The more likeliness that a kid (of any color) comes from a household that is better educated, the more likely that his/her parents are involved in their education. Maybe it's perhaps because the educated parent knows the value of education? Maybe it's laziness on the part of lower income parents? Who knows... What is known though is that parents who at least minimally take a part in their kid's education have kids that do better. THAT is the number 1 thing that helps a kid succeed.
It has nothing to do with race (which is quite racist I think to believe so)
It doesn't take an educated parent (of any color) to return a teacher's calls when their child is doing poorly (which a family-member teacher I know says does not happen often enough - many calls are ignored). They also don't have to know the material necessarily to make sure their kid completed their homework. They also very easily can contact the teacher and ask how they can get tutoring if the student is doing poorly. I have seen low income uneducated parents who can't even read or speak English take an active role and seek help and those kids improved drastically, even in lower income non-white title 1 schools.
You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink and no matter which schools you allow lower income students attend, the same issues will still follow them there as well if they don't have at least 1 parent who isn't lazy and can make a 5 minute call to a teacher to seek help once in a while.
76
From the article" “Until our schools are being made to have the same resources and quality as the other schools in the other areas, I’m not going to disadvantage her,” Ms. Batiste said of her daughter, Victoria.
OK what nobody wants to say is the quality of the parents whose kids are in that school is more than 50% of the quality of the school. If you have nice, educated, involved parents you really don't give a flying rat about smart boards or anything else. Great parents = mostly better behaved children and that provides a better learning environment for all Better parents means more active eyes on the quality of the teachers and problem staff is usually weeded out. It's not and never has been a matter of money and up to date software. You want a Blue Ribbon school? Start with Blue Ribbon parents. Sorry - all else is noise. Great parents ensure great teaching staff and the best learning environments. Great parents want their kids to only go to school with the children of other great parents. And unfortunately some schools don't have enough quality parents.
199
It would be so much more easy going if we just lived in a homogeneous society. You have different countries to begin with because different cultures need different laws, education systems, community planning, etc. We are trying to satisfy every culture in the world with one country and it obviously has its limits.
49
Darn, no matter what plans the government makes (at all levels), parents and students find a way around them. Their simple objective is to get the very best education for their offspring. Wouldn't you want the same?
The only solution that make any sense is to have EVERY school become a Blue Ribbon school. Each must use technology, bringing tools and star teachers to EVERY classroom, supported by effective in-classroom teacher support AND parents.
Any other approach will drive the best students and the best parents into private education - defeating the goals that we ALL should have. Government enforcement of mediocrity will not suffice. Throwing money at the problem will not suffice.
28
@jrgfla Utopia would be nice, but unfortunately we live in the real world.
25
I've walked past Rooftop School many times. It's in about the most car inaccessible area of SF being tucked away the side of Twin Peaks on a curvy narrow street. If you are living in the Mission, it's a doable walk, though almost straight uphill. There are public buses that run along that route, but they are not frequent.
It is important to note that a lot of parents prefer their children attend the local school, regardless of its rank. It means the child can get to and from school easily and friends are close by.
28
Oakland, just across the bay, has school in a swanky neighborhood way up on what most New Yorkers would call a fairly steep mountain (though not snow-capped), that almost no one in the neighborhood sends their kids to (preferring private schools I suppose), despite it being a decent school. Instead, the school is largely populated by students from ambitious, mid- and lower-income families who live a good distance from the school. Problem is, not a single form of public transport (unless you count a taxi) serves the school or the neighborhood. It's drive (and hope for parking in ritzy, parking-restricted area, or do a combo of bart, bus and walking -- more like hiking for the last 1/2-1 mile.
7
Even if the chances of a dream placement remained low, Mr. Canas said, he would exhaust all options. “I can’t really put a price on my daughter’s education.”
And yet that is exactly what you are doing, in each step of the process. Addmittedly, based on the article description, Mr. Canas is placing a high value on the education, however, this is breakdown in the system. Each individual family is evaluating the system from the perspective of self interest while the administrators of the system (and polititians, activists,...etc.) are trying to manage the system as a whole. Left leaning San Fransisco would be wise to spend more time studying micro vs macro economics than coming up with centrally planned schemes.
15
Why do we not address the elephant in the room? School choice and integration issues would virtually disappear if we would simply ensure that ALL schools were high quality and equally resourced. That way everyone gets a good education - wherever they live, wealthier people don't cluster as much, and you don't have this absurdly complexity. I think people miss that disparity in quality of schools is not only a result but also a CAUSE of segregation. It is self-reinforcing. Go to the root of the problem. Fund all our schools to a high level, make them all excellent. And why not? Are we not a 'rich' country? What could be more important?
23
@Mike It's not just the schools though, it's also the students, physical location of the school, engagement level of the parents, and a whole host of other issues that determine a "good" school from a "bad" one. We've increased public school spending immensely since I was in school, and yet the quality of education by most measures has actually declined. So clearly "throw more money at it" isn't working and so maybe we need a different approach?
36
@Mike
This makes me crazy; money is not the primary problem. I live outside Cleveland (2nd worst public schools in the country behind Detroit). The city of Cleveland spends 50% more PER STUDENT than the high performing school district I live in. If schools were to be "equally resourced", my school district would have to be funded at a 50% higher level. The problem goes much deeper than funding, and has more to do with what happens outside the classroom.
79
Education is my passion, psychology and the neurosciences my first career. In my third career as elementary school teacher and substitute teacher, I worked at many inner city and suburbans schools, public and private, some all African American, all Hispanic, and many mixtures of Asian, Caucasian, Asian Indian, Hispanic and African American. The difference in school quality depended TOTALLY on the culture/values of the students' parents. Students who had been taught to respect the teacher and fellow classmates did well. At Back-to-School night, some parents were confrontational with me about the location of their child's desk, a grade I had given, or homework; their children invariably misbehaved and performed poorly, irrespective of money or race. Children need to learn Golden Rule-style manners and to respect others so that a learning environment can function.
98
@Wisdom YES! You can clone the very best schools down to the brand of toilet paper and ratio of natural vs. artificial light and you are still going to have fierce competition to get into "the best schools" Because the best schools are full of children who have great parents. Well socialized children = a better learning environment. Appropriately involved parents = higher quality teaching staff and administrators. All else is noise
52
Very important part of this situation is the nature of state funding for schools. In CA the state funds school according to actual daily attendance as recorded first thing in the morning (with a 1/2-hour wiggle room), not by annual or semi-annual enrollment.
That means if students are absent for any reason, the school loses funding. Students are allowed a very limited number of "excused" absences and for a quite limited number of reasons (serious illness, death of close relative...). It's an especially draconian funding structure considering that kids tend to get sick or injured more often than adults since their immune systems are still developing, they are a lot more active and less coordinated than (at least younger) adults, have worse judgement and are generally more risk-taking than most adults, and are frequently around and sharing all sorts of stuff with tens or hundreds of their peers and siblings who may be sick and less careful about contagion.
It also means schools get dinged if students have appointments or other reasons to be away from school in the morning, but not if kids get picked up or otherwise leave school early, in the middle of day.
It's well documented that people, including kids and parents, with disabilities are more likely to be poor; and that poor people (including kids and parents) are more likely to suffer injuries and illnesses, and to suffer for a longer time. By funding schools this way, CA keeps schools poor.
And then there's Prop 13....
12
We can talk about the providing more resources to lower performing schools, but the most important factor is the students themselves. If the vast majority of students have the aptitude and desire to learn, the school does well. If they don't, the school does not do well.
This is no different than jury selection. Picking the right jury is half the battle.
If you want to fix the problem, you need the best students in these schools. But this won't happen. These students are in enrolled in expensive private schools.
22
@R And a child's aptitude is directly influenced by the parents' involvement and attitudes about education in general. No amount of money, school choice or busing is going to fix that.
42
We were one of those white SF families that chose private school over public for our child. We weren't affluent by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, we were barely hanging on, only able to stay in the city by the luck of renting a house way under market rate. Nonetheless, we bit the bullet of private school tuition. We simply refused to leave our daughter's education up to a roll of the dice. She got an incredible education, speaks multiple languages and now attends a prestigious college with loads of finical aid. Of course, we've since been driven out of my wife's home town San Francisco. And any hopes of saving for a home are long gone. But, our daughter is an amazing and happy young woman, and that's all the really matters in the end.
71
"Those who defend the current system point out that 79 percent of black parents, 79 percent of Filipino parents and 61 percent of Hispanic parents received their first-choice kindergarten for next fall, compared with 48 percent of white parents."
I'd like to see the average income of those minority parents. I predict they are well over average, and if that is the case, it proves that affirmative action based on race is inherently flawed.
18
Not likely so rich. If they got their first choice, it's more likely that, for economic and other reasons (such as lack of knowledge or facility navigating the system) those parents put as their first choice the school closest to home, work, or family caregivers -- whether or not it happened to be a top-performing school.
Also, educate yourself: the kind of affirmative action you're thinking of doesn't exist in public primary and secondary schools. They aren't elite colleges or businesses receiving federal contracts to conduct research or provide toilets for aircraft carriers.
9
Of course it did! ALL regressive ideas are BAD...period. Proven time and again to be WRONG.
4
Betsy de Vos and her fellow oligarchs are doing their best to help change this country from a democracy to a plutarchy. Public education, where kids from all races and social backgrounds get to know one another, has been a major force in creating our (alas, now dwindling) middle class. Private schools are ghettos that create people like Ivanka Trump, who has had everything given to her and doesn't have a clue to what ordinary people have to deal with. Solution: Require all children to attend public school, not financed by local taxes, and pay teachers as much as prison guards!!!
5
@Loretta Marjorie Chardin I've attended lousy public schools in my time. My advise then, as now, is to get out of the class and into the library. Ms Chardin, do your kids attend a lousy public school?
6
The California Legislature directed a mind-boggling $4,200 of property-tax revenue away from each and every school child in San Francisco last year. Remember the $415 million "windfall" that the county controller unveiled in November? That was Educational Revenue Augmentation funding. Repurposed away from schools.
Why? Because the Legislature refuses to include a regional cost-of-living supplement in California's flat statewide school funding scheme. San Francisco's cost-of-living is 20-40% higher than the state average (also true in Marin and San Mateo counties, adjoining it), driving real-estate prices up. Property tax revenue is booming, creating close to three-quarters of a billion dollars of "excess" educational funding in all three counties (along with Santa Clara just to the south).
Meanwhile, high local costs mean paring away services and staffing at individual schools. Education-minded parents and wealthier neighborhoods flock together to make up this difference. This segregates and insularizes schools in San Francisco -- and entire districts in the other high-cost counties.
Don't blame the parents. Ask why Sacramento conflates "equal" with "equitable," especially when "fair" wouldn't cost the General Fund a nickel. It is astonishing, amidst all the talk of new taxes for education, that such massive windfalls are being publicly handed to local governments, and away from education.
14
Good point. Thanks for informing me. Yet one more thing wrong with CA school funding structure. (See @Mama, below).
4
"The lottery system is thought to be a major reason wealthy parents here opt out of public schools"
100% true. I live in SF and we're lucky enough to be able to afford private school for our kids. We would have preferred public schools for a few reasons: lower cost obviously but also our kids could go to school in our own neighborhood. It makes me sad that we don't go to a neighborhood school. But the lottery system creates too much uncertainty. And I know other parents in private school who went through the same decision process.
I understand the very good intentions behind the system, but it pushes families who can afford private school out of the public system and I think that is to the detriment of the public system.
It's a vicious circle.
43
This article highlights why Betsy DeVos's solution--charter schools for all!--would be a terrible in practice. It is too difficult to overcome logistical challenges--like transportation and navigating the enrollment process--to really improve options for most people.
Where I live, we are guaranteed a spot in our local school but also have the option of lotterying in to a variety of charter and focus schools.
The logistics of transportation mean most families are limited to just one or two choices anyway. Very few people can drive their kids across town, and even if the school provided transportation, who wants their kids on a bus for 2 hrs a day?
The process itself required a certain level of being "in the know". I belong to a mom's group, which is the only reason I know these schools existed. They certainly don't reach out to families. Requirements to apply, such as attendance at their open houses and filling out forms on site, require a parent to really do their research to even know about, and then to stay on top of deadlines. Miss one thing, and your kid is disqualified.
Then, the schools benefit the few at the expense of the many. Why should someone lucky enough in the lottery receive a superior education than someone not so lucky? The benefit is further concentrated in families with multiple kids, since siblings are basically guaranteed admittance.
11
Also, charter schools are, oddly, not bound by the same civil rights laws, such as identifying students with disabilities and doing what it takes to keep them in the school and to make the education provided by the school accessible to/for them. Yet they take state, local, and possibly federal tax dollars away from regular public schools.
4
The authors (and most commenters) got this wrong. This is not a failure of the plan, but a damning look at how the rich actively sabotaged lthe system to preserve / further inequality.
4
Yeah, but providing free and direct transportation would help a lot, as might requiring all PTA funds be shared equally across the district or at least across same level schools in the district (elementary, middle, high). Or creating a system of sister schools matching schools in wealthier neighborhoods/with higher PTA contributions with those in lower income/with lower PTA funds, and then spread the funds fairly per capita of students
3
@Toby Yep, those evil wealthy people who try to provide the best education for their children. The horror!
24
My son did not get into our first-choice and neighborhood school (2 blocks from my house) for Kindergarten. I had to go through the waitlist process and enroll in a charter school, but, fortunately, we got our school one week before 1st grade. I walk him to/from school almost every day (one car off the road). Kids whose parents are property owners should be given their neighborhood schools - it would help lighten traffic during commute hours and is fair for tax payers who bought homes in that neighborhood. If you are a renter, then you should get lower priority because you don't pay any property taxes which are funding SFUSD schools.
15
@S. F.
SF renters pay property tax indirectly, as part of their rent, because their landlords pay property tax.
30
@S. F., you really don't think renters are paying property taxes? Where do you think the money that the property owners are using to pay the tax comes from? The Easter bunny?
27
@S. F. The median home value in SF is $1,353,500. So when you say "property owners", that is thinly-veiled code for "wealthy people". You p believe wealthy people should get the first choice at where to send their kids. That is literally the opposite of what needs to happen here.
15
It is also little mind blowing that there is a lack of school bus services. Without transportation for these young elementary students, how exactly is such a system supposed to work? Many parents would not let their elementary aged children take a city bus or subway, and that is understandable with everything that is happening in our present day. Unfortunately, many parents are unable to provide transportation because of their jobs or simply not having their own car. In this article it states that "Fewer than 4,000 of the district’s 54,000 students ride a bus to school. The city’s busing program was reduced in 2010, during the last recession, and has not been restored.” It is time for the city’s busing program to be restored.
12
Similar situation here. My sister teaches in the Portland public schools, but doesn't send any of her children there for many of the reasons mention by other commenters here. Repeated demands by teachers for more stringent discipline policies and more authority to remove disruptive students are dismissed by a district administration terrified at having to report these numbers to the feds. Fortunately my sister has the money to send all three to private schools. has
By the way, despite a nearly $70 million increase in the budget, Portland Public Schools will be cutting 60-70 teachers while at the same time adding dozens of "educational support" start as well a myriad of new "diveristy, equity and inclusion" specialists.
26
@Maria Mott I'm in Portland and navigating the school system for the first time. I'm ok with sending my kids to a diverse school, and also ok if it's not ranked a 10. I think there is value in being in a neighborhood school and having my kids around people who are from different backgrounds. I'm also ok with voting yes on all tax measure that
However, I'm NOT ok with the ridiculous class sizes they are now talking about (43 students by 6th grade in some cases!), the fact that the gifted & talented program is basically non-existent. I'm NOT ok with handicapping teachers in discipline for fear of unfairly punishing one kid who needs help, but at the cost of the rest of the class. I'm NOT ok with paying more and more $ every year while the services to my own kid are cut.
It feels like the approach to make education more equal just means stripping away the benefits from higher achieving kids, rather than raising up the others.
22
@Maria Mott
'as well a myriad of new "diveristy, equity and inclusion" specialists."'
So they are replacing teachers with bottom feeders?
17
@Maria Mott PPS has a long history of being a complete tire fire and that's resulted in a lot of people fleeing for the hills. Our per student funding is higher than school districts in similar urban environments, but our outcomes rank near the bottom. As for the current cuts that's going to continue every year until the baby boomers die off. A larger portion of the total school budget goes to feed PERS retirees every year. We're having our best economy ever and we're cutting teachers. It won't be better when we start to see a downturn in the economy.
10
I’m so distracted while reading this article that is completely relatable; we are finishing my sons year at pre-school at our public school and moving to a town with “school choice” before kindergarten. What distracts me is the varying use of demographic and ethnic terms. I find this article incongruous, in particular opposing descriptors like “white” vs. low-income. Are all the people in this school district that would be termed “white” also NOT low-income? While that’s possible, I don’t think that is the best representation of the people especially since the effort here is to minimize dividing lines, which generalizations emphasize.
I use “white” in quotes because I find both that and “black” and “race” to be misnomers based on falsehoods, so choose not to use them if possible.
8
I think it is a little ludicrous that some school systems believe that it is fine for young children to be subjected to long transit times to and from school. In my opinion, children should go to their neighborhood schools instead of going long distances. I understand that some people may view these schools as “lower quality;” however, wouldn’t it make sense to use some of the money that the “best” districts have and begin to utilize it to improve the schools in the “worse” districts? Shouldn’t the city spread the money around equally? I have a question for anyone who can answer - does the elementary school in the lower income part of the city spend less per student than the schools in the wealthier section of the city? If so, that would be disgraceful.
9
"The lottery system is thought to be a major reason wealthy parents here opt out of public schools, further worsening segregation." Careful with your reporting here. When desegregation started in SF in the 70's, private school enrollment spiked to 30%, led by Whites fleeing the public school system in large numbers, presumably to avoid having their children attend schools with non-White students. Since then, desegregation plans have come and gone, one after another, but one thing has remained stable: private school enrollment of 30% of school-age kids. So while the current lottery system might be "thought to be" a major reason wealthy people opt out, it's much more likely that the same forces of systemic racism are at work that have always been at work. And by the way, the one desegregation plan in SF that worked was the one (in the mid 80s) where the district invested significant resources to improve the quality of 6 schools in the southwest part of the city. For a while, those schools got quite a bit better.
15
Most commenters appear to understand that the solution is providing for a quality education in every school not seeking some magic mix of ethnicities in the schools. If each school provides the opportunity for a high quality education, then wealthier parents will be less likely to seek private schools and all children will have access to a quality education, not just those children lucky enough to win the lottery.
It may be that in some schools that means providing before and after school programs, both to provide childcare for working parents during those hours and to simultaneously provide for enrichment or remedial programs for the pupils.
Rather than wasting time, energy and funding moving children around under complex allocation systems, this time, energy, and funding should be used to provide equal opportunities for all. An analysis of why some schools are not providing quality opportunities would be useful to determine solutions for each individual school. There may be unique neighborhood circumstances requiring more unique solutions for an individual school.
I don't understand why it is thought that white students must be present in a school to make it a quality school?? It seems to me that all children, regardless of race or ethnicity, have the potential to excel given the opportunity and infrastructure to do so. Let's get beyond this focus on race and ethnicity and focus on the needs of individual children so that all may pursue their fullest potential.
8
My two kids are in SF public schools, now both at Lincoln High School and taking summer SF City College classes. They've received excellent educations - even though they attended an elementary school that on paper had low math and reading scores. Test scores don't tell the entire story, that's a weak excuse. Look at test scores related to income and newcomer status - then tell me about the test scores.
The issue for me is responsibility. It is my responsibility to see that my child gets a good education - in my home that's MY job. My job as a parent to check in and know what's going on. My job to talk to their teachers and provide support where needed. To understand what's going on when something goes off the rails.
Not SFUSDs job. Their job is to run and staff schools, not parent my children.
17
@CM Al'te Isn't SFUSD's job to educate our kids. Parents, of course, are instrumental, but our kids spend X hours a day in class, doing what, otherwise?
2
When my 1st child was eligible for public school, we entered the "lottery" even though we had a lovely school a block from our house. My child was assigned to a school across the City in a poor neighborhood.
Our choice was to fight over time to get her into a better public school (a multi-year) process or send her to private school. We chose the latter. Many couples live in San Francisco UNTIL they have kids. When they see the SF school choices, unless one can afford some type of private school, many will just leave the City to a suburb and a better school system.
The reason why the White population in the school system is lower than other ethnicities is becauase many of the White students have been pulled out of the public school system.
Unfortunately, there is no perfect solution that blends allowing parents to send their kids to a public school near their house while trying to offer better choices to kids from disadvantaged parts of the City. It is sad that there doesn't seem to be a better solution.
43
@Richard Yeah I would've done the same in your situation. Just because you are well off and made the correct decisions in your life doesn't mean you have to be punished.
12
We didn't opt out, and we didn't go private, but we left SF after nearly 30 years there, and moved across the country to enroll our boy in public school. Smell ya later, "Frisco"!
Flippancy aside, I sincerely hope the city gets its schools right... start with William Cobb, a beautiful school in a beautiful neighborhood, whose test scores are shocking.
21
Pactical Pete for Parents:
1) If you can't afford a private school, don't live in SF.
2) If you have to live in SF, get your kids into a good school.
3) Join the crowd.
WW
2
the meaning of the word "consequences" has no place in the progressive conversation......these people think they are a whole lot smarter than they are.....and have no comprehension of the results of their actions....but it sure feels good (to them) when they do it (to you).....and they can't admit that they are stupid.....so they never learn from their continuous mistakes.
