Author:  Richard Carranza, Deputy Superintendent of Instruction, Innovation and Social Justice, SFUSD

SFUSD has a new goal for students entering high school in 2010. We want every one of them to graduate eligible to enroll in California’s public university system.

This should seem like an obvious goal. But today, only 54% of students in San Francisco’s public schools graduate with the course credits required for enrollment in state universities.

You think 54% is low? Statewide, only 34% of students are making the cut.

San Francisco may be ahead of the pack, but that doesn’t make our numbers acceptable. Every student should graduate with the keys to a better future. As a district, it’s our responsibility to make sure a great college education is one of the doors available to them.

Starting next year, every student entering SF public high schools will be required to complete the A-G course sequence required for entrance to any California state university.  For most students this means taking more advanced math and foreign language courses than they may have otherwise taken.

But while we want to challenge our students with the academic rigor that they need to succeed in a college environment, we have to create more opportunities for them to access courses and earn the credits they need for that opportunity.

Right now, SFUSD is exploring the ways to incorporate online courses, community college partnerships and real-world internships to better engage students and help them complete the coursework they need to meet UC requirements.

Interested in helping every San Francisco student graduate with the opportunity to enroll in college? We want to hear from you.  Maybe you have an internship opportunity available with your employer, or the resources to help schools improve their capacity to make coursework relevant and exciting.

San Francisco is full of creative people who know a good opportunity when they see one, but more importantly, they have the heart to open those opportunities up to others.

Which doors will you help open?

George Lucas, founder and chairman of our foundation, has said: “It’s imperative that we create new kinds of schools, freed from an educational system deeply rooted in the distant past and the kinds of schools so many of us attended decades ago.” For more than a decade, our foundation has been chronicling solutions to Industrial Age educational thinking that treat students as widgets moving down an assembly line, where everyone learns the same content in the same way at the same time.

One common feature shared by the innovative classrooms we’ve shown from across the nation in our Edutopia films, website, and magazine is authentic learning, learning that makes “school life” more like “real life.” And one of the keys to authentic learning is taking advantage of all of the places and people in a community that can “keep it real” and ensure that students never have to ask that nagging question: “Why do we need to know this?”

San Francisco, our world-class city, has world-class companies, universities, labs, museums, science centers, parks, and many other places where students can learn about “real life.” In the areas of science, mathematics, engineering, and mathematics, the STEM skills that policymakers from the White House to the state house are emphasizing for the future, San Francisco ranks second to none. Already many of these groups have programs serving K-12 students and teachers, such as the California Academy of Sciences, The Exploratorium, the Golden Gate National Parks, San Francisco State, and UCSF. Many companies invite students to visit their workplaces and have employees who mentor and teach.

For instance, unlike many urban communities, we are fortunate to live near a national park. San Francisco middle and high school students have been working in native plant nurseries in the Golden Gate National Parks, propagating plants from seedlings and learning about the fragile biodiversity of the northern California ecosystem. National Park rangers, adult volunteers, and others work with their teachers to integrate the learning that happens inside and outside the classroom.

What have your children and students learned from one of these San Francisco organizations and companies that enrich their school experience? What more could be done to strengthen these experiences and bring them to more students? How could obstacles be overcome? Dream big. This city and these times demand a bigger vision.