Single, young professional, no kids: Why I and all my friends should care now about the quality of all San Francisco Public Schools.
by YourSFPublicSchools Team ~ November 23rd, 2009
When I finished business and law school last June, I didn’t think school would be on my mind for a long time. I don’t have kids, I’m not married, and I have had quite enough of the classroom for the imaginable future. Like many of my friends, my daily priorities focus around my career, my hobbies, my girlfriend.
But even in this phase of my life, I’ve recently found myself thinking about schools again. Having spent the last decade of my life moving for education and jobs, I have been hungrily anticipating settling down in San Francisco and making a life here.
Maybe it’s just selfishness talking, but after building a strong group of friends and professional contacts in the city, I really don’t want to feel forced move to the ‘burbs when I have children. The city itself is such an educational place for kids, with its cultural, socio-economic, and ethnic diversity, its beauty, and its compactness. Still, without a safe and convenient school that would give a child the best opportunities, I can see even now that I might bite my lip and go lawn-mower shopping.
The other option for me is private schools. But even if I can afford private education, I would still choose public schools if they are a reasonable option. I’m sure many private schools have more resources than public schools, but I don’t see how they can offer the diversity that public schools do. Moreover, schools are fundamental parts of our community, and I don’t like the idea of taking my children out of the community to place them in a removed private academy. What message does that send to them about how they should treat their neighbors, or be involved with their own communities?
At the same time, I don’t want to deal with the uncertainty of where my child would go to school. But if all public schools were equally good, or even close to equal, a student assignment lottery focused on diversity probably wouldn’t be so scary to me.
Over the next two months, the school district is having town hall meetings to discuss their efforts to change their student assignment system. They say it’s not just about making schools more diverse, but ensuring a quality education for all kids in the city.
Now, a town hall meeting may not be what my friends and I think of as a good time, but maybe if we went it would be a good thing…
Jacob Kraft, a recent Stanford business and law school grad, lives in Portrero Hill and works for a Bay Area investment firm.
To learn more about town hall meetings on SFUSD’s student assignment redesign, visit www.sfusd.edu.
November 23rd, 2009 at 1:58 pm
Hey Jacob,
Not to fault you, but as you said you don't have kids so you probably don't spend much time dealing with public schools. Don't buy into the idea that moving children around results in a better education for them. If all schools must be good schools that is a reason not to forceably command students to leave their neighborhoods and friends and go to schools elsewhere. This is the way we do things now - a lottery style assignment system, the only one in the US. This techniques never works and the achievement statistics clearing indicate that socioeconomic and racial academic data remains relatively unchanged despite such upheavals. Students don't tend to improve just by changing to another school. Usually there performance suffers as a result.
You can't make schools better by changing the assignment system. Better schools are about better teachers, better study habits, better programs and better leadership. But most of all it is about the student's own comittment. The other day I was picking up a friend's child and I told him that I heard that such and such a school is supposed to be very academic and a big commitment. The ten year old's answer - " I'm ready for a challege." That is the right answer and that is the answer all students must have to succeed.
Redirecting students to different schools won't help, It never has. Children are not inventory to be redistributed. Most families want to stay close to home and their own communities. For this reason, the efforts to date in attempting to redistribute children according to the Diversity Index have been an unmitigated failure.
Is the answer to that dilemna to move the children out of the lowest performing schools? We tried moving the teachers out with reconstitution and that bombed. Is playing a game of musical chairs the answer? No, it is about keeping a highly commited and qualified staff in place and then doing the hard work. The Board of Education should have learned its lesson over the last 25 years. Despite all the efforts, schools are no more integrated than before. But politics will prevail and the focus on diversity trumps academics in the leadership world of SFUSD. Jacob, take a look at the Strategic Plan and tell me which goal is emphasized more - diversity or achievement?
When the pink slips go out the BVHP schools will get hit hard. In many cases 80 % of staff will be laid off. SFUSD needs to keep good teachers to provide continuity. Schools do not improve when there is a revolving door of teachers coming and going. Contract negotiations must take place with the interests of students first. If SFUSD wants to create dialogue here at YSFPS and elsewhere, they should remember that all the talk and good intentions in the world won't change a thing. Students have to learn to work hard and stay focused.The rest is a sideshow.