8
Given white racism it is a truism that segregated schools for nonwhites are under resourced in terms of money and talent. The effective way to achieve parity is busing but white racism won’t allow it. As usual whites discriminate wholesale but offer only retail remedies.
Given the racial diversity of the students (Asians first, Hispanics next), this is not a black/white issue related to historical oppression of blacks. Also sounds like over half the students are low income. Clearly, the article omits what is really going on - the school district is composed mostly of low income Asians and Hispanics. And those low income Asians and Hispanics are themselves mostly immigrants, who do not speak English as their first language.
The progressives of SF simply do not want their children going to a school that is comprised of mostly low income immigrants. Guess what? Neither do I, nor a majority of the native born population.
Also unmentioned is the effect of undocumented immigrants in this mix. What percent of the school system is immigrant, and what percent are undocumented? Because these facts are omitted, we have to assume what is likely - that the presence of a large percentage of immigrants, documented and undocumented, throws a school system into chaos. Of course, only someone with advanced education degrees, perhaps armed with a few studies by others with advanced education degrees, might think otherwise.
17
@William: You obviously don't know anything about SFUSD. Low-income Asian students comprise the majority of students at Lowell High School, the magnet high school that students must test to get into. Lowell High School is the biggest feeder into the University of California system.
16
The notion of "choosing" your school (aside from college) seems pretty ridiculous & unmanageable. Kids should go to the school closest to them, in the district they live in. Why are we shipping kids all over the place - how much commuting time does this involve? And not just to/from - how about for school events, emergencies, parent/teacher conferences? Or how's about kids walking to school in the city? Exercise, fresh air, less gas - all good things.
And wouldn't ALL kids want to go to the best schools, yet only the kids with "on it" parents will get in. Ie, the kids with lame parents will get left even farther behind.
Why don't you just take money from the "best" districts & use it to improve the schools in the "worst" districts? Seems like a no brainer to me.
9
@BeTheChange
1) No brainer - BUT school districts don't exchange funding, generally. Not anywhere. The entire city is 1 school district.
2) SF has very racially specific neighborhoods, if everyone just went to a local school most schools would be segregated. That's what we're trying to overcome.
2
@CM Al'te ... but would segregation be a problem if the per-pupil spending were identical at all schools? I am not taking about racial discrimination, but if neighborhood schools' demographics reflect the neighborhood, it doesn't seem inherently problematic. The issue (and unacceptable inequity) arises when schools in more affluent neighborhoods enjoy resources that benefit some kids and leave others behind, in a public institution. In San Francisco, this is partly a function of PTA funding (the difference can be staggering, as I recall from the 11 school tours I did in 2015), but it would be useful to see reporting on whether spending is equal across all schools, and get grants for schools whose parents don't or can't contribute to the PTA fundraising.
4
It would be helpful if schools were measured on growth. I have no problem with a socioeconomically diverse nonviolent classroom if all students have the opportunity to grow academically. Its nutty to claim a school is a 'poor performer' if the neglected, behind grade level students grew at least a year's worth in academics. Its also nutty to claim a school is 'good' if they don't offer the opportunity to grow academically to all students.
Also, the money needs to follow the child. Its ridiculous to keep shoving middle class students out because the school wants to be Title 1. C'mon Regents, you can do better. Hire someone that can budget.
8
I wonder if anyone else sees that this article and the one on the Kansas schools earlier this week strike similar chords. Until we fundamentally change how schools are funded, none of this will ever change.
The cynic in me says, "Therefore, none of this will ever change."
7
Putting a child on a bus 2-3 hours a day in the belief “integration” will save society is beyond belief.
Instead of creating jobs for the bus manufacturing industry, for bus drivers and for insurance companies, why not make every school excellent - and allow little Johnnie walk 5 minutes to school and get a great education in his own neighborhood - where his parents can also be more involved?
23
@Dr. John
I used to have to drive 45 minutes a day to high school. It wasn't fun. My grades suffered. Or maybe it was WoW that made my grades suffer lol
We live in San Francisco, in the multiracial Sunset. Tried to send our sons to school down the street. No, we were told they would be admitted to one in Hunter's Point, the furthest possible diagonal from our house, other side of the City. Also, the most violent community in the City. There were no choices.
We put them in the local Catholic schools, the politics and wealth demand of the rest (Cathedral, Town, Urban, University, Lick Wilmerding, Bay) were insurmountable.
The costs were overwhelming, but it was a priority that good education in a community that values education would be the investment necessary in San Francisco if not politically connected. Public school allocation system totally failed us.
22
The only place where school desegregation seems to have worked is in the deep South. And with suburbanization and re-drawn school districts they have followed their Northern counterparts back into the land of mostly segregated schools.
So now what? The interplay between race and class means that most of San Francisco's neighborhoods will not only remain segregated but will likely become increasingly segregated.
And the courts have made it clear, societal discrimination really isn't discrimination and so there is no legal basis for requiring schools to be racially integrated.
Why not give these segregated schools in minority communities what they were looking for from integration? That is a quality education for their children. Integration was never a magic bullet.
But parents of color knew that if their kid was sitting next to a white child the Board of Education would never treat that white child the way they have historically treated children of color.
Since that can no longer happen, declare an end to integration and the beginning of an entirely new progressive educational system for ghetto schools.
Assign them the best teachers, make the classes smaller, create magnet programs, turn the schools into multi-purpose community centers open from 8:00AM to 9:00PM.
In other words, really do quality education, albeit in a segregated system. Who knows, a few white parents might want to opt in.
3
These articles never answer the most basic questions:
Why the wide array of quality in a particular school system? Its not a matter of how resources are distributed.
Why should segregation impact the quality of any individual school when the resources (including the quality of the teachers) are the same?
8
I lived in the Bay Area for 15 years and taught high school for part of my time there. Low income frequently equates to discipline problems, students with severe home issues, health issues and are behind other students early in their education careers and are not kept back or given other remedial help. In many ways, we are better off concentrating those that need extra help and providing those additional services to get the students caught up and give them a good education. SF has no clear racial majority, the divisions are economic.
35
I am always so amazed that school systems think it is fine for young (elementary aged) children to be subjected to long transit times to and from school.
I know that New Yorkers are used to this but I really believe that the younger children should go to neighborhood schools. Funding should be allocated such that a percentage of the wealthy neighborhood independent contributions to their schools should be deducted from the district funding such that there is some parity between schools. Small kids shouldn't be spending hours getting to and from public schools.
Putting it up for school choice in older children is an okay, but not great, idea. I understand that teenagers have interests and talents such that select schools are necessary for some. But all that time lost spending time in a bus or car or train is almost criminal. They have the rest of their lives to be commuters! Those kids should be studying or playing or doing some other extra curricular activity with that time.
17
A lot of people here are commenting about school funding equality. I have a question to anybody who knows how it works- are all the schools in the city of San Francisco equally funded (at least on the per student basis)? i.e does the elementary school in the "poor" part of the city spend less per student than the one in the wealthier section? I would assume the city would spread the money around equally.
That said- the lack of school bus service is mind blowing. How is such a system supposed to work? I wouldn't let my elementary school student take a city bus/subway/commuter rail by himself. If the parents have to provide transportation, then that is a huge problem for working parents and/or those who don't own a car.
3
@Joe Public
There is district funding given to all schools based on the number of students, but since Prop 13 it is severely lacking. There is a direct correlation between schools with better rankings and the fundraising strength of its parent associations: some public elementary schools in San Francisco regularly raise $40,000.00 a year to supplement funding, paying for librarians, art teachers, computers and computer science teachers, busses for field trips, as well as supplies for the teachers.
7
@JoAnn Bennett
I understand that CA is very limited in their ability to collect property taxes, but they have a top state income tax of 13.3%, so that should offset it. Also, $40,000 really isn't that much for one school, heck that doesn't cover 1 year of tuition for one student at some private schools. I assume most teachers make over $40,000 per year, especially if you include benefits, retirement, payroll taxes, etc.
@JoAnn Bennett
$40,000 a year won't buy a lot of the things you mention, unless it's just paper and pencils.
1
More than anything, this article makes me realize what we have not learned from experience. This is not a new story and yes, there have been cities in which choice succeeded because family outreach and education about choice - not to mention transportation - was a full priority and critical strategic component. That said, Cook is correct. We advantage some schools and not others through resources and systems that privilege adults over children. The only reason research shows desegregated schools do better is because of how they are resourced. A strategy that suggests low-income children can only learn when they are around rich (or White) kids is absurd and a sad commentary on what we believe about learning and potential.
17
Here's a simple solution:
1) Race is a social construct. There are no genetic markers that separate the races.
2) Since it's a social construct, society can get rid of this harmful concept.
3) The first step to stopping racial classification is to ban all levels of government (especially public schools) from asking about or recording race.
The Census should not be allowed to ask people about their race.
13
@Joe Public The schools don’t ask about race in the application. They ask your address. They don’t incorporate race into the algorithm, just previous test scores in your area, prioritizing kids who live in historically low-testing areas. It backfired in multiple ways, including benefiting gentrifiers. Try reading more carefully. (an SF mom)
5
The world you speak of... I am all for it.
But when you say there are no genetic markers of race, I ask myself what planet do you live on ?
There are many, many different examples... but people of all races notice the exterior genetic traces of people, and if they start to see that one group of people is causing them problems, regularly, they start to have a prejudice.
If everyone looked the same, there would be less problems. And certainly, inside, we are all the same.
1
@David Martin
But when you say there are no genetic markers of race, I ask myself what planet do you live on ?
==========================
Earth. Gender is determined by whether you have XX Chromosomes or XY Chromosomes. And while it is true that different people have different skin pigmentation, hair color, hair texture, facial structure and that these traits appear in families they vary tremendously. I.e. some people are multiracial. Also, what are the races? Are Indians caucasian, based on facial structure? If someone from Egypt moved here, would they be African American? Then other categories like Hispanic are based on language and not physical appearance.
2
@Aristotle, if the public schools all improve so that everyone wants to send their kids, the diversity numbers will look better, but without the market segmentation, wouldn’t the school district be on the hook for educating far more students?
Having low quality schools and an arduous, unpredictable application process ensures that space is maintained for the people who really have no other options. If the schools were actually pretty good, you’d expect them to become much more crowded than they already are, and taxpayers would be responsible for maybe a third more students than they’re paying to educate now.
By ensuring parents have doubts about school quality and assignments, you can use market segmentation to get the parents who *can* pay to pay $30-50k, and you also get parents who are no longer low-resource-using DINKs to move themselves out of the city, making room for new DINK households.
5
Have been waiting for this article for years. My brother's family and his sister-in-law's family would both have loved raising their respective families in the heart of SF (Inner Richmond/Marina). When they found out their various pre-schoolers would not be simply walking the 2 blocks to the elementary school down the street, but instead 'won' a spot in a truly uninspiring Tenderloin elementary school that came with a one hour bus commute (each way!), you guessed it, both families happily fled to the surrounding suburbs. No way were they about to drop 30K+/year on a private elementary education riddled with children of the millionaires. The kids all walk to their elementary schools now. No whack job lottery required.
46
@Officially Disgusted
Interesting perspective. I have no skin in the game. I don't have kids but I have an interest in the education and equality of my fellow citizens. I do pay taxes that go into the school system! I wonder who would be qualified to devise an adequate system. I mean this in the most respectful way......do you have an idea of an adequate solution? Nowhere in the article that I see a comprehensive solution from one of the interviewees. Finding more adequate public transportation should be a separate issue and prioritized for this reason and many others. Complicated situation yet there are brilliant people who understand the system much better than I. I would love to know their take
3
@Officially Disgusted yep. Or if you can afford to, you just opt out and put your kid into private school. We got our last choice on try three in the lottery, so we did just that. The way college admissions are these days, who would take the risk if they could afford not to? You feel bad, but. who takes that risk with their own kid if they have the choice? Sadly our schools in this country are funded off of bake sales instead of being fully funded by the government. Now in SF they aren’t funded by the quarter of parents who can afford to contribute more money into the system (which to be fair is probably what made the schools in richer areas better funded at least in the past). We need to invest in ALL our schools, pay our teachers a wage that accords with the tremendous responsibility we are giving them, and make sure our kids can get to school safely. (SF mom, former teacher)
8
@Officially Disgusted this is almost exactly what happened to us: we bought a place in the city 5 years ago, and there is an excellent elementary 2 blocks from where we live. We did not get assigned to any of the 24 schools we listed, but to an incredibly low ranked one in SOMA. We don't have the private option, so we decided that we would ride out the lottery until the very end, agreeing that if our son had to go to that school, it would only be for a few months while we got a move in place. This was incredibly disappointing to us, and since that initial assignment, our son has gotten off the wait list at a nearby charter school. So, we have him there but will try for our neighborhood school until the very last option, and if we still don't get it, we will try every year until we do. Not only does this system not work, but it pushes people out of the city. We hate it and so does everyone else we know.
17
A quality of a school is more than Math and English Language Arts tests taken once in the Spring.
Measuring the commitment, ability, and worthiness of a teacher based on the outcomes of a single test is unjust and unnecessary.
The problems we face around social issues (education, health, housing, and so on) are going to require listening skills, honesty, flexibility, unselfishness and all of us being willing to work together toward useful solutions.
We all have to live on this planet together forever. The more we are able to make space, place, and care for all the better we will feel, live, and thrive.
6
When I visited San Francisco, it took so long to drive across town. I can’t imagine kids not being assured acceptance at the neighborhood school. As a resident, I would move out of the city based on that if I had the means. I would imagine most people with jobs choosing the neighborhood school.
It’s sad that this lottery system robs kids of a neighborhood. My friend in NY has a little kid (6yo) busing 1.5hr to a magnet school. What is the point? The school used to be a “7”. But since the high achieving parents want a “10” for the kids, and bus the kids away, the neighborhood school is now a “3”.
19
The quintessential problem with all these conversation of identity based "equality" is how do you quantify being equal.
The only real solution to this particular problem is found in a quote in the article.
"“Until our schools are being made to have the same resources and quality as the other schools in the other areas, I’m not going to disadvantage her,” Ms. Batiste said of her daughter, Victoria."
The national system to fund our schools is badly broken. Fix that and you have taken the first real step to ensure "equal" access to a quality foundational education.
I, for one, am tired of funding generational poverty. Giving handouts to people who cannot earn enough to live in the place THEY CHOSE instead of the place THEY CAN AFFORD on their own incomes. The solution of course is to make the next it possible for the next generation to be smarter, better able to compete in society and participate in the so called American Dream.
13
Albany, NY, has a similar issue to SF but on a much smaller scale. Scattered throughout the city are three “magnet schools”, accessible only by lottery. The one that performs best on standardized exams is the one furthest from city center. It’s demographic is not indicative of the city’s: the school has a white majority in a city with a mostly African-American school population. Like in SF, it comes down to transportation. There is no bussing for pre-k so poorer families don’t consider the school due to its distance.
It is important to note that poor performance on tests really is about economics, not race. It’s a sad fact that most poor people in our cities are not white. The poor children often come from homes where they hear fewer words, aren’t exposed to books, are subjected to stress between family members, etc. All of these things lead to poor outcomes in school.
Albany has significant integration in middle school and beyond, although the second year of the three year middle school program introduces honors and accelerated classes which segregate the kids based on merit. The first year of middle school, without the advanced classes, leads to a poor education experience for good students as poorly performing students disrupt and slow classes. This drives many of means out of cities.
21
@Upstate Guy You make a lot of false assumptions about poor families.
1
@Upstate Guy Having had the misfortune to live in Albany for a year, I am amazed that anyone at all chooses to live there (other than those involved in the state government).
1
Promoting parents choice is simply an escape hatch for districts that won't (or fail to) improve the low-performing schools. Why, of course, everyone would choose the high performing schools, if they are given the choice. Inevitably you are punishing those kids (no matter the race) who are high performing and whose parents are committed, to a school that fails to educate kids to standards.
Articles like this make me peeved, in part because everyone avoids the hard question of why low performing schools did so poorly and how to fix them. Is it the parents who don't care? Is it the teachers who are poor quality? Is it - god forbids - the students who are simply not academic (let's face the fact that not everyone is into the books in the same way)? But rather than looking at fixing these schools, lottery punishes those kids and families who are committed. Regardless of race, it's become an economic issue. If families have means, they'll leave the public school system. How would that help everyone?
In Greater Boston area, programs like Metco work because you bus in low income students to high performing schools. But the reverse won't work (ie, busing high performing kids in majority low-performing school). It's the school, and the parents/families that make the difference. Kids do mostly perform you expect more from them, and teachers do their job. I say this out of my own experience.My kids' school has Metco students bused in. The school study body is truly diverse.
16
My question is if these parents want their kids to commute like workers - why don't they leave the state and move to kids friendly state like Texas.
I graduated from Caltech some 50 years ago. Lived there and raised a family for another decade or so.
But we could tell that not only we were living paycheck to paycheck - it was getting unreal for our kids to ever afford a place there.
Wisely moved to Texas as in "I wasn't born in Texas, but got here as fast as I clould" - and have never looked back.
Really, in America - we have an abundance of everything including affordability - why don't some of these parents leave that trap of California??
9
@Neil
California is not a trap and Texas is not an Oasis.
There are more affordable places to live in California and more expensive places to live in Texas then your claim would acknowledge.
13
@Neil Texas is far from kid friendly. Look at what’s currently going on at the legislature regarding school funding. Texas has been shirking its financial obligations for schools for a long time. Additionally, they’ve denied special education services as well to the point the federal government had to take them to task for it.
12
@Neil
Isn't Texas one of those states that have sanitized their history books to make slavery look more like paid work, to play down the actual causes of the Civil War, and to gloss over or eliminate all mention of the struggles of organized labor, the fate of indigenous people at the hands of Europeans, etc., etc.?
You and your kids may be paying a high price for "affordability" in non-financial ways.
15
Mr. Canas says he "can't really put a price on his daughter's education." What does that mean. Normally that would be thought to mean that he is willing to pay anything. Then why not use a private school.
So that is probably not what he means. But it makes a "nice" closure for the article.....however meaningless.
11
Can the schools solve segregation in the face huge income inequality and segregation in housing? Not really! One partial solution is to build better neighborhood schools with programs that families want. Working parents need pre and after school programs that are enriching and flexible. Richer parents may not need this. There should be more heritage language, dual language, and Stem/Steam programs available either after-school or during the day. Standardized testing should be minimized, especially in elementary school. Will the schools be ethnically and racially diverse? Probably not, but parents
would still be able to choose other schools through lottery with a greater chance of success because there would be less competition. Realistically they're not going to choose to bus if the school in their neighborhood feels safe, welcoming, and engaging, and open to new ideas.
12
@Dr. Conde
",,,heritage language, dual language..."
sorry, but despite your PhD this sentence fragment is part of the problem, not the solution.
When you move to a country it is up to YOU to assimilate to the new country. You don't get to demand that your new nation change to be more like your old one.
You left that place for a reason, why would you import that in the place you fled too?
The customs and practices that led your former nation to be a place you did not want to live, are the reasons you did not want to live there. Those customs and practices created the environment you fled.
Stop the feel good garbage and face facts. You left a place for a better life. Leave the baggage behind and participate in the culture of the NEW place.
26
@mike
Teaching kids a foreign language can be an excellent idea- they tend to learn it better than adults can (i.e. not have an accent) and it opens the door to more economic opportunities (i.e. multinational corporations).
4
@mike Agree except that every place has it's good points and no-one should be prohibited from advocating them. We learn and improve from each other.
Busing kids out of their communities is not the answer.
Giving all communities the resources to have great schools is.
22
What makes a good school? The article only specifies test scores, while a number of commenters assume lower test score schools receive less funding/resources. This is not always the case; especially with elementary schools in same city school districts like Baltimore. Captain Obvious: You can have a great school facility and dedicated teachers but relatively low test scores and vice versa (but recognizing that concentration of higher caliber students inevitably raises academic environment). There’s no natural law that equal (or better) school building and teacher means equal or better test scores. There will never be a perfect solution, and I don’t know the solution, as geography is an inevitable factor. Make a child bus/drive/transit an hour+ across the city past other schools to benefit the egalitarian ethos and parents will rightfully consider private schools or leaving city altogether.
11
I just wonder about everything these days. Obviously no system is perfect. And they seem to be making an effort.
The overall conclusion that the system isn’t working, I would not be sure. But maybe.
Why in the world would we require students of public schools compete for the chance to attend a good school? All that does is waste tax dollars, energy, time and other resources that could be better used to make all schools excellent. Instead an army of high-minded little bureaucrats are unfairly creating winners and losers - starting from a child’s first day in school.
22
@Dr. John Agreed that competition to attend a good school is bureaucratic and inefficient, yet it seems even more convoluted when low test scores are in a sense rewarded: "Those from neighborhoods where students have scored low on state tests get first dibs at their top-ranked programs."
11
It's as if throwing more government at a problem is not always the solution.
2
The lottery is a great policy, but falls short of an entire solution. Giving ppl a chance at going to the school of their choice doesn't fix the fact that a large number of the schools are not the ones ppl want, yet some of the students will always end up going there. The lottery needs to be combined with significant efforts (money) to balance the desirability of the schools.
8
“Our current system is broken,” said Stevon Cook, president of the district Board of Education, which, late last year, passed a resolution to overhaul the process. “We’ve inadvertently made the schools more segregated.”
