!)

12:40-12:55 The Angry Tired Teachers of Hayward (with special guest "performance art troupe" The Burning Moms) in "Low Budget High School Musical!"

12:55-1:00 p.m. "This Land is Your Land" group singalong w/ "Guitar Army"
(legislators invited to bring instruments and jam!)

WHEN: Tuesday, June 17, 10 a.m.-1 p.m.

WHERE: Capitol Steps on L Street at 11th

* "THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM" will be a giant group-built elephant sculpture (created by Beth Elliott) upon which participants can sit and pose for a photo. Democrat, Republican, Independent — everyone has a different "elephant in the room" re: public education funding. The Elephant (non-partisan, chosen only for structural stability) welcomes all — as in the barndance, all comers are invited to take a whirl.

PARTICIPATING GROUPS:

* The Angry Tired Teachers Band (Hayward, CA): This group of public school teachers from Hayward Unified (lowest paid teachers in the Bay) have plowed the slings and arrows of their superintendent, school board, administrators and even students into their rock ‘n’ roll music. A fun--yet pointed--dance party for anyone who feels, like Rodney Dangerfield, that they "don’t get no respect."
* The Burning Moms (Everywhere, CA): The Burning Moms are underpaid, overstressed public school moms tired of gluing their California public schools’ funding together by baking endless pans of Snickerdoodles. They join the Angry Tired Teachers as back-up dancers, doing the swim and the pony in their own special way, working in such theatrical mediums as sugary desserts and cash.
* The California Autoharp Gathering (Mendota, CA): The CAG was founded in 2003 at the Mendota Unified School District, enabling students to take classes in autoharp, folkloric dancing and more. An inspiring example of the synergies possible, Fresno Unified, the Fresno Folklore Society and the Fresno migrant scholars program all work together to bring traditional American arts to a new generation of California public school students.
* Evo Bluestein (Clovis, CA): Evo Bluestein is a legendary fiddler, as well as music and dance educator in Central Californian public schools. His "barn dances" timeless, fun, and uplifting. Bluestein’s Four "C’s" of squaredancing include Courtesy (politeness — the ability to dance with anyone in the room with a good attitude), Cooperation (willingness to try new things), Concentration (staying on the beat), and ... Community!
* The Grateful Dads (Everywhere, CA): In California public schools where music programs have been cut and teachers are frantically busy teaching Open Court for standardized testing, who sometimes steps into the musical void is a brave volunteer dad with a guitar. (Or a piano.) While this is no substitute for the real music programs other states have, we still love our balladeer dads (and moms!) who teach our kids to sing.
* The Kids of Widney High (Los Angeles): The Kids of Widney High are a group of students from Widney High School, a special education high school in Los Angeles, who write and perform original songs. The group started in 1988 as a song writing class and changes as the students come and go from Widney. These incredible "Kids" record, gig and have their own you tube channel, to the delight of enthusiastic audiences.
* Trash for Teaching (Los Angeles): TFT collects clean and safe cast-off materials from manufacturing (that would otherwise become trash) and repurposes them to provide comprehensive arts education programs. TFT’s Treasure Trucks bridge the gap between the excess of waste created in manufacturing processes and the lack of materials in public education. TFT’s Motto: "Education and environmentalism through creative reuse."

***

An additional note, by the way: So as not to exaggerate the negative about San Francisco schools, I should point out that thanks to the determination of our district to keep at least some music programs alive all along — plus Prop. H funding from the generous voters of San Francisco that restored still more — our schools DO have music programs. The Grateful Dads still show up to supplement them and do that all-important male role modeling, though!