November 23rd, 2009 at 2:08 pm
Jacob, you make great points. I wish only people like you moved to San Francisco, people who believe in making a life here and improving the community. I don't mind when people come and move to New York, but when people come with no intention of raising their kids here and plan to move to the suburbs when they have kids, they hurt SF and economically drive people out who would love to help build a community and deprive us of a base of genuine families who love and want to build SF. There is also a hypocrisy about it, true liberals want to send their kids to public school and not move to an all-white area, people like Jimmy Carter. Limousine liberals don't build anythingk, they talk a lot of trash but if you believe in moving to an all-white suburb or sending your kids to a private school where they don't interact with kids of different classes and races, you're a Republican, not a Democrat, and should just start out by living in Marin, not hurt the City by taking up space that could be used by someone who wants to build a community. Anyone can be a limolib but true liberals built this city, the people who starved for weeks to win the 1934 strike and believe in Brown v. Topeka, not people who put Obama bumper stickers on their SUVs and then act like Strom Thurmond when their first kid turns 5.
Put down 9 good schools and appeal, and by October all schools have some open spots and you can go in and insist on it, even if they discourage you, for January. If you get one in, all your kids go, so if you have 2 or 3 close, the younger can benefit from siblings.
Thank you for your loyalty and determination to build a great community, not just pass through.
Also, as has been noted in the Chronicle, the schools here are actually very good and getting better. We have as good schools as most of the suburbs and the better half of our public schols are every bit as good as the privates, for I know parents who have been to both.
They should reduce traffic and give priority to going to school close to home. It's a game. No kids from the projects in the Filmore go to schools in the Richmond or Sunset, none. Asians and whites who know the system from afar go, all the Black kids at Alamo live nearby except maybe 1, out of 500, and there are no more than 5 at Alamo. You could do better by busing in a few square blocks of the Filmore and letting anyone go to their neighborhood school. All neighborhoods in SF are near expensive houses and good areas, so no school will be completely segregated. The richest people in Fresno would struggle to afford the Excelsior or Bayview. Upper middle class kids are in each and every neighborhood. The projects are poor, but the houses down the street from them, even in Visitation Valley, are more than triple the cost of the average U.S. house.
I admire you. You believe in making the world a better place. You are a true liberal. You will make San Francisco better by being an involved parent. I have 5 kids in SFUSD and they're all doing great. We also have, in Lowell, a high school that is better than any private or public school north of LA, and that can be backed up by average SAT School. It's public. Look into it, you need good grades to get in.
Truth is, our schools are great because we have an enriching environment and many middle class Asian kids are harder working and show greater character than rich white kids in Marin, and the white kids who are 25% of the schools in the Richmond or Sunset benefit from having dedicated peers.
November 25th, 2009 at 10:19 am
I agree it is better not to tear people away from their own neighborhoods.How can the school district develop neighborhood schools if they are sending the kids on buses out of those less desirable neighborhoods. Don is right to suggest that we focus on the schools themselves and not on a redistribution sysytem. The reality is that minorities from the southeastern side do migrate via buses to other parts of the city. But how many children from the north and west end go to the Bayview for school? What are we to do? just close those neighborhoods down? No, we have to make all school good schools and do everything possible to keep the staff in place and to get the neighborhood leaders to work hand in hand with the neighborhood schools. The city demands vibrant learning in all neighborhoods.
I think the district policies have failed over the years for one reason: those who have promoted those policies lack the vision to think more than one year ahead. 25 years a judge ordered SFUSD to desegregate we are now "on the road" to undo the failed policies of busing. And in another 25 years we will end up where we started. Our energies need to go into building up schools, not, as Don said, moving kids around like chips. Diversity is not the end all to be all. Getting a good education is better than having graduated from a diverse school. You get into college on the basis of individual performance.
All kids in all neighborhoods can do well given the structure from home and at school along with the mental discipline to succeed.
November 25th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
African Americans make up many of the best authors and greatest minds of the 20th Century, but few black kids read them in SF. Not that anyone should only read one race of authors, but the point is that these kids are capable of so much more. Right next to them are Asians who come in speaking no English and end up going to a UC. Blacks could do that too, but Cosby has stated, a cultural transformation is needed. You don't need to put everyone through hell busing across town, and when you do often kids don't learn from others. I the worst schools in Hunter's Point, there are Asian kids doing well. Everyone knows they do well, everyone talks about it. Bill Cosby talks about it. Hispanics and Blacks can do anything, they just need to be taught by teachers and parents that grades are more important than anything and education determines your future. Being surrounded by white and Asian kids does nothing if you choose to ignore them. Changing your family life to turn off the TV and make education the priority day in and day out, evenings and Summer, will make a huge difference, double and triple the future income of every child who follows this.
Also, if a man has kids and abandons them, he should be ostracized, no one should give him a job or respect. Now men can have kids, refuse to marry the woman, divorce, not work, not pay child support, and blame the woman. Bill Cosby is right, these men should not be considered as OK people. If you have a kid, you marry the woman and you raise the kid, you speak properly and teach them, daily. That's being a father. Too many kids of all races are forced to live with only a mother, no father. I'm all for Gay and Lesbian parents, but that's two parents. One parent can't be as good as two.
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