"Stevon Cook, the board president, said one of the biggest problems with the lottery was “the implicit message that we send” to low-income parents: that schools in their own communities are “inadequate,” and that they should seek to escape them. “We should pour more into those schools to make them attractive,” he said.
Stevon might consider the story of The Montgomery County Public Schools (Maryland). Faced with three times the student population and similar diversity, it recognized that the segregation of its schools was limiting access by students to high quality preparation for rewarding careers and further education.
The pursuit of equity was realized by leadership who guided the system through the quality management process. It's success was recognized by receiving The Baldrige Award.
The sad situation for the nation's school systems is the extent of the silo effect, as they struggle with providing students equitable access to excellent preparation. As reported in the Times recently, New York City is suffering the same frustration as San Francisco. Can either replace the fixation on de-segregation with the process of quality education in every school and for every child?
5
Obviously the only solution is to outlaw private schools and home schooling and then assign students to schools strictly according to their race and ethnicity so as to achieve maximum integration. Raise your hand if you think this would (a) raise the educational levels of US students overall or (b) raise the educational levels of poor minority students. Me neither.
19
The solution is as was mentioned in the article. Until there are equal funds and resources applied to every school district the problem won't be solved. Parents whether their fears are justified or not are going to try to put their children in the schools that prepare them the best based on the numbers. The bigger issue in San Francisco seems to be that people are congregating towards schools based on wealth because of what it costs to live in SF. If that is true maybe the answer is to make sure school bus service can get kids to schools parents would like to send their kids to instead of where they have to go because of where they can afford to live.
2
They will do absolutely anything to integrate except spend money, real bucks, on better teachers and facilities. But of course the money, properly spent, is the only thing that works.
13
Despite purporting to communicate the truth about school integration, these comments with anecdotes and opinions (sometimes disguised as facts) reveal more about who comments on the New York Times than the reality of school integration. Given the context, perspective, and details mentioned in the anecdotes, it appears commenters in the New York Times are mostly white, mostly well-off, and mostly resent school integration. Consensus in an absence of diversity of perspectives is an echo chamber.
8
@citybumpkin I’m black and if you think I’m overly concerned about diversity, I got news for you.
17
@Ed
Start spreading the news Ed, as sung by Frank Sinatra.
1
The author deliberately made an effort to shy away from mentioning the performance of schools except in two instances. Instead focusing on integration being the goal of the day, not the success of children. This created an illusion that non-white was synonymous with low performing. Last I checked, having white students was not a prerequisite of success.
32
I wish I can find a link to the article NYT ran some two years ago about how white parents resented the Asian families who were pushing the academic standards too high, thus unfairly putting pressure on their kids. When the shoe is on the other foot...
13
@citybumpkin This only shows that all races prefer segregation and be with peers of their own level, intellectually, culturally, economically, which often means also racially. This is why in the 150,000 history of mankind people self grouped in tribes.
14
@Alexgri
As I have retired and grown to an age of 70, I spend more time out in nature areas observing animals especially birds. There is a running/walking loop around a spillway that attracts water fowl and other birds looking for food put out by humans.
The ducks seem to stay in one area and the geese in another. but still close by. The egrets and cranes of which are few are in the water looking for fish.
Occasionally someone with bread or an old person who buys ground corn will come and everyone flocks around. Piegons and crows will appear out of nowhere and I have seen an isolated sea gull appear 250 miles inland.
Everyone kind of stays together but separate as in the old adage, " Birds of a feather flock together. This is more true when one watches birds that perch on telephone lines. Rarely do you see mixed species sharing space.
Since this is an urban area of Fort Worth there aren't too many falcon, eagles or other birds of prey so what we seem to have is a group of diverse winged creatures that seem to get along but stay separate.
Maybe that's what Mother Nature intended. If when I pass onto the other side and I get some answers, I'll try to send the clues through to the NYT.
11
@Benito
I'm an avid nature water as well. As a biologist I am interested in evolutionary biology and innocence the idea that we are programmed to do certain things by Nature. However, it's not that difficult to realize that if we are going to live in a society we have to find Solutions. It also seems obvious that the solution here is to fix the bad schools and not focus on integration as much. Let's just try to create a free Society meaning economic freedom Healthcare Freedom Etc FDR's freedoms and let people flock where they want. There is enough prosperity to go around and the rich and greedy that love to hoard and cheat their taxes, like the president, need to be taken to task on their fair share. A government that represents the many and not the few would be ideal but I don't see it happening
It's probably already been said in the comments but the issue shouldn't be about trying to get into the best school but raising the level of all schools so there is no need to make a choice based on quality.
I grew up poor and went to public school until I was placed into an experimental high school which was a joint public-private effort (this was in the 90s so not a charter school). The way my mom dealt with our early education was a) get us tested into the gifted programs early on and b) find out where the teachers buy their materials and expose us to materials above our grade level. This article makes it sound like schools are the only place to get an education but there are ways to supplement it if parents really wish and they're not necessarily expensive means. Also, take your kids to the library when they are young.
24
@ms
Kudos to your awesome Mom! And I say that with all sincerity :-) there are some moms who don't have the resources. They may be working two jobs. They may have had health problems Etc. I would love to make our society more kind to these people. An uneducated person may not have tons of books around the house or the time to do what your mom did. I as a taxpayer would prefer to help these people than the folks at Boeing and McDonnell Douglas and the military industrial complex, the pharmaceutical industrial complex, the insurance industrial complex. Humanity and priorities
2
@ms
Kudos to your awesome Mom! And I say that with all sincerity :-) there is some moms who don't have the resources. They may be working two jobs. They may have had health problems Etc. I would love to make our society more kind to these people. And uneducated person may not have tons of books around the house or the time to do what your mom did. I as a taxpayer would prefer to help these people then the folks at Boeing and McDonnell Douglas and the military industrial complex the pharmaceutical industrial complex in the insurance industrial complex
We began addressing this issue in the 1960's. Over 50 years ago! And segregation is still a problem? It must be because most of the country wants segregation. Ir must be that, as Hillary said, this is not the country we thought it was. If we can't figure this out after 50 years, we're not going to. Let's just call it a segregated country and have done with it. There are whole lot of things I thought this country was, that it's not. Let's just be honest about it.
10
Good pubic education is the backbone of democracy. When Prop 13 passed in 1978, the Jarvis Amendment, California quickly went from No. 1 in the nation to No. 49. Elementary schools through colleges and universities tanked.
Prop 13 was a handout to the wealthy; freezing their property taxes for literally ever. No property tax dollars = lousy public schools and libraries.
Prices for grade school and high school in the Bay Area range from $10,000 for the religious schools to in excess of $50,000 PER year for the highest ranked elementary, middle and high schools.
Follow the money. It always illuminates.
5
@Amaratha And yet, NYC with its very high property taxes has equally bad schools. So it is not only about the money.
12
@Amaratha People seem to be using the word "handout" in increasingly bizarre ways. The government taking less of someone's money is not a handout. The handout comes after that money has been taken.
10
@Amaratha I was in the mortgage business in CA in the 1980's when Prop 13 was still shaking things up. I'm no Prop 13 fan, but I have to rise to its defense. Prior to, people were having to sell their homes because of literally uncontrolled taxation.
And it most certainly did not freeze taxes. It limited annual tax increases to 3% regardless of the escalating value of the property. What's wrong with that? One's income does not go up with property value increases, and 3% allows for no surprise budgeting.
The tax base and school quality is not a direct correlation. There are many confounders. I will posit that one reason CA was truly the Golden State post WWII is.........................racial. Far less ethnic poverty. It used to be much more middle class white bread. Now, way too many families who can't contribute enough in taxes for quality schools.
5
Thankfully there is no mention here of Brown vs Board of Education. That case had nothing to do with school funding or equality in public schools. It's even possible that B vs B put some good schools out of business-- respectable schools for black children, like the one that Kathryn Johnson attends as a little girl in "Hidden Figures". It's time to stop trying to integrate public schools if busing and gerrymandering are not an option. Why is it so important for schools to have diverse student populations ?? Pension reform would benefit schools more. CalSTRS is $100 billion in debt.
9
As a 3rd grader In 1982, I was bused from a white affluent neighborhood with an excellent school to a low-performing school in a predominantly black neighborhood. Only 6 of my classmates stayed during this busing experiment- that means roughly 26 families chose to enroll their kids in private schools. At my new school, I was the only white student in my class. This was quite a shock to me. Absolutely nothing was done to prepare me for this culture shock - I was just expected to easily adjust because peace and love. But the poor black students I think were angry and resentful of us rich white kids. The playground was a terrifying proposition. I ended up taking refuge every recess in a teacher’s room who felt empathy for me and the situation. Thank god she was there. Even so, I got in two fights that year. Believe me, I’m not a fighter. In addition I was at least two years ahead academically - many kids in my class still couldn’t read a do basic math. That was a lost year for me.
If there is going to be “integration “ a lot more needs to be done to support groups of people from self-segregating. If school systems are not willing to put in that work- time money and resources- just forget the whole idea.
43
@Double helix I had a similar experience and appear to be the same age as you. I’m black and my parents are immigrants from Ghana. I went to a mostly white Catholic school up through the 6th grade. My dad was a cabbie, I guess in those days one could afford private school on a working class income. Anyway I did well there and don’t recall experiencing any overt racism.
My parents split up and after befriending neighborhood kids begged by parents to go to the local public school. Big mistake. No need to go into details but the same kids that tormented you made learning next to impossible. I drifted to high school graduation completely apathetic towards school. Keep in mind as a youngster I knew all the Ivy League schools, their locations and aimed of going there.
I’d never send my kids to a similar school. There’s something rotten in the culture. It’s a shame elite liberals are in denial but that’s not my issue. The issue is prevent my kids from going through the same.
28
Funding for schools is important and vital, but so too are motivated, level-headed, well-compensated teachers.
5
@Michael Clayton why did only 48% of white parents get their first choice for a school? Perhaps this is the reason these parents are seeking private schools. Every group involved in the system must believe there is fairness.
Sending your child to school is just a very important decision.
11
Fund schools at the State level rather than with property taxes at the local level. All schools get minimum funding to provide for a reasonable quality teaching environment. Will all schools be "equal"? No, that's impossible, but all schools will at least be adequately resourced. The racial mix of each school will differ according to the neighborhood demographics, but so what? A well-resourced school with a more students of color should provide the same educational opportunities as the schools in the "whiter" neighborhoods. Why wouldn't they?
17
This article (and most of the comments) are missing a key detail. What makes the better schools "better"? Yes, on a quantitative measure, it's test scores. But why do certain school have higher test scored than others? Is it superior teachers and educational strategies? If that were the case we could literally transfer all the teachers and programs from high performing schools to low performing schools and we should see tremendous results.
Of course while it is a combination of items. What % of the kids are English Language Learners? What % are on IEP's (special ed)? What percent are growing up in communities where generational poverty is a birthright and a stable two-parent family committed to their child's success is the an aberration?
We can transfer kids to any and all sorts of schools, but the emperor has no clothes and we all know it. Schools are not panaceas for societies ills and trying to foist that role upon them is unfair and unrealistic.
59
@Esteban Pablo
It is true that "schools are not panaceas for society ills"
But Society as such is responsible.
So if"fairness" is to be attained," realistic" measures must be taken by those in charge.
Saying that schools are not resposible, is not enough
2
So what we are really seeing here is that many parents do not want to participate in a social justice experiment with their children’s education on the line. If they have the means, regardless of race, they opt for private schools. Forcing integration is not the answer. I wonder how many of the kids actually socialize in these schools or if they tend to assimilate with kids they live closer to and can see after school.
There are few options here beyond banning private schools or changing the funding model to distribute money more equitably.
Neither is likely to happen.
269
@Norville T. Johnson-Actually, forcing integration does work. Ironically, today the south (former Jim Crow states) have the most integrated schools in the country.
When you give wealthy white families a choice, they unfortunately choose to segregate their children.
17
I don’t know why you are deriding solutions such as more equal funding as unlikely to happen and, thus, not a reasonable option. While it is across the country, the whole state of Vermont changed it’s school funding method with sizable benefits. That method should be looked to as a model, not dismissed as not worth pushing for.
11
@Norville T. Johnson Funding isn't the issue. California changed its school funding model back in the 70's so it is not dependent on local property taxes and is, on paper at least, equitable. The problem is you need more money, not equal money, to address the inequalities children bring with them from home. And it's not clear whether money at any level can address these inequalities in one generation.
30
What an oddly uninformed article. “What happened in San Francisco suggests that without remedies like wide-scale busing, or school zones drawn deliberately to integrate, school desegregation will remain out of reach.” Here in Boston these approaches were tried, and they made the Boston public school system more segregated than ever. You can’t socially engineer or micromanage individuals’ choices and preferences.
47
The Article suggests "without remedies like wide-scale busing...". However, the evidence on 1990's busing policies in California (particularly within East Palo Alto) clearly shows the practice of busing was a colossal failure. I believe the author should elaborate more on this subject if they suggest busing as a real remedy.
21
@Brandon Can you elaborate more on why it was a failure?
1
This is not even a difficult problem. They have solved this in most of the European countries. You give as much money per student to every school, no matter of the neighborhood. You have the same standards, the same curriculum, you require Masters degree from every teacher, most importantly you keep the class sizes below 25. Then you don't create segregated neighborhoods, you don't create "projects" but you spread your low income housing evenly to every neighborhood. And then kids just go (walk by themselves!) to the closest school.
25
@johnj California does give equal funding to each school. But the “better” schools have rich parents donating extra money and time on top of what the state gives them.
18
@Sam
Err, not quire. In California, for the 2017-18 school year, 8% of the funding comes from the Federal Govt, 58% from the State Govt, and 34% from local taxes.
That 34% in local taxes makes a huge difference in schools. "Better" schools really don't rely on parents holding regular bake sales to make up the funding difference.
6
I know, but in Europe every school gets "enough" and they don't take donations as there is no need. Every public school in Finland for example is on par with the most expensive private school in San Francisco. I think people in general in the Bay Area especially have lost all the common sense..
7
I believe property taxes fund schools-thus the suburbs have more taxes pouring into education; in cities, churches and museums don't pay property taxes, thus the pie is smaller. Rather than allocate by district, money alloted to education should be distributed equally rather than having underfunded schools in cities and schools with swimming pools and wired classrooms in suburbs. I also strongly believe in neighborhood schools, yet with that said, neighborhood schools should all be like the Rooftops of San Francisco. I hate the lottery system; it fails everyone, kids and parents.
6
@chocolate40
Funding comes from Sacramento in a flat per diem based on daily attendance, additional amounts are allocated if a student in attendance is an English Language Learner or Severely Disabled. The money comes to Sacramento from local property taxes. High absenteeism cuts funding to individual schools.
Property Tax fell to the number two slot for SF County revenues this past year after a very long run of being number one. Entering the number one spot for the first time are City Fees; all those ballot measures not labeled Tax and requiring only 50% plus one at the ballot box, usually presented in off year elections with low turnout.
After payroll, pensions and retiree health care, the largest expense category in SF's $12 Billion annual budget is Health and Human Services. Our streets are maintained by Bonds as is most infrastructure maintenance and SFUSD properties.
@TC. What is the logic behind a per diem based on attendance? It obviously puts the schools with at-risk kids at a big disadvantage. As someone above mentioned, those schools need more resources, not fewer. I don't understand why funding should fluctuate based on something the schools can't control.
3
@chocolate40
Yeah, but when the city pack 'em in like sardines, they do generate a lot more tax revenue per square sardine mile.
1
Please explain this:
“Affluent parents are able to take advantage of the system in ways low-income parents cannot”
7
@Lynn Wilson the article states more affluent parents with more flexible schedules can tour more schools on the research front. Those who are not native English speakers may have a harder time navigating the process. More affluent parents can move to increase their lottery numbers Moreno easily than less affluent parents.
1
@Lynn Wilson Because affluent people who are well-educated understand how the system works. The system is legible to them. They know where to go for initial information. They can take time off of work to visit schools. They have working internet to do research. They are friends with others who are also "in the know", and their social groups share information, expanding everyone's knowledge. Poor people are more likely to fall victim to the phenomenon of "not knowing what they don't know." They are isolated socially from the movers and shakers, who always have the heads up on everything.
2
@ParentinCA. Many professionals don't have flexible schedules. Also the richest professionals mentioned in this article are Latino MDs so wouldn't their child diversify (in racial terms) the school? Should non-English-speaking parents take their own measures to learn English or to find translators rather than expecting SF to pay for translation services? If SF cannot afford busing (which hurt one parent of color) how can it afford translators? Some of the parents of color in this article made a CHOICE not to opt for better schools due to lack of proximity. Until SF can make all of its schools good, then parents of all races decide what their values and their priorities are, and their values are not race-based. SF has limited financial resources, so if it pays for busing or it pays for translators, different parents of color are hurt. The district is majority children of color, so it is very integrated in racial terms.
1
I think it would be much better to let kids go to their neighborhood school, and make a serious concerted effort to make all schools be equal - equal amenities, equal quality of teachers, equal programs. AND, have a lot of quality interaction between schools in every discipline so that kids had many significant opportunities to interact with kids from other schools. Integration could happen at the class level, rather than putting the burden on individual families and kids.
15
1. There are networks of well-resourced parents who create and share spreadsheets and strategies on how to rank school choices for the best chance at getting a school that you want. You can go down a rabbit hole researching the process. The school district introduced “swapping” in which you might be assigned to your 2nd ranked school and another kid is assigned to their second ranked school and if that kid’s school is your first ranked school and vice versa, the school district will “swap” the assignment so both kids are at their higher ranked school. So you can imagine how highly educated parents who are good with spreadsheets, statistical analysis, and field research create a research project out of visiting school sites and crunching data from previous years statistics in order to implement a strategy for ranking their school choices.
2. You have to bring enrollment forms to the school district in downtown SF during 9-5 work hours. If you don’t get one of your choices the first time around there are 4 or 5 other rounds where you can request a transfer. Each round has it’s own set of rules and you have to submit requests in person. You need to have a flexible work schedule to leave work for the day and be prepared to stand in a very very very long line.
3. School bus service is not guaranteed which defeats the purpose of giving people choice. There is no choice if your kid has no way to get to the “better” school on the other side of town.
6
You couldn’t construct better argument fir charter schools. If parents are going to compete for schools (as they should), let the schools compete for students.
8
@HenryParsons. Ah charter schools. That is an old segregation idea developed in Virginia and is now used by the Koch operatives to undermine and close schools and choke off funding to schools. That is the same reason Betsy DeVos is a big fan of charter schools. It will help save the billionaires a lot of money in their tax dollars, a cause we can all rally behind.
You really want charter schools? Just asking for a friend.
1
This same scenario is in Berkeley. In the lottery for elementary school, my daughter was given a school on the opposite side of town. So we opted out. The result is that the 22 children on our street go to many different schools, which is not good for community spirit. The local school is 1 block away, but not possible for the children of our street. How is this good?
89
@James B Unite with your community and fight this. We in Kew Gardens, Queens, NY are now fighting the mega jail our Mayor Deblasio (running for Prez, lol) wants to dump in our residential neighborhood and other residential neighborhoods in NYC.
We have to fight the politicians who want to destroy our communities. We can’t give up, as exhausting as it is.
15
We are in Berkeley and quite happy with elementary. The three zones ensure close schools are an option.
1
That's crazy.
6
I believe Arizona has positively addressed this with a combination of school zoning and open choice. All students are zoned to a particular school based on their residence. However, by law, every public school also has open enrollment (based on available space) available to any resident regardless of where they live. As a result, children in lower income areas or those assigned to poor performing schools can elect to open enroll in higher performing schools, often in wealthier communities. This has resulted in opportunities for those families that take advantage and a more diverse student population in many schools, particularly those in wealthier communities that would otherwise not be so diverse. While not perfect, it seems to work.
5
@RK Same system in Colorado. If the kid can get to the school, they can enroll there. Transportation might be public or partially school bus or parental. A burdern? For some, sure. But nothing wrong with that if you want better for your child.
2
We cannot simply change school or bus minority kids to better school. A holistic approach is need. Its the schools, the kids, the parents. Successful kids have parents involved in their lives, struggling kids have parents working low wage jobs, sometimes more than one job to pay the bills and they do not have to time to help kids with homework, extracurricular activiites, fun activities, reading to them, etc. Some kids need more that what "traditional schools can offer. Look at the Harlem Children's Zone model. Also, we are defunding public schools with all the tax cuts we're giving citizens and corporations.
Lets face it, educating all of our kids is not important in our country. There isn't equal access to education. San Francisco tried someting and it did not work. Its time to try something else or our future workforce will not be able to complete national, much less globally.
13
"“We’ve inadvertently made the schools more segregated.”"
No, the segregation of schools driven by having parental choice isn't inadvertent at all. It's just proof that behind closed doors, the liberal and "woke" parents of San Francisco are just as racist and fearful as anywhere else in the country.
71
@mpound “racist”...or want their kids in school with people of the same background, family structure and values.
19
@mpound
It has very little to do with race in San Francisco. Even many of the private schools maintain quotas to achieve racial diversity and tuition often varies by income to maintain socioeconomic diversity.
What it comes down to for parents is that putting your kids in a lower performing school, independent of ethnic makeup, statistically reduces their chances of performing better on tests, getting into better colleges, getting good jobs, etc. It's difficult for a teacher with a large class size to cater equally to a broad array of aptitude levels, and lower performing schools often have more behavioral issues as well. As a parent you are left with a difficult choice--do you engage and support a struggling school that desperately needs involved parents at the risk of the pace of your own child's learning and development? It's one thing to sacrifice something that only affects you, it's far more difficult to ask your child to make that sacrifice if you have the means to give them a better chance at success.
