Note: School Beat will be on vacation until late August.
School’s out and summer begins this Friday. One more cycle of learning, budget struggles, policy wrangling, and simple efforts just to work things has come and gone. As always, the academic year has been full and, as always, we are left with some cliff-hangers that will keep us wondering over the next few months until mid-August greets us again.
Any review of notable events of the 2007-2008 school year must start at the top with the arrival of our new Superintendent, Carlos Garcia, who has survived his first year at the top of the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD). Walking in to a mountain of challenges from the quotidian to the philosophical, Garcia has generally made a strong positive impression across the public school community.
Whether he is focused on overhauling our antiquated and wildly inefficient technology infrastructure, picking up the gauntlet of reducing (if not eliminating) the achievement gap or pushing boundaries on how to think more boldly about obtaining sufficient funding for schools, Garcia has been a refreshing force. There have been some stumbles on the way (for example the way the mergers of schools with Excelsior and Denman were handled). But overall, the improved level of honest communication (again with some stumbles, as with the special education newsletter), a sense of mission and possibilities, and an approach that welcomes the viewpoints and participation of parents, teachers and staff has been just what we’ve needed. It finally feels as though we’ve got a stronger partner at the helm.
The recent pass of Proposition A, a parcel tax for SFUSD schools, is perhaps the most significant event of the year and is one that will affect our schools for years to come. Doubly important at a time when the state is continually attempting to raid education funding and reduce overall levels of financial support, this parcel tax means that teachers will see significant pay raises, which in turn means more teachers will remain teachers and that we will be better positioned to attract talented new educators. Given the significance of teachers to a child’s education, the impact the parcel tax will have simply cannot be overstated.
Yet another important event of this year was the huge increase in the number of Kindergarten applications (up by over 300) and the incredible increase in on-time applications, particularly in communities that have struggled with this in the past. This success is due to the intensive outreach efforts on the part of the SFUSD placement office and community groups like Parents for Public Schools. The importance of increasing on-time applications is hard to over-state, since with the current assignment policy, families who don’t submit applications are by default assigned to schools that have openings after those who applied on-time are placed. Options and possibilities at that point are by definition much reduced. In a system that is prioritizing school choice while simultaneously trying to assemble diverse student bodies at schools and programs, having as many families participating is essential.
Much was accomplished this year, but of course, there are many areas where there has yet been no final act. The recently presented draft strategic plan is certainly on that list. An overarching plan for the district has been sorely needed and progress on this front is encouraging. However, there are significant portions of this document that are yet to be created, particularly in the details of what the specific programs and efforts will be to accomplish important goals, such as reducing the achievement gap, and how key players at all levels—Board of Education (BOE) members, the Superintendent, administrators and schools– will be evaluating their work to reach those goals. At this point, optimism regarding the strategic plan is still acceptable and will be buoyed or deflated as new updates are unveiled.
Appearing for a second-year in a row as a cliff-hanger is the absence of a new student assignment policy. Discussions regarding a revised plan have been ongoing since the expiration of the Consent Decree a few years ago that ushered in the creation and use of the Diversity Index in order to achieve diversity across schools and programs. The current approach to assignment has seen a disappointing and unexpected overall decrease in diversity, and while it offers families the possibility of choosing schools all over the city as desired options, it also includes a fair amount of uncertainty about where a student will ultimately be assigned.
Designing a new policy is no small feat, especially considering the goals of providing diversified learning environments, school choice, and varied academic programs, from language-immersion to science or art-based curriculums. Complicating the achievement of such goals are the recent Supreme Court decision rejecting the use race as an assignment factor and the reality that while many families say they desire neighborhood schools, the majority of families do not choose a school in their attendance area. Whatever policy is developed will most assuredly please some but not all, be strong in meeting certain goals, but not others, and require at least a degree of revamping of how we go about our work of helping families get their children to the school that will serve them best.
