San Francisco is a city of many faces and identities. We speak proudly of our diversity. For those of us who can choose whether to stay or go, we feel it is one of the key factors that keeps us here, in spite of the lack of housing, the competitive job market, and the generally high cost of living.
Despite our claims of diversity, we are still a very divided city, where people live sometimes by choice, sometimes by forced design, and sometimes by historical momentum, apart and across from each other.
These divisions don’t just occur along geographic boundaries. We encounter them in political, cultural and social institutions. One of the ways in which we live apart from each other can be brought into sharp relief by contrasting the makeup of the general population of San Francisco with the population of the enrolled students in our public school system.
The data for San Francisco County from the 2000 Census gives a rough picture of who we are along ethnic and racial lines. Of those people identifying with one race category only (which accounted for almost the entire San Francisco County population), 49.7% were white, 7.8 % were African American, 30.8% were Asian (19.6% Chinese, 5.2% Filipino, 1.5% Japanese, 1.0 Korean, 1.4% Vietnamese, 1.5% Other Asian) and 0.4% were American Indian. Of the total population, 14.1% identified as Hispanic or Latino.
Comparing apples to apples, we can look at the data for the 2000-2001 School Year from the San Francisco Unified School District to see how the ratios match up. 11.0% of students were “Other White,” 15.6% were African American, 39.1% were Asian (29.6% Chinese, 6.9% Filipino, 1.0% Japanese, 1.0 Korean), and 0.6% were American Indian. 21.7% of students identified as Latino.
In other words, while people who considered themselves “white” made up almost half of the San Francisco population, they made up only about a tenth of the public school population. By contrast, people who identified as African American comprised less than a tenth of the general population, but accounted for twice that amount in the public school population. Those who identified as Hispanic/Latino or Asian were also represented by a significantly higher percentage of students in the schools than in the City as a whole.
Another area of contrast is in terms of income. For a measure of the income of public school families we can use the number of students qualifying for the free and reduced lunch program. Taking a family of four as an example, for the 2002-2003 School Year (earlier data was not available on the District website), students qualified for this program if their household income was $33,485 or less.
53.5% of all students met this criterion, which is probably a low estimate, since there is not tight oversight of the application process. Over half of our public school students are in low-income or poor families. In sharp contrast, and again according to the 2000 Census, only 32.3% of the total households for San Francisco County had an income of $34,999 or less, a significantly lower percentage then we find in the public school population.
The story these numbers reveal is not so surprising given the economic, social and housing policies at the local, state and federal levels, but it should give one pause. Our City and its schools reflect the choices of those who have the power to exercise them, which maps fairly directly to higher-income residents who tend to be white. Class and race combine to allow people to stay in the City and construct privatized corners to meet their particular needs and desires.
But these are not pre-ordained, inevitable choices. We can find a good educational experience for our children in our public schools now, and we can work together to make that experience even better for our children tomorrow. We can be part of the effort to demand that we spend our public resources on the needs of people as opposed to empires in very specific ways, such as on our educational system.
You can join this effort in the schools themselves, but you can also join it at the ballot box. Four spots on the Board of Education are open this year. Make sure to educate yourself before you cast your vote! Come to a workshop led by the California School Board Association, and co-sponsored by Parents for Public Schools of San Francisco, Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth, and greatschools.net.
Learn what authority School Board members actually have, what they are responsible for, and how to hold them accountable. The workshop will be held Saturday, September 18th from 9am to 12pm at McKinley Elementary School located at 1025 14th Street @ Castro St. Interpretation and childcare are available–call 468-7077 to reserve childcare.