17
@HenryParsons
Same difference.
2
There is another option that SF parents choose in response to the lottery: they leave the city entirely. My husband and I lived in the Marina neighborhood of SF when we had our first child. Our home happened to be around the corner from one of the better public elementary schools in the city. But given our residential zip code, it was highly unlikely that we would ever place into that school with the lottery. So rather than face the prospect of spending $30k a year on private school tuition, we moved to the East Bay, where our son is now enrolled in a “10” public elementary school that is a 7 minute walk from our home. We know many other families over here who have moved for the same reason. Among other things, the lottery has caused families to flee the city — a kind of “child flight” reminiscent of the “white flight” that drove Caucasian families to the suburbs years ago.
350
@LM
It always seemed like a combination: white child flight. The white families seem to move out of SF into the suburbs when their children reach school age. The Asian and Hispanic families seem mostly to stay in SF.
This appears to makes the schools overwhelmingly Asian in many neighborhoods, and Hispanic in most of the rest.
22
@LM
Yup - I know several people who put in for the lottery and if they are unlucky in the lottery, they move.
And when they move, the city loses involved parents and reduces their income tax base.
37
@LM
Piedmont is a unique place to live (and unaffordable for most people). Piedmont is literally an affluent municipal island, with its own school district, surrounded by Oakland. It's basically a gated community within a gritty city.
41
I have personal and professional experience with low income, majority minority schools.
The reality is that low income black children are disproportionately violent and disruptive, and often have serious behavioral issues and cognitive disabilities that have a very real impact on school safety and learning. This is not their fault; it is the legacy of racism, of lead poisoning, of poor maternal health, of the trauma of poverty.
But pretending the problem does exist, and pretending that affluent parents will pretend it does not exist when the well being of their own children is at stake, only leads nowhere.
Instead of chasing the integration unicorn, we need to first, deal with the problem at the root. All the money in the world for school is worthless if children show up to kindergarten with already intractable developmental issues. We need to start treating poor maternal health and unprepared motherhood among black women like the massive public health crisis it is. Better family planning leads to better maternal health, which leads to healthier babies and children. We need safer housing for the poor. We need quality childcare and preschool for low income children.
Then we need to give all low income neighborhood schools the funding and resources they need to be excellent, no matter who attends them. This includes even smaller classes, more social workers, whatever it takes to give these children and their families what they need to excel.
333
@A F
Maybe would-be moms should be paid to attend classes that will demonstrate to them how their usually already stressful and difficult lives will be further negatively impacted after their would-be child is born?
28
Great!
And how exactly do you plan to achieve this?
We can’t even agree on universal health care, which would be the basic requirement to even make a dent in the current state of affairs.
Where would the motivation for the uneducated come from to break out of the cycle, if you leave it to them?
As several commenters wrote here, you need only a small number of disruptive kids to ruin the best school.
It is the home that is the overriding factor that will make it or break it.
33
@Kara Ben Nemsi
Better access to and information about implanted birth control, programs in urban schools that aggressively educate young low income women about what is necessary for healthy and successful childbearing, a more comprehensive approach to young black women's health, and begin school in infancy with high quality childcare and preschool programs with early intervention for developmental issues.
Tackle poor black maternal health, unplanned parenthood, and childhood depravation like a public health crisis, like we did with AIDS, drunk driving, and smoking. You will never get rid of every pathology, but we have successfully made serious dents in some big ones. Why not this one?
My sense is we have gone no where with addressing it because offends the pieties of both political ideologies. Conservatives don't want to touch subsidizing effective family planning "Because Religion", and liberals don't want to aggressively deal with poorly planned families because that would involve acknowledging that those families bear some responsibility for their circumstances.
So instead we have one side saying "they are just immoral, let them rot" (conservatives) and the other saying "they are victims, throw money at it" (liberals), and neither side actually dealing with the problem, which requires both an acknowledgment of the need for personal responsibility and the actual resources to effectively take responsibility.
97
If you're smart, when you have kids you just move to Marin, where all the schools are far better than San Francisco - plus the weather is great. That's what we did and we used to live just up the street from Rooftop and not far from Clarendon - another excellent school. But we knew the chances of our kids going to either were slim-to-none.
24
My three grandchildren attend San Francisco schools and have had a positive experience in elementary and middle school. I have worked in their classrooms when I visit, and as a retired teacher myself, I am pleased with what I see.
5
@Cheryl That's great. My kids attend the Ross Valley School District and they've had excellent experiences as well. So it sounds like we're both happy with what our loves ones are experiencing in California schools.
6
While moving to Marin might be a good idea in theory, how do you suggest I find the money to afford a house/rent in Ross (or San Rafael, San Anselmo, Mill Valley, etc) if I live in a rent controlled apartment in SF? May be a great plan to someone of wealth and privilege...but that doesn’t include me. It’s so frustrating when people don’t recognize their privilege and don’t realize that what they think is an obvious solution (“Just move!”) doesn’t apply to most people.
25
San Francisco has racially segregated public schools? Seven percent African-American population? Sounds like SF residents need to do some deep soul searching.
Now get back to hammering on those folks in flyover country.
116
I'm not surprised one bit. I used to live out there, and found that the white people were just as racist, narcissistic and privileged as everywhere else. On the face of it my point seems unrelated, till you remember who makes runs the state Capitol. White people have the most money, aka the most power, lobbying, etc. and it shows. What they think is important is what gets attention and money, whether they're Silicon Valley or Hollywood rich, they control the state. Then you have the farms, who are usually white owned and employ Hispanics/Latinos and pay them horribly. All these industries make money off of narcissism and apathy. Why would they care about integrating schools? Race is a construct we create and enforce, and tools like privilege keep those borders in place. Sure, they're not all white/you'll have a Mark Zuckerburg who doesn't marry within his race, but overall that doesn't even matter as all of these people are absurdly greedy and want to keep it for themselves; Zuckerburg tried forcing Hawaii to strip native Hawaiians of their land rights which are thousands of years old, and he did it by using money to try to get some state senators and other local politicians on his side. But he has an Asian wife, so he can't be racist! Right? Wrong. Welcome to Privilege. They use their money to run your state Capitol, and that's why we gotta vote. It's the only way to balance all that money and influence.
10
It’s not the schools people. It’s the parents. Parents who value education and are highly involved in their child’s education will always do better academically. Asian students are a good example of how valuing education impacts a child’s success in school.
242
@Alex Mazon
Agreed. When my brother played little league and his grades dropped, my folks took him out. You think that didn’t send us a message? Years later, when we were in high school, we all played for our school teams, but we kept our grades up too and went to college and beyond.
11
I am not persuaded by the notion that racial disparities between schools make them inherently unequal. Generally, parents want their kid to go to the school that is near where they live, and if they choose to live in communities with other people of the same ethnicity then it should not be of concern to the rest of us. But the funding and other public resources available to the schools should be equal per student. If some parents want to contribute more time or money to improve the school their kid goes to, then great; if that means the school has better outcomes than in places where the parents do less, so be it. But we have to get away from the use of race as the determining factor, which (no matter what they tell you) most certainly is the case with the San Francisco lottery system.
37
@Douglas Evans
Race is not used in SF's present lottery system. Census data labels economically deprived neighborhoods so people living in these areas get bonus points. Parental education achievement is also calculated with more bonus points going to those with no high school diploma or college participation. There are another half dozen or so bonus calculations and those with the most bonus points are run through the lottery first.
1
I love my visits to San Francisco. I hitchhiked there nearly fifty years ago and have gone back many times (now in a plane!).
The school diversity, school segregation issue doesn't just affect liberal cities, it is the raw nerve ending that cuts across every financial and social strata in our nation.
As conservative as I am, I firmly believe in equal opportunity for all. I sent my very white children to minority public magnet schools in our district. While hispanic students were okay, the black students either ignored my kids or actively sought to rob them, harass them or physically assault them. The cultural differences were simply ridiculous. The 15% of white kids banded together for protection and excelled academically regardless.
Meanwhile, my progressive friends pulled out all of the stops to avoid having their kids attend the same schools. I won the moral high ground, but, from a practical standpoint, my profoundly hypocritical liberal friends, who regularly denounce my conservative politics, won the academic battle.
Our educational policies in this country are dishonest and are based on liberal ideology, not facts. At their core, liberal progressives know this. It is revealed in their school choices for their own children.
My grandson will NEVER attend a majority minority school if I and his parents can manage it. Thirty percent minority seems to be the approximate tipping point between success and a rapid decline in educational quality, by my observations.
187
@Thomas A. Hall
In all fairness, many of us liberals, perhaps most, understand this. Just look at the comments here from the mostly liberal readers of the Times.
There are, of course, those on the left who do not, e.g., Mayor DeBlasio and his school chancellor. But most liberals I know are opposed to their policies.
31
If you liberals think this is a problem- Just wait until Gov. Gavin repeals Prop 13!! Then you can sit back with your recreational marijuana and watch things go from worse to roll over and die. Hold on to your emotional service dog because you haven't seen anything yet!
46
While some demographic info is used in this ranking, one aspect is not mentioned at all: legal status in the US. And not a word about the remedial and translation services needed that take funds.
38
@Margo Exactly. That is probably a significant reason why illegal-immigrant Latino and Asian parents think tribalistically. I am guessing that illegal immigrant parents feel safer and less likely to get caught when their kids are with other immigrant social groups. And schools with a dominance of Latino and/or Asian students will likely provide translation services to non-English-speaking parents.
This country was founded by racist felons from England. What were you expecting?
2
One of the worst aspects of the SF school lottery is the possibility that a child could be assigned to a school on the other side of the City. While SF is relatively small, the everyday commute time (30 to 40 minutes by car) results in hardship for working parents. I don't even want to contemplate how long kids might have to commute by public transit.
9
I live i SF. Many affluent parents who espouse the benefits of public education seem to do it as a badge of honor. As if they are more culturally and pedagogically evolved....until their kid doesnt get into their school of choice. Then? they yank their kid out and plunk them into a private school. When I hear an affluent parent espouse praise on their kids elementary school I can bet it will one of a handfill in the in the city (ex. Rooftop (from article) , Clarendon, Miraloma).
9
Inadvertent? Hardly.
2
I am always amused to hear the San Francisco Unified School District is still fighting over integration since its student body is 87% minority. Moreover, the author of the article is wrong "about a quarter of the city's children are enrolled in private school." San Francisco has one of the highest enrollment of students in private schools - an estimated one-third of its students.
The top two private high schools in the city, Lick-Wilmerding and University High, are now $50,000 per year. Moreover, neither are lacking in applicants. Lick-Wilmerding admits 1 out of 7 applicants while University High admits 1 out of 5.
I, myself, sent my son to all private schools in San Francisco and on to the Ivy League. I am Chinese-American and have no regrets.
38
As New York Mayor Bill De Blasio's failed school initiative proves, you can pour money into failing schools but all you will achieve is failing schools which cost a lot of money.
The real obstacle to academic success is not a student's race, nor how mono-ethnic their school is- it is poverty. Putting children from poor families into high quality schools is a worthy goal- but it is not going to help them much. These children start school behind their wealthier peers and fall further and further behind.
15
We live a block from a well-regarded SFUSD school, but were assigned a school a 30 minute drive across the city in the lottery. Our child attends a private school. I will not throw their education onto this bonfire.
SFUSD’s war on neighborhood schools frays the community, and the lottery anxiety drives families out of the city.
I hope the social engineers at the school board will learn some humility from this failed experiment, and take a sober look at what actually makes elementary school education succeed or fail, as many others have noted in these comments. But I’m skeptical.
58
The public school system here is SF is beyond broken. No one who can afford it will put their kids through the public lottery system because the lottery system means they have essentially no choice where their kids end up. Their children are therefore likely to end up at a poorly performing school that is far away from where they live. The result is that wealthy parents pull their kids, and financial/social support, out of the public system altogether. The current system also leads to streets clogged with traffic, stressed kids/parents and lack of local community investment or support. When local schools are no longer filled with local kids, the local community support withers and the schools decline and die. What good does that do for anyone? A better system would be one that invests in local schools and then ensures that every local kid can go to their local school.
33
@Dr E, I have a kid in public school here in SF. Most of the kids at our school are local. Our school is not poorly performing. Our school is supported by the community. Obviously, not everyone is lucky, but this absolutism is patently wrong.
2
San Francisco has the lowest rate of children of any large American city. The city's long-dysfunctional school district drives many parent's out as soon as their kids reach school age. Spend time here, and you'd see it's symptomatic of the city in general, with openly corrupt building department, decades old transport system, and inept politicians.
24
Class and racial segregation are endemic to a segregated system of private and underfunded public education, which is Separate and Unequal. Only the establishment of a single system of public education, which bans private and religious education for all our children, can provide the necessary basis for a less unequal and segregated educational system. When the Zuckerberg-Chan children go to the same school as our children, each school will be an alabaster tower with Olympic pools, and small classrooms, with well-paid staff. Todays increasing segregation in San Francisco is not only in the schools but every aspect of the city. Nearly all working people in San Francisco have been driven out of their homes and neighborhoods, in particular Blacks and Latinos. Yet there exists some mass insanity expressed in the absurd assertion that San Francisco is "diverse," when in fact it one of the least 'diverse' on any major cities in the US. The emperor has no clothes.
8
I went to city schools in Brooklyn. We went to the school in our neighborhood. No choice. And yet my high school had more Merit Scholars than did the Bronx High School of Science. My fellow students were from working class and middle class backgrounds. So what was the key? Education and culture were paramount in our families even though our parents only finished high school. Reading, discussions, museums. Encouraged. We children were expected to go on to college even though our parents hadn't. And that is why we succeeded.
41
Not that simple, lefty. I went to school in Brooklyn too. Your smugness leaves out the societal supports that are crucial for success in school but that too many poor families don’t have.
You insist that culture and reading were paramount. You omit little details missing in too many students’ lives today, like non-leaky roofs over our heads, good food on the table, clothes on our backs, medical and dental care that didn’t break the bank, and safe and peaceful neighborhoods.
We actually learned information in our classes. We were not forced to endure months of ‘teaching to the test’ that left us with no marketable skills except a familiarity with test taking.
Most of us were familiar with the language used in our classrooms. Most of us didn’t have to travel 1-2 hours each way to get to school.
Many of us had parents, siblings or other family members who could help us with homework if needed; not parents exhausted by working 2 or 3 badly-paying jobs to keep us from homelessness. And we sure didn’t live in homeless shelters.
So don’t be so cocky about how well we did in our local schools because we had culture and reading and high expectations. We had plenty of support in our day so we could be successful.
And until we as a nation start supporting families instead of corporations, our academic successes as a nation will continue to degrade.
6
Equality for everyone else, but me!
4
Our children attend public school in SF. The article does a great job at describing the anxiety around the lottery process, and how much time and education are required to understand it. One other downside to the current system is the lack of neighborhood community. Our kids' friends all live far away and getting them together is logistically challenging. Similarly, the kids in our neighborhood all go to different schools. The ideal solution would be to make all public schools in the city comparable in terms of resources. Things like art, PE, science, computers and music are all funded by the PTA at each school. Some schools can barely raise enough for just one of those programs. Sadly SF, one of the richest cities in the world, lacks the political will to tax large businesses sufficiently to pay their fair share to fund public schools. They claim those businesses will leave. Wealthy families often move out of the city or chose private school, exacerbating the situation. I applaud this effort to improve the system and hope it will be comprehensive.
23
I am fascinated to read the comments posted about this article, particularly by those not from San Francisco. Their comments are so snarkey. My son, who is now a senior in high school, attended Rooftop (featured in this article). it was a wonderful experience, and ironically, at the time, was the most diverse (ethnically, socio economically ) public school in S.F. The author of this article is correct, most public schools in SF. are not diverse, and it is near impossible to get the school of one's choice (it took us two years of trying). it should not be so hard or complex, particularly for those with few to no resources. And private school, forget it...tuition in private high schools in SF is now as much as private college tuition, $48,000. We are truly the city of haves & have nots...and the shrinking middle class are left to flounder.
18
I believe innovation in technology combined with new teaching methods, can solve many of these problems here, elsewhere, and even across the globe.
I wonder why product development in silicon value didn't take this challenge yet
1
@Salah Mansour
Not sure how technology helps motivating students. As we know, some students just don't do the work. Putting them in a "better" school, wishing peer pressure help motivating them seems not enough.
6
Please don't make me laugh. It's the techno-yuppies that have driven nearly all the Blacks and Latinos out of San Francisco, and ensured the segregation of the schools by sending their children to private schools while defining public education.
5
So if Black and Latino students were getting good educations, scoring well on standardized tests, graduating and continuing on to college at high rates, but the schools were not integrated at the statistical target levels, then San Francisco schools would be a failure?
16
Glad I got a Catholic school education. I received a stellar education from the nuns and brothers
11
Why not just make sure every school can provide a quality education? Sending our youth to schools should not be a zero-sum game.
11
Fortunately my sons are grown up. But were they still of school age, I would do absolutely everything to ensure they go to a school where they are not forced to share the classroom with children from families in which education and learning are not valued. I would not subject them to violent classmates. My criterion of a good family is simple: it is not how much money you make but how many books you have at home. If none, then your child would not sit next to mine. Skin color does not figure into it at all. I have friends who are fighting to send their kids into Asians-majority kindergartens and if I had young kids today, I would do the same. Asian families have great respect for education and wonderful work ethics that most of their children imbibe from a very early age. But I also heard horror stories about children who are violent, disruptive, stupid or all of the above. Unfortunately many such children come from poor families of color. If you are asking me to disregard such behavior in order to atone for some injustices of the past (in which I as an immigrant had no share), forget about it. My kids are not sacrifices on the altar of social justice.
55
@Mor
Ditto. Good parents make good kids and good kids make good schools. Skin color has nothing to do with it, and income is not destiny. People who should not be having children are having children. Are we surprised at the outcome?
17
I agree, with a slight modification: it’s not how many books you OWN, but how much space books take up in your daily life. I have been fortunate enough to grow up with enough money to buy books and we have literally thousands, including a plethora of children’s books. We have recently decided to stop buying books and to downsize because we may have to move across the Atlantic for work, BUT we go to the library once a week, bring home books, and we read daily. I will not judge people for owning few if any books, only for never interacting with them.
4
Our oldest son was bussed in SF 1972. We lived in a mostly white but asian, black & hispanic neighborhood. We wanted our children to grow up in a city that has so many people, San Francisco. Many of our friends moved to Marin or the peninsula to get their kids into the schools they wanted. Now, some of those kids are raising their kids in San Francisco. Go figure.
4
You can put bandaids on the gaping and growing wound that is the economic inequality of our late-stage capitalist society, but it will just continue to bleed out until we realize it needs an emergency room...
7
I love the conservative commenters trashing liberals who put their kids in private school. Look, liberals are not going to subject their children to violent or disruptive classrooms. They're still liberal. They're not stupid. They're not required to sacrifice their children on the alter of their liberalism. What good would that do? P.S. I'm really glad I don't have children.
27
@Bob G.sure but then why do they accuse Southern white parents for not wanting to do the same with their kids?
It’s hypocrisy. Also why do they denounce anyone from calling out what we all know to be the real problem, thereby contributing to the issues festering?
22
@Honeybee I thought the classrooms were violent and disruptive (sic) because the kids come from violent and disadvantaged homes...
11
WO! When the author of this piece allows herself the right to use terms such as: 'people of color" ...why bother even reading? Obviously, out of touch with progress, and goodness. Good night.
3
I was a NYC public school teacher in immigrant Elmhurst, Queens for 25 years. Every one of my students who succeeded had parents who valued their child’s education no matter how many long hours they worked. The kids who didn’t succeed had parents who did not value education or had dysfunctional family issues.
60
To say the system is a “disappointment” is generous. The article fails to mention the waves of professionals - including myself - who hightail it out of the City to the East Bay, Marin, or the Peninsula as soon as their kids are ready for kindergarten. The system is truly abysmal and the vast majority of young parents in SF choose to not be someone’s social experiment.
The loss to SF is significant: district-wide 55% of kids are low-income in probably the wealthiest large city in the US. This is what you get when you apply misguided policies and people end up voting with their feet.
80
This article thoroughly buries the really key fact that "Those who defend the current system point out that 79 percent of black parents, 79 percent of Filipino parents and 61 percent of Hispanic parents received their first-choice kindergarten for next fall, compared with 48 percent of white parents." - if most families in the system are pretty much getting what they ask for, and if black people (the most oppressed group of Americans across history) are the MOST likely to get their desired outcome, then what the heck is the big problem? Who am I to tell another person how to rank their priorities for their kid's elementary school?
19
Forget segregating schools in order to give minorities a better education. Create GOOD schools in these minority communities. The quality of education is many of these communities is terrible. Undisciplined students ruining it for others, etc. These communities deserve equal education...not busing. There are other ways to segregate...through planned social activities. We've spent millions on failed programs...simply provide excellent education for all!!
13
@J. G. Smith Good schools are almost entirely a function of good students which are largely a function of good parents. Agree a small number of unruly students ruin it for many other students of color. Obama had it all wrong. You want these bad students not just suspended but removed and put in other schools where they can be helped and where they won't damage the learning environment and school culture for the rest.
24
This is a sensitive topic. As a public school teacher here in Savannah, I witness this constant obsession with promoting diversity and desegregation in the educational school system and its unintended repercussions. All I can say is through my years of experience, no matter what race the student may be who walks in my classroom, life at home dramatically; I'll say that again, dramatically influences a student's academic success as well as their failure. No city, state, or federal government plan can remedy a public school's shortfalls without taking into consideration the importance of a healthy and stable home life.
