California's 'lavish' school spending

Critics of public education often claim that schools overseas deliver a superior education at lower cost than U.S. schools. San Francisco parent Matt Brauer got curious recently and decided to do his own research. I've posted his commentary on www.examiner.com for your viewing pleasure.

2008 BOE Candidates Published

Filing deadlines have come and gone, and now the SF Elections Deparment has
published the list of candidates. So who's running for BOE?

• Harold Brown
• James Calloway
• Marigrace Cohen
• Glenn Davis
• Sandra Fewer
• Omar Khalif
• Alexander Young Lee
• Barbara "Bobbi" Lopez
• Jaynry Mak
• Emily Murase
• Rachel Norton
• Kelly Wallace
• Kimberly Wicoff
• Jill Wynns
• Norman Yee

Obviously, we will be hearing a lot more about this election and these candidates in the days ahead.

Wait pool spreadsheet

The district recently published their "wait pool" data for all schools as of August 1st. It gives a detailed breakdown of the number of students on wait lists for each grade at all schools/programs/grades where there is a wait pool. It may not have made any of the waiting families happy, but it was a welcome sliver of helpful information and transparency amid a nightmarish enrollment endgame.

That was before the "Flynn-Arado" mess landed with a thud. By now, some two weeks later, the data is almost certainly stale. Seats were opened to accommodate displaced families. They've received new assignments. Lots of pawns students have moved around in this game of musical chairs.

But it is an interesting souvenir of this years punishing enrollment marathon. And I may have added value by liberating the data from the district PDF. I converted the file into a spreadsheet, sorted it by grade and total waitpool count, and published it here:

SFUSD Wait Pool August 1, 2008

What leaps out? The district clearly did not prepare for this incoming class. There were, according to this document, 90 different Kindergarten schools/programs with waiting lists, with a total of 953 applications. There is no way to know how many wait pools each Kindergartner is on, so we can't tell how many kids are left wanting and waiting. Clearly, there are too many.

And the schools with the longest Kindergarten wait lists? Fong Yu, Rooftop, Lilienthal, Clarendon, Lawton. Yes, the district has many more appealing schools to desperately compete for choose from. But the same "alternative" schools that have always been the most coveted still attract the most moths to the flame.

Are they listening?

Dana Woldow reports from the trenches on the Sisyphusian efforts to improve school nutrition in this School Beat report:

City May Discontinue Kids’ Free Summer Lunch Program

For generations, students have complained about school food, calling it “mystery meat.” More recently, their elders have begun complaining too, as rates of childhood obesity and Type 2 diabetes reach new highs, and unhealthy school lunches are targeted as one cause. As Congress gets ready to debate possible changes to federal child nutrition programs, criticism of the byzantine structure of children’s meal program regulations is starting to be heard as well. But is anyone listening? On August 6th, they were listening in San Francisco.[...]

Sisyphus is probably the wrong allusion since our crusaders are making progress in their struggle. Maybe the Augean Stables would be more apt? Whatever... we owe Dana and her fellow travellers for their tireless efforts.

Photoblogging Buena Vista

In case you were wondering where the new banner image came from...

A new school year is upon us, so I figure its time for some minor redecorating around here. As always, I'm open to hosting anyone's photos of San Francisco schools.

SFUSD 2008-2009 Instructional Calendar

I basically forgot to post the instructional calendar for the upcoming year. It was published long ago, and is available from the district website here(PDF). In years gone by this information was hard to come by, and I notice that some web traffic comes here searching for it. So I'm happy to republish it here and on our SfSchools Calendar

San Francisco Unified School District 
2008-2009 Instructional Calendar 

• Jul. 4, 2008 — Independence Day (Holiday)
• Aug. 20, 2008 — Teacher Work Day
• Aug. 21-22, 2008 — Professional Development Days
• Aug. 25, 2008 — Students Report — First Day of Instruction
• Sept. 1, 2008 — Labor Day (Holiday)
• Oct. 13, 2008 — Columbus/Indigenous People's Day/El Dia de la Raza (Holiday)
• Nov. 11, 2008 — Veterans Day (Holiday)
• Nov. 26-28, 2008 — Thanksgiving Recess
• Dec. 22-31, 2008 — Winter Break
• Jan. 1-2, 2009 — Winter Break
• Jan. 16, 2009 — Fall Semester Ends
• Jan. 19, 2009 — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (Holiday)
• Jan. 20, 2009 — Professional Development Day (Schools Closed)
• Jan. 26, 2009 — Lunar New Year Observance (Schools Closed)
• Feb. 16, 2009 — Presidents' Day (Holiday)
• Mar. 30, 2009 — Cesar Chavez Day Observance (Schools Closed)
• Apr. 6-10, 2009 — Spring Break
• May 25, 2009 — Memorial Day (Holiday)
• June 9, 2009 — Last Day of Instruction/Spring Semester Ends

More info on the "Flynnerado" SNAFU

PPS-SF continues to do an excellent job providing updates on the Flynn/Alvarado enrollment problems.  Visit their issues page for the latest news.  (Kudos to them for their site redesign too!)

One of the many stakeholders who have been ignored by EPC and the district is the group San Francisco Advocates for Multilingual Education (SFAME).  They have issued a very informative and provocative letter to Superintendent Garcia and the BOE that we are able to publish here.

Some of the more eye opening passages include this one that places this error in the context of a history of comparable enrollment mistakes:

The Educational Placement Center has repeatedly made mistakes over the years, contributing to this problem. When their mistake was first discovered in March, instead of involving all stakeholders directly, the district first appeared to pressure the immersion program schools to simply swallow the situation, as they have done for years and years in the past. This year, however, things unfolded differently. For the first time, Spanish-speaking families who had applied for immersion, united and said “we’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore,” forcing the district to change their placement after assignment letters had gone out. 

They also make an excellent point about the potential for creating a new Spanish Immersion program at Webster -- and option that I have covered favorably here and on the list:

By unexpectedly shifting Webster’s incoming Kindergartners from bilingual to immersion, EPC and the district demonstrate a shocking obliviousness to the wants and needs of those Spanish-speaking families. With no time to educate and counsel those families, the district is bound to run into some resistance and anger.

Anyone following this issue really should read the entire letter.  There is a bit too much finger pointing and second guessing of the districts responses to the unfolding problem for my tastes.  The first priority right now must be to bring all parties together to find a solution that is as fair as possible to everyone.  But once the incoming Kindergartners are placed, there needs to be a review of this event to try and improve the enrollment processes and strengthen the bilingual programs in the district.  When that time comes, its clear that SFAME needs to be at the table along with PPS and others.