Unless the assignment policy is developed and approved before the end of the calendar year, that decision-making process will include at least two, and up to four, new personalities. Four seats on the Board of Education will be available, two vacated as Eric Mar and Mark Sanchez seek positions on the Board of Supervisors, and two now held by incumbents Jill Wynns and Norman Yee. Wynns and Yee are both likely to run for re-election, which means that, precluding any kind of upset there are two seats open. In the continuation of an exciting trend, several activist parents have launched campaigns – Sandy Fewer, Emily Murase, and Rachel Norton. Other public school supporters such as Glenn Davis have also begun working on campaigns, and no doubt more will soon follow.
Elections on the national front may also bring in some new approaches. If Obama wins the presidency this November, a major overhaul of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), is at least possible. Already overdue for reauthorization, Congress has been loathe to touch this problematic legislation. How the federal government will support or hinder public education going forward is impossible to predict until we know who will be sitting in the White House. What is certain is that much is at stake.
The most crucial unknown for California’s schools right now though is the state budget, particularly how much will be given to or taken from our educational system. The Governor’s revised budget in May still presented large cuts to education, and is in contrast to proposals by the Assembly and Senate. These alternatives are not great news, since the overall deficit is so high (nearing $20 billion). Until there is a rational approach to increasing revenues in a fair way that also meets our states basic needs (such as adequately funding education and providing essential social net programs), we will always be vulnerable to these kinds of budgetary attacks.
The California PTA, through its “Flunk the Budget” campaign has been consistently informing and mobilizing the public about the budget situation and how to lobby elected officials regarding the needs of our schools. Until the budget is signed, that work will need to keep on and even then, we will need to work on how to get education prioritized in Sacramento (and Washington D.C.), so that this cycle can end.
Changing how education is viewed and treated in the political arena is going to require new strategies and particularly new alliances. In California, public education supporters have an incredible opportunity to turn our current position of relative weakness into one of great strength, by bringing together the state’s four strands of public education services that span pre-school to post-doctoral educational needs. The K-12 school districts (including the Child Development Centers for pre-schoolers), the California Community College system (CCC), the California State University system (CSU) and the University of California system (UC) together provide a rich and diverse set of educational opportunities to meet the many needs of California’s residents.
These institutions fill unique roles, helping people learn basic skills, change types of employment, enter professions, educate our youth to be critically thinkers and active participants in society, and address central issues of concern and interest, spanning our understanding of what it means to be alive to how to create nanotechnology to reduce pollution. These benefits frequently go unnoticed by many, including, unfortunately, the legislators and Governors who appropriate the funding to support them. To date, each of these entities has for the most part worked alone in efforts to convince leaders in Sacramento to continue or at least not cut, funding.
That approach is no longer viable–there is too much at stake in the potential loss of funding this year and in the future to maintain meaningless divisions in efforts to reach out to the public and Sacramento. Indeed, while our educational institutions may be discrete entities, they share a fundamental goal of serving different aspects of the educational needs of the state’s residents, as well as a dependency upon the state’s budget. We would all be better served by presenting to the decision makers of California a more coherent suite of educational and research services and a more clearly articulated statement about the benefits those services provide to the entire public. Such a strategy would be a significant step towards convincing the legislators at least, if not the Governor, to adequately support the entire Kindergarten through graduate work spectrum.
So the year is over, and it’s been both exhausting and rewarding. We know some of the challenges that face us next year, like the budget, but hopefully we’ll be able to put new twists on them and make progress. Other issues such as the assignment policy may hold some surprises and the BOE election will bring its own flavor of excitement and useful debate over priorities and approaches and of course there will be many unanticipated developments. Until then, it’s take to take a vacation.
Lisa Schiff is the parent of two children who attend McKinley Elementary School in the San Francisco Unified School District and is a member of Parents for Public Schools of San Francisco and the PTA and is a board member at the national level of Parents for Public Schools.