175
@Andrew this has been documented in several studies most famously in the Coleman Report that found student outcomes were mostly due to factors outside of the school room. Still trillions of dollars and many fads later here were are today. All because our elite politicians, journalists and academics refuse to acknowledge the real issue.
29
@Andrew
Thank you. The truth, both good and bad, is that the culture at home is, by far, the biggest determinant of a student's success in school. It is a generalization, of course, but that doesn't make it any less true. Education is an area where endless amounts of money can be spent without any result. My wife taught in a public school, designated an international school because of the over 50 countries of student origins. She and other teachers were dedicated, but learned soon who the better performing students would be: Parents who attended conferences (my wife would meet any time convenient for the parents); most did not; parents (or parent) who dressed respectfully; parents who asked how they could help their child; parents who knew where the nearest public library was. Not surprisingly perhaps, but those parents and their children didn't last long in the school. They moved to the suburbs.
19
Not big city here. Speaking from a suburban area outside of Cle, OH. My kids go to catholic private school (only one in the county). My county has 5 high schools. My city has 4 elementary, 2 middle and 1 HS (about 3k students). Most parents that go to our parochial school move their kids that need remedial, advance, support for special needs, etc. Our public district keeps putting tax, income, etc levies on the ballot and tell the community the horrible things that will happen (classes cut, busing, etc) if its not passed. So people vote yes... The teachers union here is very strong and well paid. Is it a great district? well, depends who you ask, and also the rankings. Not great, but not bad. Its mainly whites, but many minority groups as African Americans, Asians and latinos get the same education and resources. BUT it also depends on the families and what they do with that opportunity. I don't have an answer, just illustrating where i am...
5
I don't think this article does a good job of explaining why this failed.
45
@John McGlynn -- You are correct about the article, but that is because the answer is not politically correct so will not be said out loud. Here is a short version in two steps. 1. In CA, you cannot use race as a means of integrating schools because of Prop 209; so the schools have adopted "neighborhood" and "test score" proxies that give some folks a leg up in the lottery and might lead to desegregation but are not as bluntly effective as busing or other forms of forced racial desegregation (assuming that such desegregation is the goal). 2. You cannot force folks to send their kids to public schools so wealthy parents who get less than desirable school slots simply remove their kids to private school (or move to a suburb). So even if there were better transportation options or more conducive open house schedules for the less well off, the wealthy will continue to enjoy the privilege of opting out. The answer, of course, is to make all schools great and then worry less about the racial and geographic sorting. But we won't commit the resources to such a real fix, just continue to cycle through cheaper alternatives like affirmative action (now banned here) and lotteries (ineffective as noted).
15
Being a researcher on education I was curious to check the references for the claim that “Research shows that desegregation can drive learning gains for students of all races”. The link is to a policy paper webpage by the Century Foundation, which looks like and advocacy group. That page also cites the same claim and links to another page by the same advocacy group, with authors but no degrees or affiliation listed. Well I guess it’s now ok for the TImes to cite research of advocates on public policy issues in our post truth world.
90
You are incorrect. The website summarizes the findings of two books, one by Richard Kahlenberg, one of the most prominent academic researchers on this issue. The second is by three academics from Columbia University. The citations are at the bottom of the page.
4
@Lindyk19, Actually one author is a sociologist from the school of education, not know for rigorous unbiased studies on issues of diversity. Rather they are known for advocacy among economists, who as a consequence rarely cite them. The other two are doctoral students. Most of the citations are from education, sociology, law journals and newspapers. Conspicuously missing are citations from economics journals, of which there had been much work. To my understanding the findings have been mixed or negative. That’s probably why they are not cited.
28
@ett This is at least the third NY Times education article in about as many months that has made this same claim using the same Century Foundation "report." Its like the Times has an educational diversity agenda and wants to keep repeating the same poorly supported statement so that readers just start accepting as fact that school diversity is good for all.
If you follow the footnotes in their report,they distort some of the key conclusions of the scholarly articles they cite to fit with the arguments of the report.
26
Instead of trying to socially engineer things, just make it COMPLETELY random for one year. That will get some of the millenial new parent techies off the couch and get them working on a real solution.
10
@Cshine ABSOLUTELY!
1
@Cshine There are reasons simple solutions like that are not considered. Consider parents who have 2 or 3 children. Imagine random admissions - you'd be shuttling 2 or 3 children to 2 or 3 different schools each morning, possibly in vastly different locations. Then do it over again in the afternoon for pickup. Often the drop-off times are just a window of 20 minutes, so it may well be impossible to achieve.
9
There is no more hurtful way to demoralize a Black child than to tell him/her that he/she cannot learn unless seated next to a White or Asian child.
It is the responsibility of the school district to provide quality, appropriate learning environments to all students. If the district cannot do that, it should be shut down and parents given complete control over their children's education.
51
@Charles
Ride the bus in a poor urban neighborhood and listen to the way some parents speak to their children. Go to a park in a poor urban neighborhood and listen to the way some parents speak while their children play. The same observations could be made in plenty of rural areas. When messed up people have kids is it surprising that the kids have problems?
20
@Charles
The racial gaps are wider in San Francisco than they are in major N.Carolina districts. In terms of grade level-ethnic split of (white-Hispanic-black), S.F. compares poorly to to Charlotte-Mecklenburg. At the 6th grade level the SF black child is 1.6 behind their Charlotte counterpart.
My data comes from https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/04/29/upshot/money-race-and-success-how-your-school-district-compares.html.
2
If the Zimmermans have such guilt over their child getting into a top choice school, simply give it up and go to a low ranked one for fairness. Funny how even liberals and progressives don't want to mess with their kids' education. They feel sad but they take the school of their choice. Then they lecture everyone about how great the public schools are. The real message here is that when parents are involved in their kids education they seek out the best. if their not involved they don't care.
36
@Bill Yes, how dare liberals and progressives desire a better system for all.
That was sarcasm. Seriously - is it hard to imagine why someone might be the beneficiary of a broken system and simultaneously desire a system where everyone benefits w/o disadvantaging any one person (such as yourself?)
5
Children only get one chance to be educated.
'Good' parents don't want to mess up that one chance by letting their kids be guinea pigs in government-sponsored sociological experiments.
And that's true all over the country.
Or am I missing something here?
87
Education starts in the home. As an educator in a lower income, urban school, I work alongside many dedicated teachers and we all have a student with a family history in which no child should endure. However, no matter how much attention, how much one-on-one time, how much resources I give the student if their family is not behind it and supporting them at home, then achievement cannot happen. This does not mean I won't stop trying, but I do have to be realistic.
69
Wow. The American public education system is absolutely unbelievable. Friendly advice from a Canadian teacher in a diverse, multicultural school - fund your schools equitably. Fund them adequately so that vulnerable children can access the supports they need. Train your teachers well and then pay them appropriately. Every child's neighbourhood school should be a good school, and can be. Forget about high stakes tests and focus on individual learners. In other words - learn from your more successful neighbours. What you're doing just isn't working.
64
@Diana Each states' school system is different. For example, Texas has equal funding across the state. That has led to building on campuses that look like small colleges but not really anything else...
8
This is it.
Or fund them inequitably with much more money going to schools in impoverished districts/communities: pay the teachers more, pay the coaches more, pay the counselors more, get the best educators in the poorest schools.
6
@Diana it’s about more than funding, though. Two schools with identical funding, but one with a population of educated, involved families and another without are going to have drastically different outcomes. Funding is only a small part of the issue here.
34
The value of a good or service can be defined by how much someone will pay for it. And by that definition, no one values public education. Yet the general public demands better schools when they don't value it (aren't willing to pay directly for their child). Simultaneously, the people who are in a position to improve public schools show how much they value their childrens' educations by writing a check to their respective private schools (in addition to paying their taxes). And consciously or not, these people of power and means take the attitude of 'you get what you pay for' with respect to free public education. This is true whether the names are Bush, Clinton, Obama, Trump, Gates, Bloomberg, etc... This is why public schools are in the shape they're in. Those who value ($) education get the quality they pay for. The general public gets the quality they don't pay for. Sad but true.
2
Gee I pay $14,000 a year in tax that goes to my public school. Somehow I think that I and the other people in my township definitely feel that we are paying for it. that said if you gave us vouchers for that amount of money to use anywhere we wish I suspect the administrators would have a much greater sense of accountability to us.
10
@Walt This is why property tax is the best way to fund a school system. It puts the parents in control, and in most well-off communities, the relatively well-educated parents know more about education than the employees that teach in the schools.
How are there any low income families in San Francisco? You have to be a millionaire to afford to live there.
6
@Joe Public San Francisco proper is actually small city with a lot of historical neighborhoods that are extremely poor and very crime ridden (Hunters' Point next to the football stadium is one of them). The Tenderloin district is literally next door to the beautiful Civic Center and steps from Nob Hill. The extreme hills that are the source of the famous trolleys are a nearly insurmountable barrier. Also, the really rich people actually live in Palo Alto and Santa Clara and Cupertino and Los Altos...
18
@Joe Public They have a similar rent control system to NYC, so the poor people there are grandfathered in.
12
@Joe Public And neighborhood interest groups make building new housing virtually impossible. There is very vocal opposition to any "gentrification". The entrenched interests benefit from keeping home ownership low because it would lead to more conservative policies - again with the result that new buildings in old neighborhoods are very hard to build. Other areas like Mission Bay (where there are no/fewer vocal interests), are thriving and building.
6
Wait until the Trump administration buses and dumps 200,000 "asylum seekers" to San Francisco... Then we'll see how fast this petty, mundane problem falls to the wayside. You want um.. you got um!
29
Very humorous 😞
3
I believe in reparations, which should come in the form of education. We created this problem of low performing African-American students through centuries of racist policies. The proof is evident when you look at top colleges in the U.S., where first-generation immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean make up a disproportionate share of the black student population.
High quality, private boarding schools with small classrooms should be established and made available to underachieving black students. The cycle of poverty has got to be broken and this is the only way I can think of to achieve that end.
5
@Judith The Carribbean was a place of slavery too.
8
@leftrightmiddle
I knew somebody would say that. Institutional racism hasn’t existed in the Caribbean for a very long time. My husband grew up there. His teachers were black, his doctors were black, virtually all his roll models were black. He and his siblings grew up in a poor rural community. He came to the U.S. when he was 20 and his mother worked as a maid. All 7 kids graduated college. He became a doctor. Even he doesn’t think that would’ve happened if he grew up here.
1
@Judith Woukd that have happened if he stayed in the Caribbean?
1
Rich liberals abandoned public schools to non-English speaking immigrants and poor kids long ago.
24
@M People who could afford it took their kids to schools that educated the kids. Public schools are overwhelmed with the special education, ESL, etc programs and there is no room left to inspire the talented. It is sad but true that if you love your kids and can afford to do so, get them out of the public school system.
20
@M really? Rich conservatives didn’t do that too?
3
No, not true! My three grandchildren are attending San Francisco schools. We are liberals, politically, and very involved with our kids education. We are not alone.
2
There are two San Franciscos, for kids growing up in the city, and the two worlds do not interact or even touch. One is kids who go to expensive private schools, and the other is public school. Middle class and upper middle class white residents fled public schools in the city a long time ago, way before this choice system. They have never supported public schools in the city. I don't know what the solution is, but anyone who says they are from San Francisco and went to private school is not from the same city I'm from, and frankly, they can't know anything about it.
8
@Lucky 43Oh so now if a kid is sent to a private school by his parents he/she is suddenly not from the real San Francisco??
15
@Lucky 43 Like Chicago, and probably like most urban centers around the country. Thats why people move to the suburbs!
6
@Bill
That’s right
They bought their way out
3
I live in San Francisco. One of my neighbors is a single mother. When it was time to enroll her daughter, she did the dance described. She schlepped all over the city at great time and inconvenience to check different schools. She decided on a school down the block because she wanted her daughter close by.
My feeling is that if my neighbor can do it, almost any parent can.
This article doesn’t mention the debilitating effects of Proposition 13, which bled most city districts dry of the funds they need to fund public schools. The school I mentioned is in Pacific Heights, an incredibly wealthy area. But they still struggle to buy enough school supplies.
28
@Mercury S
Prop 13 has been a disaster in many respects. And most landlords gripe about our Rent Control ordinance. Until we find a way to level the housing playing field everyone is behind the 13 eight ball. It was never intended to apply to commercial property, it was sold as a measure to keep Grandma in her home. Totally hosing the general population now 40 years hence.
4
@Mercury S On a per capita basis, and adjusted for inflation, schools in California receive more money today than they did before Prop 13 was passed. Prop 13 has nothing to do with the abysmal state of San Francisco's school district. Schools in Orinda or Marin don't seem to have SF's problems and they too labor under Prop 13's tax caps.
6
More people idealize fairness and desegregation than choose it for themselves.
That’s the rationale behind affirmative action and the hard line bussing and desegregation begin in the 1960’s.
Today, however, there’s purposeful misinformation about desegregation...even creating poorly done ‘research’ that ‘proves’ desegregation harms oppressed or minority persons.
7
Socialism at work, lol. Fail.
16
@M
Fail perhaps, but Socialism? Is that how you define a system that allows parents to make choices?
11
Are parents really making choices under such circumstances? It's really more like a wish list which is then subjected to an algorithm. As a parent there is very little you are actually deciding, other than what to put on your list and how to order it. Then you submit it to Santa Claus-the-algorithm and hope that you don't end up with coal in your stocking. But every year students end up getting placed at schools they didn't even list! I mean, it's great if you get your first pick, but how many students are placed with their top choice? Who's really making any decisions? The kids are being assigned a placement. The word "choice" is really dishonest and doesn't describe the actual situation.
12
My grandchildren attend San Francisco schools and what you describe was not their parent’s experience. They did not get their first choice, but the elementary school they have attended was a wonderful school. The middle school is closer and the kids can ride public transportation. My daughter works in the city and was able to get those three kids to school everyday. The big issue is transportation for the elementary students.
3
I'm not really getting this article. After a litany of complaints we learn more than midway through, that the minority families typically get their first choice of schools (as opposed to the white families who typically do not). And this is a problem because what, we know better what they should want? Surely, it can't be a problem that not all students get their first choice, that's the nature of the beast. We are told that the schools are more racially segregated than in 1990 but elsewhere we are told that black students are less racially isolated than in 1990. I do get that there are inadequate funds for school transportation but surely, that can be fixed independently of other issues. Bottom line, maybe there are real school problems in SF (it wouldn't surprise me) and maybe the lottery is a driver of those problems but I can't really tell that from this piece.
45
@David: The thing about black students being slightly less racially isolated is because there are fewer of them: only 7% of the district, apparently. This would tend to make it more likely that they would be in a school with many non-black students, than would be the case for groups representing larger percentages of the population.
That makes this story different from the classic old school-desegregation story, like in Boston, where a substantial black minority was deliberately kept separate from the white majority schools. In this San Fransisco district apparently only 15% of the students are white, so when they talk about integration and segregation, it's a new and different story.
It's true, the story doesn't really go into any detail about the level of problems in the district, but there is a strong sense that there is quite a range of more and less desirable schools, and that the current system is not resulting in an even distribution of students, to some extent at least because responsibility for choice is left to the parents, and wealthier, more resourceful parents are better able to explore their choices. You're right, the article doesn't fully clarify all the aspects of what's going on.
4
@David
The largest minority in San Francisco is Chinese. They were not allowed to live outside Chinatown until the mid 1960s, a decade after Willie Mays broke the race covenants in a wealthy neighborhood near West Portal. Many of the Chinese have moved to the western half of the City in the ensuing decades with another large community emerging in the Outer Mission.
Before neighborhood schools were abolished, the Chinese were limited to a couple of elementary schools, one junior high and one high school unless their grades were so exemplary they earned a seat at Lowell, the 100+ year old UC Berkeley feeder school.
Before the shipbuilding boom of World War II the African American population was less than 5%. Many moved into the Western Addition when the Japanese population was rounded up, tagged, and sent to internment camps. Most of the Japanese did not return. Others moved into temporary barracks near Hunters Point, home of the Naval Shipyard. Public housing projects began in the Western Addition and Hunters Point as people remained while the war related jobs disappeared. Samoans have chosen to cluster in Bayview/Hunters Point.
When the lower income Irish were displaced from the Mission when BART was under construction in the late 1960s and early 1970s these vacancies were filled with Filipinos and Latin Americans and resulted in more public housing in this neighborhood and parts of formerly industrial SOMA for these populations.
Caucasians are soon to be minority.
4
The article doesn't mention that one of the reasons Rooftop is coveted is that it is one of the few K-8 public schools in SF.
Another group of highly-coveted schools are the language immersion programs--Chinese and Spanish. Hundreds of parents rank these schools as their top choices and then complain when they don't get any of them. There are parents who tour 18-20 schools; at the other end of the spectrum are parents who don't even understand the lottery and just show up at their neighborhood school on the first day of school to enroll their child--and then learn that's not how it works.
As others have mentioned, it's the PTAs that fund the programs that make the "great" schools great. Some people have proposed having the PTA money go into a pool that would then be distributed equally to all schools, but that idea has been shot down by parents who only want to support their own child's school.
The other troubling dynamic is that of wealthier white parents moving into lower-income SF neighborhoods and then working to "turn around" a nearby school. The intent is good, but the impact often is not, as it typically results in low-income families not getting spots in that school because more white families apply thinking it's a "hidden gem." Also, these schools then lose extra money they received because they had a high percentage of low-income students.
9
@SueThe wealthier white parents apparently care enough to turn the school around. I love all the white bashing in these stories and comments. I guess it's OK these days.
30
@Sue what is the solution to that, then? White families shouldn’t take all the spots at the top choices, but they also shouldn’t take spots at the bottom choices and work to make those schools better?
17
School funding needs to be equalized among all schools nationwide. Funding them locally so that two schools next to each other have vastly different resources is a disaster. Have states send the tax money that they would put toward schools into one big Federal pot, and then let the money from that pot be redistributed to all schools in the nation on an equal basis. Only then can we even begin to disentangle the racist, classist, NIMBY mess that is our US public education system.
5
@Vanyali
If you do that. overall education funding in the USA would plunge. People makes sacrifices for their kids. Other people's kids, not so much.
7
@Vanyali
Money is only one aspect - perhaps the more detrimental aspect is that 'good' teachers want to teach 'good' students, ones that behave, are respectful and curious about learning....and teachers vie for those great classrooms...so the most disadvantaged students probably get the least talent teachers...unions and seniority exacerbate the issue
12
@Cathy I don’t see how you’ll ever change that. Of course teachers will want to teach students who are respectful and want to learn - why wouldn’t they? Don’t we *all* want to work with others who are respectful and engaged?
6
There seems to be a missing detail here... many of the “better” schools are in the western residential neighborhoods. I would think that if you lived in the neighborhoods with “poorer” performing schools and applied to 15 of the average to good western residential neighborhood schools, you would very likely get one of them... and it would probably be a pretty decent school. On the other hand, if you just apply to 15 of the most popular 25 schools, there is a good chance you’ll be out of luck... the language immersion schools are particularly hard to get.
The problem then is if you are “working class” and live in a SE or inner neighborhood it’s really not practical to get your kid to Lafayette, Ulloa, etc. without school busses. You’re certainly not gonna drop your kinder off on a crosstown #5, #38 or N Judah.
8
I went to Lafayette and Ulloa. When cars had big tail fins and no seat belts. When we, even in primary schools , were taught history of other nations.It was a different eon.
8
They tried forced busing when I was 12 years old in Los Angeles. They bussed black kids from Compton up to my school which was all white. It was terrible. There were fights all the time, sports teams became segregated, and teachers didn’t know what to do. Some guy in a cubicle thought this was a cute idea and used 12-year-olds as pawns for their philosophical experiment. This is why Trump got elected in response to failed social engineering policies like this one.
57
No, Trump got elected due to Russian interference.
3
@Brad
I went to SF public schools and was bused from 1st through 6th grade and walked in 7th and 8th. I had a fantastic experience. My son goes to a public school in SF.
If this is social engineering, any system you devise is. Someone has to figure out how where kids go to school and do it so that things are as equitable as possible. Think about it: if there is a school that is better than another, more people will want to go there than the school that is not as desirable and also more than there are seats available. So how does the school district decide? Social engineering?
Failed? I don't think so. Imperfect, yes. Some people have very good outcomes. The majority of families got their first choice. And it is less random than the previous system.
4
This is nonsense. Parents in SF, presumably overwhelmingly liberal, should band together to bring back neighborhood schools. This seems like a lot of effort to yield minimal results.
18
@Ed I was just going to make this comment when I read yours!! AGREED - there's nothing like the community that happens when neighborhood schools are fostered...it's funny too, as it is the most obvious and easiest, most convenient for parents, to do...the kids can play with each other after school, rather than being bussed back to their neighborhood....
7
@Ed
It's not up to the parents or the local school board. It's up to the U.S. Supreme Court.
1
@Cloudy the US Supreme Court hasn’t prohibited neighborhood schools.
4
The NYTimes usually has such great data visualization. I wish this article included some charts to help illustrate the diversity trends. And maybe some trends on distance to the nearest schools.
13
I thought we had to sacrifice everything - including our children - at the alter of “diversity.” Who cares how good the schools are, or how well our children learn, as long as they fail along with children of other races and ethnicities.
32
With enough analysis, studies, tinkering, and money , SF will someday achieve perfect integration of its less than mediocre schools.
Yay...
10
The San Francisco public schools are a disaster. But most urban public schools are a disaster. Huge amounts of money,
tons of idiotic educational bureaucrats, lousy teachers unions protecting the worst teachers, and a school board which cannot tie its own shoes make for a terrible system. I suspect 90% of parents would send their children here to private schools if they could afford it. A few years ago one member of the SF school board's daughter was found stealing money and property from observers at the school board meetings!
Is there any hope for this system? It' hard to see.
23
When white students become a minority in school systems, parents often choose a different system. To achieve desegregation might involve the crazy idea of busing white children from one mainly black school to another black school at least once a day.
9
This just goes to prove that if you allow these liberal Democratic Party bastions to chose schools for their children, segregation and discrimination will be over ...
8
Joe Biden's entry in the presidential race is certainly timely. Didn't he call for the use of helicopters to enforce busing for desegregation?
7
Brought to you by the social engineers in Democratic districts.....
17
Most families, if they can afford to, leave San Francisco when their children reach school age for precisely this reason. If you don't have to, who would want to participate in a government sponsored social experiment when it comes to their children's education? No thanks. It's a shame because San Francisco is a great city to live in for many other reasons.
29
Every school can only be as good as the children attending it want it to be.
And what they want starts at home.
58
Well said
4
Yes, a zip code problem and a poorly constructed lottery system. Our family had the option of moving to San Francisco, an alternative East Bay urban area or the surrounding suburbs when our children were entering elementary school ten years ago. The lottery system uncertainty and the high cost of private schools eliminated SF and we chose a community in Marin county with excellent schools. San Francisco is almost unique in the challenges it faces for schools due to the high cost of living, difficulty of cross-city transport, school funding problems and the failed lottery system. Policy re-writes should focus on improving schools wherever they are (requiring $ allocation and community commitment).
8
In many years of teaching I have NEVER seen good students lift up poor ones. In fact, introducing poor students into better learning environments, generally degrade the environment and penalizes the better students.
As is the case in most education dilemmas, the inconvenient answer is PARENTS.
196
@kaydayjay
And by PARENTS you obviously mean Black and Brown ones, since this is an article about racial integration.
The problem with your anecdotal observations is that they are contradicted by the data which is quite conclusive that racial integration reduces disparities in educational outcomes by every useful measure without reducing the outcomes for previously privileged groups.
The real problem is that by doing so, it also reduces the unfair competitive advantages previously enjoyed by whites (and now some Asian ethnicities).
I am white and was bussed to school at the high tide of integration. It wasn’t without its bumps and difficulties, but it made me a better person and made this country a better place. The rollback of this process, which began at different times in different places, but was generalized by the late 1980s, was a crime for which we are still paying in the form of heightened racial antagonisms. (Joe Biden’s role in this was significant.)
The opposition to integration is about one thing and one thing only — the defense of unfair racial advantages. Don’t listen to anybody who try’s to pretty that up.
16
@kaydayjay
In many years working as a school psychologist in public schools I have consistently seen that good students lift up poor ones. In fact, introducing poor students into better learning environments generally enriches the learning environment and benefits the better students.
As is the case in most education dilemmas, the inconvenient answer is respect for parents and students and providing an enriched educational environment for all students.
12
@Christopher
Racial integration results in white flight and more segregated schools.
21
Back in the seventies, I supported integration through busing. I eventually learned how naive I had been -- busing led to white flight, and the schools ended up even more segregated than they had been.
This kind of social engineering doesn't work, and as others have pointed out in their comments, it doesn't make a difference to student performance, either -- students from disadvantaged families continue to underperform students from more prosperous ones.
Rather than wasting money on facile solutions that hard experience tells us don't work, we should focus on the much more difficult task of increasing the performance of disadvantaged students wherever they go to school.
51
@Josh Hill
The data says you are wrong. The US saw a significant decrease in racial disparities in educational outcomes during the 70s and 80s when busing was at its peak and has seen them rise since integration was widely dismantled.
White flight was a symptom of policies designed to sabotage integration more than it was a cause. The gutting of state and federal support for urban school districts and for busing costs (thanks Biden) drove whites who could afford it to flee the cities far more effectively than the simple prospect of sharing their schools, real though that was.
Bipartisan neoliberal austerity reduced us all to crabs in a bucket. Some escaped the bucket but none of us escaped the coarsening of public life and the lost opportunities to build a better society. The fate of school integration should not be regarded as separate from that process.
5
@Christopher
Boston concluded that bussing was a disaster......
12
@ChristopherSounds like you don't like Joe! Problem is people, white, black, or brown don't want there kids spending hours in busses. Plus bad for environment! AOC would be made at you for suggesting it.
14
SFUSD is a monument to progressive policy failure. As SF's African American population continues to shrink under persistent, insistent gentrification (thank you WLB!), SFUSD test scores stagnate and segregation increases. SF has the lowest % of children under 18 for a city its size and the highest % of kids in private schools. As the parent of a SFUSD middle schooler, attempts to address the real issues are laughable. The esteemed tech leaders have passed out laptops across the district but no one is willing to devote resources to adequately paying teachers and paraprofessionals in the most expensive city in the US. Kids play games on the laptops, while intensive tutoring needed to catch up is neglected. Inadequate numbers of and access to nurses and counselors shortchange kids who come to school with health and social issues that could be addressed to begin to narrow gaps. SF is the new "progressive paradigm"--two systems, inherently unequal. MUNI for the masses, Uber, Lyft and corporate shuttles for the elite. SF General and DPH for the masses, UCSF and CPMC for the elite, SFUSD for the masses and an increasing panoply of highly regarded private schools for the elites (up to $45k in high school). Is this the new coastal progressive model? Race, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion no longer relevant factors as long as you have the Benjamins, but historic and structural barriers restrict access and the diversity of beneficiaries.
42
@jsf
SFUSD was a mess before the progressives arrived. My high school had no lockers, cafeteria, auditorium, girls gym, or doors on most toilet stalls. Toilet paper, if there was any was stuck in wads on the ceiling. Faculty was mostly tenured and graded based on attendance. There was one guidance counselor for the entire school; my graduating class was over 900 students. Because teachers were on strike for much of my final semester, I expanded my after school minimum wage mail room and messenger job to full time instead of facing bored substitutes who knew nothing about the gangs and the district awarded everyone B's on their report card even with excessive absences.
I have noticed that there are lower requirements for graduation than there were in the 1970s and that it is entirely possible to get a diploma without taking US History.
The Mayor and SF Board of Supes will be launching two ballot measures for this fall: $500 Million Bond to provide teacher housing and a change to the City Charter to allow fast tracking this preferred "affordable" housing for City/County/SFUSD employees through the permit approval process.
13
This article includes a handy link to "research" which supports the benefits of diversity. I dutifully clicked and found:
"On the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) given to fourth graders in math, for example, low-income students attending more affluent schools scored roughly two years of learning ahead of low-income students in high-poverty schools. "
So poor kids in richer schools do better than poor kids in poor school. Big surprise. But this does not suggest that "diversity" is better for all kids.
59
@The F.A.D.
It's simple. Rich people don't want to be with poor people and they don't want their rich kids to be with poor kids either.
2
Aeronautical engineering genius with the assistance of computer trickery was supposed to be what was going to make the otherwise naturally unbalanced Boeing 737 Max B theoretically save to fly. Turns our one minor glitch in a little sensor brings the whole plane crashing out of the sky. Why should social engineering be any different?
23
The SF school board is on a path where all schools have standards equal to the very worst school now and all private,home schooled and charter schools are outlawed. Otherwise parents engaged with their kids education will flee. Any integration plan must not involve slowing down the best and brightest kids ever of any race.
32
This sounds great! Let's here in NYC follow their lead and mess up our schools even more than they are!
Most parents of small children need to have them in a convenient location. The best solution would be to raise the quality of schools that are under-achieving. There is no magic in having a minority or poor child sit next to a random white child and it should be seen as racist and insulting to suppose that there is.
64
Yes - beware: Richard Carranza mangled SF public schools when he was in charge here. When superintendent, he stood in front of our elementary school PTA and said he wasn’t interested our comments - SFUSD was there to serve underperforming and minority students, he told us. His way of serving them was ironically to eliminate enrichment, honors programs, anything he felt “entitled” families benefit from.
Almost all families who had the means to leave the public school system in our neighborhood did in the next year - not because of the lotto.
After he caused lasting damage to our schools, he moved on to Houston then NY - avoiding any accountability.
(SFUSD’s mission is to serve all students btw)
35
@Trilby
It’s not magic. It’s the recognition that de facto segregation is stigmatizing for historically oppressed communities and reproduces unfair competitive advantages for historically privileged ones. It’s the recognition that the economic conditions of different communities impact levels of parent involvement and which PTAs can auction off tropical timeshares or private catering to finance extracurricular activities and which ones put kids to work selling candy to repaint the gym.
But that whole flipping the accusation of racism in order to deflect attention from these obvious considerations is some world class gaslighting.
3
Forced desegregation of schools has been failing since the 1970’s. Parents should not be forced to have their children bused to other locations, particularly to low-performing schools, just to facilitate diversity. This practice provides their children no benefit whatsoever.
57
Busing was to fix past actions that created segregated schools. I don't support separate but equal, but I also reject spending money just to create some artificial ratios. Make every school good to great then educate.
19
A winning recipe!
Now to the details: how exactly do you make every school good to great?
2
@vulcanalex
Translation: You actually do support separate but equal.
4
We have mayor control in Boston, New York City, Washington DC, and All of them are segregated districts with minorities attending schools that lack basic tools for learning. Mayor control was suppose to be the magic bullet to ensure opportunities for all children because educators would have a seat at the budget table however when implemented in cities the funding of rich vs poor is obvious the poor are once again the loosers . Nothing ever changes for minorities.
Without an education minorities will always be working four or five low skilled jobs.
Education is a money maker for elites and is no longer under the guidance of educators but white talking heads. The last three decades of ridiculous testing ,funneling money to testing agencies insulting statements by business elites who pretend they care but there actions show that they don’t . They have been , undercutting certified educators,teachers they have created the haves and the have nots. All the money in these cities but there is no money for minority children for school.
Politicians and there minions have
allowed this abomination of education to take place. Minority children don’t matter unless Facebook can make money off of them.
Horrific story of how minorities are treated by the educational system and pretend leaders are upset that citizens do not want to enter the teaching profession. Why, For decades teachers and students have been used and abused by the power elites . Shame on San Francisco
8
Having had a child in the SF public school district for 5 years I’d say the lottery is just one small part of the problem. There are only a handful of very good public schools, and at those schools the parents donate sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars (total) each year to enhance the opportunities at the schools, since the district has cut problems such as art and music. These funds go to pay teachers and aids for more programs. The vast majority of the public schools do not have these extra funds. As noted in an earlier comment the “gifted and talented” track for higher achievers in the district has been eradicated. My child, as a good but not great student, received no attention at all, as teachers had to spend their time supporting kids who needed help the most (understandably so). My child was later diagnosed with ADHD and learning differences only after switching to private school where she received the attention she and ALL students deserve. The public schools just do not have enough resources, teachers, and programs to support the widely different levels of learning needs of all the children in the district.
The problem lies with district policies and funding cuts from the State from Prop 13 not to mention the massive tax breaks that Twitter and other SF corporations receive. That we live amongst thousands of millionaires here, it’s a complete travesty that SF schools are severely underfunded and unable to serve the needs of the small student population here.
79
@RS totally agree. My son attended a highly-rated SFUSD school for two years. The PTA paid salaries for 2 extra classroom teachers for class size reduction. At the beginning of the year, we received a note from school saying that each family would have to raise $500 for the PTA each year in order to maintain the status quo. Last year we moved to Massachusetts and I couldn't believe how many more resources are available here.
10
Apologies for Phone typo: “programs” such as art and music, not “problems”....
1
Articles such as this one never ever ask any of the students who are enrolled what THEY think. All we ever hear from are so-called experts, administrators, and parents. Let’s hear the opinions of the students and some of the teachers who are in the trenches. I have a feeling that they would contradict many of the aforementioned opinions
20
@Kirk Gardner
" ..Let’s hear the opinions of the students.."
Well.. the story did center around Kindergarten so I would expect the "student" opinions would be subjective at best and most likely hyper altruistic and/or somewhat abstract.
9
Never forget that most private schools value diversity and give generous scholarship to poor kids, nearly all of whom are black or latino. In many private schools, including the one my kids attend, as many as 40% of the kids are minorities receiving financial aid. White families don't have a problem with this and actually think it's absolutely wonderful. Why? Because the kids are bright and the parents are highly engaged. That's all we so-called rich white folks want - for our kids to be with other motivated kids from families that value education. We could care less about skin color.
128
@Nb And those that get scholarships have capability to do the work that the school requires, parents who will support them, and good prospects for success. Public schools have none of these criteria.
19
That only works if you segregate by entry level scoring at the very beginning. Which means you will still segregate out the lowest socioeconomic strata.
4
@Nb That's great for those who are wealthy enough to pay tuition or poor enough to qualify for aid, but most families are somewhere in the middle. It's in everyone's best interest that every kid get a shot at a great education.
5
One of the great tragedies of living in SF is the school system and its racial war-zone like existence. Three generations f my family went to SF schools and three generations made it to Lowell HS. But schools have become weaponized as a class/ethnic war extension in the city. Racism remains rampant in this city, and income divisions almost always follow racial lines. The myth of a public school system that supplies a ladder for all to realize the unspoken aim of American life - that children achieve better than their parents - is a crock in the City. When I tried to register my children in a local elementary school two blocks from our home (in the Cow Hollow section) they were assigned to an inner city elementary school that failed to meet any state standards. So we went the private route. The personnel at the school district were almost giddy when we appealed the decision. So education becomes a weapon, and if you are fortunate enough to pay for private tuition you can escape the predicament. Maybe, for once, education could become a community-wide goal without politics? Excuse me, what was I thinking?
44
SF's school situation is a bit less mysterious if you know that the school district has never convinced very many Chinese-American parents that there is any advantage in their children going to a distant school,and that much of San Francisco's historical racism was directed against the Chinese, fostering some distrust of the authorities to this day. It also takes approximately forever to take public transit across town in San Francisco, though ironically you can enter and leave the city altogether much more quickly. Many parents of all ethnicities simply don't trust the safety of their children on those long public bus rides. Now if we only had interracial consensus on what to do about the schools given those factors ...
38
Rooftop School is the most diverse public elementary school in SF. It is one of the few schools that offers buses from communities of color/marginalized neighborhoods. Unfortunately, African Americans and other low income communities of color have been pushed further and further to the fringes of the city and outside of its boundaries. SF is getting whiter and richer and the demands and lifestyles of those folks are driving everything.
5
Wow! The New York Times is certainly playing the race card in Today's edition! I count at least six lead articles that deal with the subject in the usual pot boil manner! Not my Uncle's New York Times, anymore!!!
61
It’s not the old Grey Lady anymore.
18
@Counter Measures
robablyn Probably 95% of the readers of the NYT are white liberals or progressives, the controlling owners are smug wealthy white liberals, and these articles are designed to make the readers look down on 'poor" white folk who hinder the progress of wonderful black and brown people. Of course the readers live miles from integration they so love and send their kids to private school.
19
Integration of all schools, of all facilities that incorporate the genus is commendable. I congratulate all of those who do their best to accomplish this goal.
However, what we need, and it will take many years to evolve, is a national will to care about each other.
These well meaning band aid approaches scratch the surface; what we need is leadership. The sort that pushes unity and understanding.
Certainly what we don't have now.
3
@andy b It was said a long time ago by a famous author. Almost all humans can care about themselves, many about their immediate family, some extended family or tribe. Almost none will sacrifice themselves for the general good.
5
'About a quarter of the city’s children are enrolled in private school, a higher percentage than in some other major cities, like New York, where it is around 20 percent'
This has got to be part of the problem. Both of those numbers seem remarkably high, in Ontario it's only about 2%. Even the US average is much lower at 10%.
4
To be fair, there are very few private schools in Ontario, and the public school funding covers separate, public Catholic schools. Quite a different landscape.
10
"Desegregation" is an Orwellian misnomer. The topic here is enforced diversification. Ending Jim Crow was desegregation. That was terrific. But working to diversify a population isn't ending segregation. It's CREATING diversity.
The mistake is to think it's race that keep cities and places segregated. It's income. Not race. Society is no longer segregated by Jim Crow. It is segregated by income.
So, this initiative is about income and not race. Race is a mask being worn by income. The goal here is to have rich kids and poorer kids attend school together. Elsewhere it is to have to high testing kids go to school with low testing kids.
The idea is that school is an engine of social change,. It is not. Education may be an engine of INDIVIDUAL change, but school/education has no effect on society taken together. the notion that school/education is a tool of social change is a Soviet idea. The idea that learning improves the individual goes back to Socrates.
What is the goal of enforced diversification? It won't end financial segregation outside of school. Kids from different zip codes may go to school together, but only the rich kids will ever be able to buy a house in any zip code they choose. What is the goal here?
52
@Anti-Marx - absolutely correct - I live in a luxury apartment building and several of my neighbors are black - the family down the hall that is black has an apartment much nicer and more expensive than ours, and we're white.
11
@Anti-Marx The goal is to waste money while appealing politically to an idea that you have destroyed. That being individuals don't have equal competency, you assign it by wealth, I don't think it is that simple. After all some bribed their children's way into school, if wealth was it alone that would not have been needed.
3
@Anti-Marx, it is also about race when minorities have disproportionately less wealth. I would imagine that one goal is to reduce bias. The more time we spend interacting with people from different backgrounds, the more accepting of them we become.
1
NYU School of Medicine is now tuition free for students who choose General Practice.
Why can't we offer the same incentive for Ivy League students who'll choose to teach elementary school in wasteland cities like San Francisco?
7
why would you think an Ivy League education equals being a great teacher?
25
Wasteland cities? I’m sorry, but please don’t go there. San Francisco is an amazing place.
12
@Anne Hajduk
Great Question... Prove me wrong!
1
Been teaching 18 years, 2 in SF and 16 in small town Oregon. One of the main challenges of almost every urban public school is managing disruptive student behavior. That was the biggest challenge of the middle school I taught in. If kids come to school ready/able to learn, then most even half-decently run schools can do their job. The endless cycle of inner city poverty and the unfortunate ignorance/depression/lack of faith in self and institutions it creates will never produce many students that are psychologically capable of succeeding in school or life. Those students, sadly, often ruin it for everyone else as well.
247
@Jeff Quite true but it is not just poverty that is the root cause, and if you are poor why would you want to have any children? It is a combination of genetics (not racial ones) and parenting.
17
@Jeff
Why won't anyone openly discuss this issue as you have? It's like the elephant in the room. Everyone knows that no one wants to be with disruptive kids. BTW, what happens to poor white kids?
31
@vulcanalex
How do you fix that.
Doesn't look like rural Tennessee, Kentucky, or West Virginia, all Republican, have fixed the problem.
1
Why isn't every school a great school? That should be the standard. And we should invest accordingly.
16
@Nate Boyd
Why indeed? There's no excuse for San Francisco beggaring schools in its low income and Hispanic and Black neighborhoods. Not only should every school be great, but every student should be above average.
5
@Rob Come now every student can't be "above average", what we need to strive for is a distribution where the average is say B+ with a narrow distribution.
3
Prop 13 @Nate Boyd
I’m a parent of a child entering kindergarten in the fall. I toured 20 schools. I got my second choice school. Most of my peers did not get a school on their list and 1/2 are going to private school and the other half are sticking it out for round two. A few are considering leaving the city. The private schools make you sign a contract and make a deposit before the second round of the public school lottery. They take advantage of the inefficiency of the system.
My experience was that the process is insane, unreasonably time consuming and too uncertain for most families. For example, the applications have to be submitted in person. I had to wait in line. It was like the DMV. What?! It’s 2019. Why?
I noticed how incredible segregated the schools were during my tours. It was nearly impossible to find a school that was both highly ranked and also very diverse-Racially or socioeconomically.
I found that many of the standards by which schools are ranked to be flawed, the information about the quality of the education to be difficult to obtain, and the resources available to the schools to be uneven. One school gets an addition $1m because wealthy parents donate to only that school.
The district needs to get the resources evenly distributed and the quality of the education comprable and use income as a diversifying factor. Maybe then racial diversity problem would solve itself.
34
My last grandchild is at New Traditions. All three of the kids had a wonderful experience there. Their mother works on her day off at the school.
A foolish half-measure anyway. If people want desegregation, the place it has to start is neighborhoods. This will mean giving non-white people equal employment opportunities as white people. And upgrading the schools in poor neighborhoods, improving family stability, dozens of other things. Put non-white people on equal standing with white people, able to afford the same neighborhoods, and schools will be desegregated naturally. Anything else just won't work.
10
This article is so confusing that it basically functions as a projective test. In other words, what you come away with says more about you than what is actually happening. What exactly does Cinthya's story illustrate? What was the problem with where she ended up from a "diversity" perspective? Is it just that there were not enough white kids? Keep in mind that the entire system is only 15% white. Is the real problem that there were too many black kids? When there is parental choice and a randomizing algorithm, how is it reasonable to expect the racial composition of each school to precisely mirror the exact percentages of the city as a whole? Is that even desirable? If we expect schools to be that way, why do we let people live in racial enclaves? Should apartment buildings be "desegregated" to mirror a city's make-up? Why don't we have racial quotas for every profession? We seem to only be interested in diversity that is skin deep. We don't accept that different people might have different preferences and make different choices.
41
@The F.A.D.:"Is the real problem that there were too many black kids? "
The demographic breakdown is given in the article. The African-American students make up 7% of the student population.
5
@Jp I am referring to the poor performing school that Cinthya ended up at.
10
@The F.A.D.: We had a busing plan forced on the Detroit Public School system. The system was about 25% white. The Federal Courts ruled that each public school would reflect the demographic makeup of the overall student population.
This was all done in the name of what today is called "racial justice".
Think about that one for a while.
10
Family culture and the importance of working hard in school from parents appears to be the driving force in schools.
Uninvolved or less interested parents do not call the teachers, read as much with their children, or give them the same opportunities as parents who have the time and/or money to push their kids to be better.
Compare Asian students in almost any district in NJ to any other group- they stand out and excel, whether their parents are working 12 hour days in blue collar jobs or if they're wealthy. It is the home's culture that drives students.
106
@mainesummers
I was in the Caucasian minority at a SF public high school. The majority were Chinese. It is a myth that Asian students are high achievers and their parents are of the tiger mom variety. One of the first things I learned when I transferred into this high school was Asian gang identification, even before learning where toilets were. I made certain to get out of the hall when there were opposing clusters of different colored jackets. The year after I graduated they had an on-campus shootout and a couple of years later one gang was involved in the Golden Dragon Massacre.
7
When was this?
My kids are in the SF schools now and your reminisces don’t resemble much of what my peers and I are seeing.
6
Having visited SF again recently and witnessed first hand the joys of traffic congestion and gridlock that is the Bay Area, there’s really only one solution: direct and efficient school bus transportation to address the core issue of segregation, esp. the economic and racial divide.
This problem of ‘academic segregation’ plagues the entire country and quite frankly, it’s unconscionable in 21st century America.
Best to fix the current model in SF rather than overhaul the system completely only to exacerbate the issue at hand.
Fix the transportation issue, limit the number of choices, improve the quality of education in each school and introduce and enforce district-wide standards, which will entice middle and upper-middle class parents to send their children to these schools in the process.
America’s diversity is its strength. What better place to tackle this centuries-old issue than the innovation HQ of the world.
4
My daughter starts in SFUSD kindergarten in the Fall. We have the so-called golden ticket and picked a popular school, but not the most coveted one. Like many across the socio-economic spectrum, we still had to pick a school that worked with our schedules and commute.
Rooftop, featured in this article, was my favorite school that we visited. It is wonderful and actually pretty diverse. Test scores are in the middle. The school we chose, which has excellent parent involvement, has pretty low test scores. We decided that test scores should not be the deciding factor. English learners don't do as well as they could on the tests because they are still learning English (tests are in English). It is not a reflection of the teaching quality.
What isn't mentioned in this article and is super important is that in the wealthier parts of the city, the PTA raises as much as $500k a year (that's how one k-5 got a science lab and a kiln) and the schools in lower income districts raise as little as $18k. The under-resourced schools do get the Title 1 money (more literacy teachers), but instead of busing or lottery choice, perhaps there should be some fundraising sharing. That could entice gentrifiers who think their neighborhood school won't pass muster and make things better for the lower income neighbors.
Even with PTA and Title 1 money, SFUSD is way under-resourced because Prop 13 froze property taxes and the state won't do what it takes to increase the tax base.
20
@Deborah Giattina
SFUSD has been under resourced since before Proposition 13. There is immense waste in Administration and this has been the case for more than sixty years. My aunt was Director of Pupil Services for decades.
8
It would be far worse had he plan not be implemented
"Those who defend the current system point out that 79 percent of black parents, 79 percent of Filipino parents and 61 percent of Hispanic parents received their first-choice kindergarten for next fall, compared with 48 percent of white parents"
This is progress over the indefensible US model to finance local schools with local property taxes. It guarantees segregation by income - that in the US translates to race.
NO other advanced Western Country uses such a system. It is a system that comments inequality starting at the age of three
More equal systems are easily found. E.g. in Germany schools are soley under the direction of the States. Teachers can NOT be hired by individuals schools. The only can be hired by the States Ministry of Culture, that then assigns those teachers Statewide in such manner that schools are academically as equally as possible - regardless where they are located
The US needs to move to the Nordic model. Vote for those, in 2020, who run on it.
4
@Lars
Agreed.
Instead of allowing kids to go to other schools, lets fix the schools so they all meet the level of the best schools.
And that is similar to what the board president, Stevon Cook, was quoted saying at the end of the article.
We are the richest industrial country on the planet GDP / capita and yet we have some terrible schools.
The Danes can do it, why can't we.
There is no excuse.
4
@Lars
Sounds like white people are being discriminated against since less than half get their first choice. of course there aren't many of them left - especially the half that don't get their first choice.
7
I make sure my kids do well when they attended a blue ribbon school. And I make sure my kids do well now that they are attending an underperforming school. The school matters some but not that much. As long as environment is safe, my kids will thrive.
The effort the parents in the articles take to get their kids into high ranking school is a waste of time. What really matter is what goes on at home.
14
@Phong
Agreed.
So how do we fix that?
It is in my best interest to fix it.
If I don't want to pay to fix that problem, I will be paying for welfare, police, courts, and prison.
Not to mention the opportunity cost of getting people educated, working and paying taxes.
And educated doesn't necessarily mean a college degree. Trades are also needed and well paying.
1
@Phong
I sat next to a high school counselor on a plane trip and I vividly remember him telling me, "Show me a crazy kid, and I'll introduce you to his crazier parents every time."
You are right, it does start at the home, but too many parents work full time jobs or there are too many single parent families. We need strong public schools to help carry the load.. Notice I said help "carry the load.." Not "raise my child" .. There's a big difference.
Too many selfish parents expect the school districts to do everything --
12
@Phong You are absolutely correct Phong, the future of our children depends on the examples and rules set by parents at home insuring the necessary work is done to compete in this insanely competitive world, when I last lived in San Francisco I routinely saw Asian kids from the tenderloin( a tough neighborhood) excelling due to the hard work they put in; sixty plus years ago lots of us whether at Lowell in the city or San Mateo High, both of which I believe were among the top ten in the country at the time, could afford to goof off, play sports, have a part time job to support a car and take your best girl to a movie and have a social life, be a kid in other words, those days are gone: to get into top colleges today you not only have to have a 4.0 or better but enough extra curricular to boost you to 4.2. Good luck Phong, I have a feeling your children will do very well thanks in no small part to you.
10
Those schools should be closed. No student ought to be in such an inferior school.
The solution is not busing students into bad schools. It is closing bad schools.
A lottery to see who gets stuck with poor education is not a solution, no matter who loses the lottery.
16
@Mark Thomason Ironic isn’t it in a city overflowing with newly minted mega rich twenty somethings and trillion dollar companies like Apple, Google and Facebook yet the taxes paid are insufficient to support decent schools, housing and healthcare for the rank and file. I believe it’s called inequality Mark.
10
And where will the kids go when you have closed the school and all other schools are full?
8
@Mark Thomason
SFUSD has closed bad schools, torn them down and rebuilt them. The resulting new schools have been as bad or worse than what was originally demolished. One comes to mind and it is named after a former Mayor who termed out of office in both the State Legislature and State Senate. He moved to California from Texas and has the old part of the SF-Oakland Bay Bridge named after him.
4
What a shock... the law of unintended consequences applies to liberal governing efforts. Great example of how good intentions only take you so far when individual humans are able to make decisions in their best interest that negates the intended benefits of government policy. All those good, wealthy white liberals talk a good game until it comes time to subject themselves and their families to the policies they advocate for others. Then it's every man for themselves.
47
I think you miss the point - the policy itself exacerbates the problem it was originally meant to solve, in part because the facts on the ground changed over time (eg, cutbacks in busing and the unstated issue that development and the collapse of the old freeways has made getting around the city difficult). No one is suggesting that people don’t respond to incentives, the question is how to design those incentives to nudge people’s self interested behavior in a way that achieves the desired outcome.
4
@Ryan
What a shock! Conservative policy prescriptions based on a naive trust in individual responsibility and personal choice results in those with the most privilege getting more of what they want.
Also, please note that the city and school district have not included the kinds of additional support (like transportation, before- and after-school programs, etc.) to make choice work.
Would you prefer bussing for integration, or a straight up lottery?
3
@Ryan
Show me where Republicans have fixed this problem.
Go look at the results of Betsy DeVos' charter schools in Michigan.
Worse grades and private companies making a profit.
Republicans don't even pretend they want to fix the problem. Just private profit.
11
OK, a law of freedom of choice systems---follow the money---as we have seen with the recent college admissions scandal--unless you are willing to truly step in a force integration---parents will always find work arounds, which magically end up with rich schools/poor schools.
1
Many high income families didn't want their children sent to failing public schools. That doesn't make them elitist as the poor want the same thing for their children. Money talks and excuses take the bus.
That's the reality of it and it's not good or bad. It just. Is.
34
Educated parents know how to put an application package together, they know to get it in early, and they know to check it twice, to make sure everything is filled out and to follow up to ensure it was received
All of that matters
We are working on college applications now and you know what the private schools do? They make sure theirs are submitted by 9/1. Not 11/1, not 1/1. They are first in the hopper.
13
I’m surprised this is not mentioned here, but it is precisely because of these issues that many parents move to the suburbs when their kids hit school age. That was true of myself and many other similarly situated friends of mine. This is a big part of the reason why SF has the lowest percentage of kids of any major city in the US. To give an example, I had a neighbor when I lived in SF that like me had three kids, and they were in three different schools in three different parts of the city, causing him to have an extraordinarily complicated morning dropoff routine that took him about two hours to complete. My wife and I just wanted to be somewhere where the kids could go to the school down the street and we would know it was a good or at least ok school. Given the astronomical price of housing and the high property taxes that flow from that, that shouldn’t be too much to ask, but so it goes...
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@Michael
Very true. However, I think the school down the street in SF is probably not as bad as you think it is. I went to SF public schools in the 1990 and early 2000s. I'm white and was a minority in every school. My high school offered many AP courses, sports and prepared me moderately well for college. I think fear of being a minority is very real for many White Americans.
8
No, it is the vast difference in quality among different elementary schools. Where we lived in Diamond Heights, we had an area preference in the lottery for two elementary schools: one that was rated 10/10 on greatschools.org and another that was rated 2/10. If you look around the city, you see that variation. Also my kids are mixed race, so are not white anyway. I really just wanted a good school for them, that was it, not that complicated.
22
Here is the 4th option. My husband and I knew how impossible the school situation is in SF and left long before even having kids specifically for that reason.
46
The problem has been the plight of San Francisco's schools for many years, if not decades. I know because I lived and went to school there. It is correct to say that a neighborhood's socio-economic status determines the caliber of teachers and programs in a given school, so the obvious solution is to make sure ALL public schools meet the same standards of instruction, and frequently evaluated by a independent organization. And no decision should be based on political self delusional ideas, as the article clearly shows. The road to solving the obvious problems begins by appointing well informed community educators and parents to the board of education, not someone with political aspirations. Next, the hard decision must be made to attract, select and retain teachers who are qualified and experienced to teach a common curriculum, this means that salaries and bonuses must reflect success in the classroom. Also, teachers should spend less time dealing with problems of behavior or learning disabilities best handled by the medical community. A sobering thought is to recognize that the gentrification of former residential neighborhood, such as La Mission or the Sunset district, contribute to the perception of what a quality education means. The time has come for working class residents of the city to demand all public schools educate their children equally.
7
It isn't the teachers...it's the parents...schools cannot equalize insecure housing, lack of English in the home, lack of food in the home, lack of books in the home, parents who aren't around for family dinners and to read to their children, parents who won't/can't/don't partner with teachers on behavior.
52
Friends in Oakland point to how the lack of (free) school bus service not only creates a hellish carbon footprint by the school district and many private schools, but also contributes to inequity and segregation in its schools. For example, without a car, it currently could take a parent using public transport more than an hour or two, ONE WAY, to get a child to or from school, particularly to and from the better schools in the district, which also tend to be located in more upscale neighborhoods that often are even less well served by public transport since residents in those immediate areas most likely have and use their own vehicles to get around.
The lottery system without aid of free and direct school bus service serves middle and, especially, upper class families pretty well and allows them to live in less expensive areas but still have their kids attend the better public schools (such as they are). But without one's own car, the money to operate it, and the time to spend driving to and from areas across town and sometimes up massive hills that other states would describe as mountains, families are usually stuck in their "neighborhood" school, regardless of quality. The problem's made worse by OUSD allowing children of parents who no longer live in the school district, and may not even work in the district, to continue attending top OUSD schools that are so popular that even families for whom it is their neighborhood school are turned away and forced to go elsewhere.
16
@Mama Yes. Rooftop school featured here is one of the few that has buses (just 2) from across town and the neighborhoods where there are fewer options. It is the most diverse elementary school in the city because of it.
5
I live in SF, and my children attend one of the most diverse public schools in the city. Our school community- parents, administrators, teachers- embrace this diversity as a fundamental strength, even as we all acknowledge the challenges that it brings. The more differences in learning styles, social/emotional needs, and family supports/expectations, the harder it is for a resource-poor program (as are all public schools) to meet all of those needs. Despite these challenges, our community is unified in our commitment to try as hard as we can, however we are able, to uplift the community as a whole, and that is why chose to stay in the system rather than going to a private or suburban school.
The same worldview drives the educators and parents that push the desegregation “agenda,” which is that promoting diversity teaches children how to understand the needs of others who are different from them. It’s not just about test scores, or achievement gaps, or politics- it’s about creating more compassionate, empathetic children who will become leaders that unite, rather than divide, communities.
Even as the specific policies may have fallen short of achieving the goal (due to a number of complex factors articulated partially in this article) the goal itself of diversity- providing opportunities, exposing children to worldviews beyond their own narrow family, and bringing together groups who would otherwise never mix- is worth fighting (and devising active policies) for.
10
My grandchildren attended New Traditions and the two oldest are at Hoover.
They gave parents more choices??
There’s their first mistake... Attempting to please everyone does not work...
10
@William B. I don't think any parent of a school-age child in San Francisco would characterize the system as giving us "more choice." It's an incredibly time-consuming, difficult, and frustrating process to apply for public schools here, and it rarely yields the desired results for families.
1
How does the SF school district decide which neighborhoods have “low test scores” if no one is going to school by neighborhood? Clearly, “low test scores” is a euphemism for something else but they can’t say that, so they get “gentrifiers” who benefit from the district’s policy of giving preference to families from these “low test score” neighborhoods. I’ve never understood why family income isn’t used as a basis to diversify schools. If income is used, you’ll help low-income kids of all colors. And it’s low-income kids who need help the most.
21
@Really? "How does the SF school district decide which neighborhoods have “low test scores” if no one is going to school by neighborhood?"
Probably by looking at the residential addresses of the students.
3
We live within 5 minutes walking distance of two public elementary schools, and the fact that we’re unlikely to get into them means we’re moving. We’re an “affluent” family (ie the enemy according to this article), but we both work, we can’t afford a $3 million house in SF, and we’re not paying $30K a year for private school. All I want is for my kids to get the best education they can possibly get, and I would happily send them to public school if SF didn’t enforce this insane lottery system that everyone hates.
This city is broken.
280
I’m glad you have highlighted this issue that has been ongoing for far too long. This system has been a catastrophe, yet the city and voters have continued to double down on it year after year. This piece articulates what many have been observing all along: that the system fails to promote diversity and overall quality while at the same time weakening the public schools and compelling many families to leave for private school who otherwise would have preferred to stay and devote their considerable resources (both energy and money) back into the system. The contrast is clear when compared to neighboring areas with strong public school systems. Hopefully this article helps move the needle.
11
We started our child out in a magnet program in a lower income neighborhood. We believed that parents would be choosing the school based on the program and would be excited and engaged. Nope, the vast majority of the families choose the school because it was the closest to their home. Transportation was not an issue since the city provides full transportation options for all schools. There is nothing wrong with that but it was pretty clear that the whole concept of school choice, evaluating different programs, etc. just was not something these families could really wrap their heads around. School was school for them.
14
Good schools are the goal, not a perfect mixture of creed and race. This is where liberalism, in its egalitarian spirit, causes more harm than good.
47
This is a tough topic. Growing up white and middle class in the deep south in the nineties, I went to school with kids bused in from the projects. It was awful. So many of the kids from the projects were violent and disruptive, and the classrooms were chaotic. I was painfully shy, and so, so many of these students tormented me. The only escape from the constant bullying and occasional death threats were the honors classes I eagerly signed up for.
As an adult I have sympathy for the poor kids. I can’t imagine their home lives. But as a twelve year old, I just remember feeling afraid and wishing they wouldn’t torment me. I would never, ever, under any circumstances send my children to schools like the ones I went to. The schools I went to growing up are now segregated again, busing proving a failure. I don’t know what the solution is. This is indeed a tough topic.
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And San Francisco has also done away with honors classes for middle school because “they are inherently inequitable.” There is no respite for students who want to learn.
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Same situation in Detroit in the 1970s and 1980s. By the 1990s, well it was a moot point. This was years before Betsy DeVos or the mortgage meltdown.
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I wish the NY Times had included the details about Carranza ending the honors classes in middle school. That was a huge reason why we pulled our daughter out of our local SF public school and opted for private middle school. Its a race to the bottom.
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Segregated schools flow from segregated neighborhoods. And therein lies the problem: We choose where we live and we typically choose to live near people who are like us. Always have. No amount of social engineering is going to change that. The only real solution is to make all of the schools equal, and in San Francisco- and in most places-they are not. Like "LM" we moved out of the city when it was time for kindergarten. The lottery is a disaster. Parents want certainty and for what we pay for housing and taxes, we should get it.
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@AJ:"The only real solution is to make all of the schools equal, "
I used to say that. It was labelled "separate but equal". Ring a bell?
1
@AJ
> We choose where we live and we typically choose to live near people who are like us.
That’s not true of San Francisco though. Housing prices differ by neighborhood.
This issue shares many similarities with illegal immigration.
Rather than address the problem at its root which is making people flee their homes for greener pastures, some people would simply like to make that flight easier.
That is treating the symptoms, not the cause.
15
Making kids sit on a bus in traffic all morning and afternoon when there is already a school next store is tantamount to abuse. A recent report revealed that kids are now spending over eight hours a day sedentary. This is physically and mentally harmful. It makes it harder for kids to pay attention in class, it sets them up with bad habits for life, and in a country with roughly 20% childhood obesity rate, it literally kills. Sedentary habits and obesity literally result in smaller brains. Kids should be spending as much time as possible in the classroom learning or outside playing, not sitting on a bus in SF traffic.
Instead of shipping kids all over the city, improve their neighborhood schools, pay the money it takes to hire and retain good teachers and counselors, and investigate programs to help intervene in at-risk homes.
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Google "Judge Roth Detroit Public Schools desegregation 45 minutes one way kindergarten".
And there's no dog whistle to it.
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While I have met a few SF parents who opted out of the public school system after missing out on their top choices, the vast majority of people I meet love their elementary school. The parents who generally opt out are essentially only comfortable with sending their kids to schools with few black and Latino students. People always figure out a way to game the system. When I was growing up in the 1980's, it was common for white families to fake addresses in the Richmond and Sunset district to gain a placement in the Westside schools. If they create a new system, segregation will persist and other types of unintended consequences will arise.
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@Brendan
It's middle school when people seem to opt out.
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The bottom line....many of the middle, upper middle and the wealthy classes have the means to send their children to private schools which have very high academic standards. They do not want their children's education sacrificed in the name of diversity, integration, desegregation etc. They also have the means for all kinds of extra rewarding educational experiences outside of the normal school day that lower class parents cannot afford for their children. There is the pervasive feeling that integration means lower standards....the simple solution is private schools where academics are fantastic and also their children can be with their "own kind."
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@SMA I don't know about CA but here in Mpls and in NYC where I grew up, particularly in progressive independent schools like my kids Episcopal school, there is real student diversity because there are very robust scholarship programs. My kids private school is way more diverse both racially and socioeconomically than the public schools in the nice parts of Mpls and so much more than in the affluent suburbs. So you get diversity - so long as the kids speak English and can keep up academically.
15
My grandchildren, now in high school, attended one of the more desirable elementary schools participating in the SF lottery. It was within walking distance of their home, in an expensive neighborhood. We were amazed when the lottery "picked" our granddaughter, thus, btw, guaranteeing her brother's eventual admission as well.
The sad reality was that once past kindergarten or first grade, there was virtually no social interaction between the "rich" kids and the "poor" kids. My grandchildren's parents tried, but were unwilling, understandably in my opinion, to drop their kids for a playdate in a disturbingly common situation, where the adults were drinking or sacked out on the couch, dead to the world. The kids from these homes were equally uncomfortable out of their usual environments. Friendships dwindled, and by third grade or so, there was essentially no real contact between the 2 groups.
By 5th grade, with middle school on the horizon, my grandchildren were attending private schools, where they have remained.
I don't have any answers to the rampant inequalities, and it seems that no one else does either. But, the SF lottery model clearly doesn't work.
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I hope progressives will learn from this mistake and never attempt to use a lottery system as a means to resolve other issues like healthcare reform.
14
My question is: how much of the current system's design in San Francisco was overseen by Carranza, who is now head of the NYC school system. There is an awful lot in this article to be very concerned about. And I've not been impressed by him overall.
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Excellent question and one that should be noted—-in SFUSD is was paid 345,000 a year but left a year after receiving a $65, 000 raise. Besides his pay, their were questionable decisions about his personal gains after replacing all furniture in the Preschools. It is believed that his company was in charge of the bid. He lasted a year in Houston. As for his improving equity in SFUSD it seemed he left before even seeing results.
As for my school that I teach at...I love it. I hear so many negative statements about my school even , though there are incredibly talented educators and we outscored the district average with our math improvement. This article misses a lot of important details such as what is funded by a school site versus district wide, where the 4000 students are bused from and how the importance of the educators.
11
@aging New Yorker Carranza ended the Gifted and Talented program as well as Honors classes in middle schools here in SF. Both of those programs were disproportionately white and Asian, so, rather than fixing them he and the school board eliminated them entirely, which of course has prompted more white flight (myself included). Now it seems he has moved on to trying the same thing with your specialized schools in NY. Good luck!
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@SF PUBLIC SCHOOL Teacher
Oh no..."their"? I laughed, I cried.
3
I want nothing more than to spend the rest of my life living in San Francisco. But complications related to school placement is indicative of a larger issue: that it's a very difficult place to raise small children. From a lack of changing tables to preposterously expensive preschool, unless you're rich or low income, San Francisco effectively encourages you to flee the city, with top notch public schools right over the water. For many years, dogs have outnumbered children. And after seeing this play out over decades of policy, it's apparent that this is purposeful.
41
The large reason for segregation in SF is based on income. Families who can easily afford to live in the city send their children to private schools or parochial schools. These families have more resources and their children typically perform well on standardized tests. Those with means but have grown tired of the SF have exited for better housing and schools (Marin, San Mateo and Contra Costa counties). What is left in the depleted SF public schools are students from low income families and students from immigrant families (legal and illegal). Its socioeconomic segregation.
24
In a city as racially-diverse as SF, I don’t understand why sending a child to a school in his or her district wouldn’t work. There is affordable housing available in the wealthy sections of the city (although in SF, wealth is concentrated in certain neighborhoods.
And then there is the matter of the overall quality, or lack thereof, of CA public schools. When we lived there, we opted for Danville, a SF suburb. We chose Danville not because we had children (we didn’t) but because resale values were higher in districts with good public schools, and Danville fit that bill.
Until CA does something to improve education at ALL of its public schools, efforts like this one are doomed to fail. And I don’t think busing kids 30 or 40 miles to school is a good idea anyway. It interferes with quality of life.
Focus on improving your public schools CA. This has been a problem for decades, and politicians have buried their collective head in the sand.
10
You must know that CA has the highest class size, no nurses in many schools, and no librarians. Schools here have been underfunded for many years and one in four of our kids live in poverty.
Show me a family that puts Education as their top priority - above Religion, above Money, above Country, above Family - and I'll show you children who do well in school (barring learning disabilities of course). I have proved this to myself, hands down, without a shred of doubt, over the last 20 years.
One test: just go to your local library Saturday book fair and see who shows up.
47
What would you be able to “see” at the
Library!
This story is a perfect example of abdication of government responsibility to individual choice and an algorithm.
Reminds me of political scientist Ted Lowi's classic observation in his book "The End of Liberalism":
“Liberal governments cannot plan. Planning requires the authoritative use of authority. Planning requires law, choice, priorities, moralities. Liberalism replaces planning with bargaining. Yet at bottom, power is unacceptable without planning.”
7
SF school lottery is terrible and causes real stress, but this article glosses over some big points. If you wait through the round 5 (which takes place just after school starts) you have a good chance of getting your school. My daughter got a school we ranked as 14th in the 1st round--we wanted our neighborhood school. The process was difficult: there is no online support, you have to show up midday at the school district's office to drop off subsequent forms or get answers, you get stonewalled on information, and it is stressful for parents and children to start a Kindergarten knowing you may transfer after a week or so (and trying to arrange for after school care without wanting to commit to a long term arrangement). But when the school starts many kids that registered just aren't there--over the spring and fall families move out of the city, or opt for private schools, and there is 0 incentive to inform the school district about such changes. When school starts classes are frequently missing students and students switch schools in a domino effect in the fifth round. For us that meant a call the second week of school telling us our daughter was now enrolled in our local school and to show up within 2 days. She had to say a quick goodbye to the teacher she liked and the friends she was starting to make, which was hard, as was not having met kids at the play dates at the local school. But now we walk 10 minutes to school instead of driving 20.
32
Stevon Cook, the board president, said “We should pour more into those schools to make them attractive.”
Well said.
Often as a start, we address the symptom because that is faster than fixing the problem.
The real problem is poverty and, worse, poor schools in poor neighborhoods.
This doesn't happen in those "terrible socialist" countries like Denmark.
5
@Independent Denmark is majority white and protestant. It has fewer immigrants than the US and a low population in general. Makes a big difference. Also the corruption level there is much lower than here. We pay more per student then any other industrialized nation and yet our results are abysmal. Also local schools are not socialist. They are run by local boards and the feds don't control them. Also, Denmark isn't socialist.
12
@Moira Rogow
So how do we fix it?
If they can do it, why can't we?
At one time we were in front of those countries.
I do understand they are social democrats but I was quoting Republicans.
This is the typical, hugely complicated mess that liberals usually make when they get their chance to re-engineer society.
These people have created a system that has young children having to be driven clear across a large city into neighborhoods they have no connection to. What a fundamentally dumb idea, which creates so many other problems such as:
1) the strain on working families to get their kids clear across the city in the morning and late afternoon...
2) the eventual call for city-provided bussing, which is of course a huge expense
3) young children sit in cars and busses for an hour or more each day, instead of playing and being kids (a huge loss at that age)
4) kids don’t make friends with the kids of their neighborhood, because who knows where their fellow classmates live, which means less interactions with friends in evenings, weekends, etc.
5) Making parents go through a massive gauntlet of terribly complex and depressing red tape, just to get their 5 year old in school
6) it continues to allow the city and its liberal government from dealing with the real problem, which is ineffective schools in low income neighborhoods....or admitting that maybe it’s not the school that’s the problem!
THE REAL SOLUTION: Kids go to their neighborhood schools, often just a few minutes away. Then work on bringing underperforming schools up as much as possible!
104
My friend’s daughter takes the bus from SF to her private school on the Peninsula. Her school friends live all over the city and the Peninsula. A long bus ride and scattered friend group aren’t so traumatic, when part of a prestigious exclusive school experience.
1
@Jon in Washington, D.C.
You wrote that the solution is to “stop this fixation on desegregation and focus your attention on the single mothers bringing more dysfunctional kids into the world.”
Why is the blame and responsibility placed on the single mother? Why is it the woman’s problem? Where is the father in your equation?
There was a man who impregnated and left her to birth and raise a child alone, often without any further contact, interaction or support. It seems that as a man you don’t think you are responsible for a child by virtue of the fact that you aren’t the one who carries the baby in his body for 9 months. But that is the ONLY difference between the two people who caused the pregnancy. Men and women are equally to blame for a pregnancy. Until men stop thinking pregnancy, children and family responsibilities are a woman’s problem, we are doomed to keep creating these dysfunctional destitute people in perpetuity.
16
Ok. This is 2019 and people still think its the gov't problem to solves if your kids fail. No its the families/parents for not promoting the culture in their private home that edcation is the key to success. It doesn't matter if you put a kids in a top notch school when the parents don't keep up with the school curriculum. Teacher cannot spend all of their time with one student, so please parents do your job! that mean have both parents in the house!
34
There are other problems to SF's lottery system, too. The uncertainty around knowing which school your kid will attend is an issue. People who are mobile are reluctant to leave their kids' academic options up to chance; they will move to the suburbs for schools that aren't necessarily better, but at least they know what they're getting.
The ranking system is so complex that it takes a certain understanding of game theory to do it well. If your top choices are everyone's top choices, you might be better off ranking your 2nd tier choices at the top, for instance.
There's also the issue of lack of community. Schools are a major source of community building, not just for kids but their entire families as families meet each other through their kids. Strong communities are important. But if students are from all different areas of the city, it's harder to establish community.
29
In my town, students are assigned to a cluster of elementary schools. One may apply to any school in that cluster, which is not a geographic cluster - schools in it may be on opposite sides of town and are highly diverse, racially and economically. Transportation is provided for ALL students.
The Supreme Court struck down school assignment based on race several years ago; now it is based on the education and economic level of the parents. All schools must meet the percentage guidelines for this.
And what has been the result? The best performing schools are now being ranked as being "provisional" due to the number of students whose parents chose to have them go out of their neighborhood and are not doing well academically at these elementary schools. The principal of the one my grandchildren attended told me that their school did an outstanding job educating 90% of their students; it was that bottom 10% that they had trouble reaching.
According to teachers and my own grandchildren, many of that bottom 10% had serious problems with poor socialization, impulse control, and in many cases, very limited ability. It's asking a lot of any teacher to try to engage the brightest in the class and still serve those who are struggling just being in school at all.
Schools can only do so much. Parents must prepare their children for school, socially. And those who need extra help will not magically become high achievers just by sitting next to those who are.
28
One of the unintended consequences of this system, I am sure, is that kids are not longer living in neighborhoods with their kids from school, so unless the parents are making real efforts at getting them here and there around the city in the evening and on weekends, kids aren't seeing their friends outside of school as much. Chicago also has a complicated system; it's a mix of applications (random selection & test-based selection), with some element of zoning thrown in, although everyone is also zoned into a neighborhood school they can choose to enroll in. We chose the neighborhood school, because we wanted our kid to have a community where we live. Instead, we realized that very few of the kids at his school live in our neighborhood - they all selected the school from elsewhere, and the parents in this neighborhood send their kids to better schools (private, or selective enrollment). This is only one of the reasons we are moving, but it's a big one. We don't want to drive our kid across the city to go to school, we don't want the neighborhood kids to be strangers (they know each other, because many of them go to the two nearby private schools we can't afford). I really dislike this system, and we are done with it.
26
25 years ago I taught elementary school at a "good" public school in Noe Valley. Most of the children lived in the neighborhood which at the time was not as unaffordable as it is today, but many were bused to school from Visitation Valley, The Mission and Hunters Point. Most of the bused kids took public transportation which I thought was a tough burden to place on a young child. The school had typical behavior problems but the school was diverse, the teachers were committed and capable and the parents were involved. I think the difference now is that parents place more emphasis on getting into the "right school". It was a great environment for the kids. If the pay was more than 29k I might have stay more than a few years.
17
The relationship between school integration and education is akin to the relationship between flagpoles and tadpoles. That is to say, they are essentially incidentally related and statistically orthogonal. Students who are motivated and supported generally do better than the rest. The motivation and support is essentially the job of the home. The school provides a vessel for students who come prepared to do the work of learning.
37
My daughter went to one of the higher ranked elementary public schools in SF that is well integrated racially and socioeconomically, but the problem is that the kids who come from lower socioeconomic homes, or homes where English is not their native language those kids did not perform as well as the children from more educated families . The teachers as well as the PTA dedicated lots of resources and went out of their way to help these students with additional assistance before school, as well as buying materials they could take home, etc. One of the biggest problems is the three month summer break, children from more educated households continue to read, attend camps, travel and learn over the break while many of the other children are in daycare or in front of a TV. When the fall comes many of those kids have fallen behind and much of the progress that was made the prior year is gone. These kids take longer to get up to speed and the gap widens as the years go by. It's time we look at the school year and perhaps change this. It was set according to the agricultural season but it's no longer relevant to most Americans.
The school my daughter went to was an ideal scenario where the community was working together to bring up the scores of all of the students. There were many things the PTA did and funded to make it more equitable, but there are other factors outside of school that need to be addressed.
228
I have seen in some poor city neighborhoods that Catholic schools are a better alternative than public schools.
Why can they do it but public schools cannot?
And I haven't seen that option in poor rural areas.
20
@Independent Two reasons - parents are involved if they decide on Catholic schools and if they dont behave there is the real fear they will be kicked out.
21
Definitely a system that is not working as intended. While I do not live in SF, I have many friends who do. All of them send their children to private schools. They basically said that is the price of living in SF due to the current lottery system.
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I can't believe the NY Times didn't have one mention of the history of current NYC DOE chancellor Richard Carranza as superintendent of SFUSD and how caused an educational crisis by eliminating Algebra in middle schools there.
Carranza was also very happy to send his daughter to an academically rigorous school, Lowell HS which in recent years has admitted few black students but now claim NYC's specialized high schools are segregated and must have racial quotas.
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@Nicholas Carranza is an excellent guitar player! Educator, not so much!!!
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@Nicholas
What do you expect. He wants to dumb down everything so every one is equal - except his daughter.
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When with progressive activists leave us alone? They changed one system for another and now since this isn’t working to their contrived satisfaction it too must be changed.
People will not experiment with their kids’ education and as we see in the article it’s not only white parents that refuse to experiment.
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My daughter goes to kindergarten in San Francisco, so I'm familiar with the lottery system. It worked OK for us, we were able to get our first choice in the second round.
The lottery system is an attempt at band-aiding a situation that should be solved systemically. It's great that students that would normally (based on neighborhood schools) go to an underperforming school have the option of attending better performing schools. But, this really just kicks the can down the road to other students who will then be placed in those underperforming schools. It's not as if the underperforming schools will get less students. There are simply not enough desks in the district to meet demand. The reality is that SFUSD needs to put more resources into those schools to improve them rather than simply allowing parents to try to get placed elsewhere.
The challenge in SF is two-fold. First, as the article mentions and partially due to the uncertainty the lottery creates, many (25%!) parents who have the resources opt out of the public schools and send their children to private schools.
Secondly, we have a housing crisis in San Francisco which makes it unaffordable for teachers to live in the city. So, turn-over, especially at public schools, is very high which makes it even more challenging to provide a high quality education. Funding affordable housing for teachers could go a long way to improving school quality across the district maybe even more than the complicated lottery system.
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And they are also doing an excellent job of dealing with homelessness and traffic in SF! Geniuses.
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@Marc Fun fact: the # of homeless in SF in recent years hasn't risen. It has in our city of Oakland. Oakland also has a lottery system for its public schools. While it is slightly different than SF, the schools are similarly segregated.
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@Marc
You're writing from Oakland? Careful tossing stones from your glass house. Head over to the camp next to the Oakland Home Depot, under every overpass of the 580 or the 24, or along Wood St, and tell me how great Oakland is doing dealing with homelessness.
And while you're at it, tell me how great Oakland is doing with its school system, with pending closure and mergers of schools, and pretty much the same integration/segregation problems, charter schools siphoning money from the district, many people sending their kids to private schools...
These are big problems in an area with a housing crisis that is critical and getting worse with the IPOs on tap this year.
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@Marc
You're writing from Oakland? Careful tossing stones from your glass house. Head over to the camp next to the Oakland Home Depot, under every overpass of the 580 or the 24, or along Wood St, and tell me how great Oakland is doing dealing with homelessness.
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Desegrating schools is not charity, plain justice instead. Do we realize that segregated schools may give rise, and perpetuate, segregation in housing, in jobs, and housing as well; plus ethnic (racial) discrimination in the end (as intended?!!)?
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This system was doomed from the start. Few parents would send their kid across the City to another public school? If you have the time to drive your child across the city to school, then you likely have the money to send your child to private school. This is one of the reasons the parochial system on the Peninsula is so strong.
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@Anthony And I am a product of the parochial system.
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yep, the lottery caused me to raise my kids in a quality public school system back east, returning once they were all college age.
Now that the city is more integrated in most areas, it makes sense to go back to neighborhood elementary schools for the general population, with a few specialized schools for both gifted and learning-challenged students
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School integration is a worthy goal and would be very nice to achieve. But it would be much better for the students if the politicians would spend resources on improving the quality of the schools instead of running them for the political benefit of the politicians by serving the teachers union and political pressure groups.
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Bravo/brava to the men and women reported about in this article, who are trying to do their best for their children, and to officials and others trying to refine the public school system. It's been said countless times: a bedrock of this country is education -- a fundamental element of a successful society that in recent decades has been poorly served by lawmakers and school officials, and the state's controversial Proposition 13, a 1970's "taxpayer revolt" limiting property taxes, a primary source of school funding. (For background on Prop 13, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_California_Proposition_13) Whatever solution evolves from this discussion, not just kids but all Californians will benefit longterm. Some say when it comes to opportunity in America, it's all about location, location, location. I think it's also about education, education, education.
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The most important factor in school success is involved parents. Shuffling kids to a school across the city may make everyone feel good but without the family making education a priority, nothing will change.
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To be clear, it won’t make everyone feel good.
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@Sue "The most important factor in school success is involved parents. "
That's what people like to think but, unfortunately, it isn't true. Peer groups play a huge role. Parents who go to extreme lengths to buy into the higher priced neighborhoods to get their children into better schools know this.
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@Sue Many of these issues are linked. Poor families are more likely to have worse jobs and fewer at-home parents. If you're working 12-hour shifts a 90-minute bus ride from home, you don't have the privilege of "making education a priority."
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“I don’t want to suggest that every school is of equal quality across the district, but they are closer in quality to each other than people think,” she said.
That's part of the problem. You cannot actually get objective information or data about a school's quality. So we're all left to trust online sources that are not objective.
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This is one of those misguided attempts at equity. Making kids cross town to go to a school that is better (or worse) than the one in their own neighborhoods is just wrong. Kids shouldn't be made to pay for adults' mistakes and poor judgment in this way. Leaders need to come up with a way to make the schools more equitable. Dole out the funds accordingly. Require any fundraiser in the pricey neighborhoods to contribute 50% of the proceeds to a pool that benefits all schools. Some of our schools don't even have adequate heat and plumbing. That is criminal, and no child from any neighborhood should have to endure those conditions.
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Aahh, the wonder of government planning.
"We'll make it better," they said. "Just trust us," they said. Now let them try and take away parental choice in the process.... see how that goes politically.
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@SRM - exactly wrong! This illustrates the LACK of government planning . There is no planning in the allocation of students to schools. The system is based on parental choice and an algorithm. That is NOT planning.
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What a shock, parents could care less about diversity and segregation. Parents want the best education they can get for their kids and will do what they have to do to get it.
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1. San Francisco, San Jose and the whole bay area is now nearly impossible to live in except for a very few people.
2. The solution isn't to move people who live near bad schools to good schools. The solution is to improve the quality of teaching and instruction at the bad schools. If the students (in kindergarden it's really parents) there behave like they want a rigorous, high quality education, they can get it. If they don't, they can't get it. Education is a mixture of teacher's behavior and student's behavior. If both are working to achieve learning, then learning happens. One party doesn't perform, it all falls apart. San Francisco can get high quality teachers. They should be made available to motivated students regardless of race, income, language etc. Other places with a lot less money than San Francisco have done this.
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A factor that destroys the education budgets is the excessive admin overhead. To get committed teachers into the field they must be paid better than min wages. I have been watching sub teaching for a few months now; am shocked that the rates range from $12-22 for ‘paraeducator’ roles to advanced science/ math AP. Really!! [a basic home cleaner is paid $35-45 per hour]
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@Edward The problem at the "bad schools" isn't the teaching and instruction, it's the students and their families. There's nothing teachers can do at those schools to make the students perform at the level of a school with all upper-middle-class kids. And there's no way to give a good education to a small number of students who are ready and able to learn when they are in classes with a much larger number of students who aren't.
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@Tamza
Completely agree although some causes are low education budgets offered by (usually red) states, counties or municipalities but the other common cause is the bloated administrative budget and salaries for people who don't actually teach students are a major cause. This is common in blue states. Both need to be dealt with. In California it's often of the bloated administrator budget variety. In Oklahoma, it's the state allocation problem.
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Meanwhile, in a suburb 10 miles from SF, my husband and I decided not to seek a transfer request to the other elementary school, ranked 7 out of 10 on the Great Schools scale, and went with our n'hood school, which was ranked 1 out of 10, in large part because many students were children of people whose first language is not English. A friend who is a teacher in the district responded to our initial hesitation with "its not a *naughty* school" and neighbors talked of how much they loved it. The year our daughter was to enter K, the school started a Spanish immersion program. This attracted kindergartners from all over town. Now its rankings are climbing and everyone's delighted. We're lucky to live down the street. Our school was already good without the commuters. There have to better ways to improve schools (or measure quality accurately) without a diaspora.
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Yeah I wonder how your neighbors would feel if they read that. How many people have been sending their kids to "naughty" schools because they have no choice? You avoided the issue entirely, and just happened to be lucky. Congrats on your privilege, but what about everyone else? Do you live in Richmond (a poor very Latino suburb of Richmond with its own Bart stop)? Are you helping to gentrify and area that historically belongs to others? Do you or your partner have a job that could afford private school when your kids reach middle and high school? That's what most people in your position do; don't go patting yourself on the back because you could afford things others can't. The other largely neglected piece of information in this piece is Prop 13 limits how much money can go to schools, so if they're public schools there is a limit of how much money they have to use, more so than in other states, hence the desperation of the less privileged parents among you. Use some empathy; is it really that difficult? I'd bet y'all were looking at private schools as a back up, and now that that school has a Spanish language program and white people want to be there it's gonna be hard for everybody else to get in, and the one thing that was supposed to give those other parents a leg up has ended up getting them less placement in their own school. So yeah. Privilege much?
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@Grace
"Are you helping to gentrify an area that historically belongs to others?"
Gentrification cannot happen without willing sellers.
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@Eye by the Sea Sure, but the willing sellers in gentrification are wealthy landlords themselves, not the poor.
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