1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
The audience will be individuals associated with the following San Francisco educational equity organizations: Education Pioneers, NewSchools Venture Fund, Partners in School Innovation, San Francisco School Alliance, and Teach For America. Invited members will include several hundred San Francisco public school teachers, administrators, volunteers, community and nonprofit leaders, and public education supporters who are associated with the sponsoring organizations.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Topic #4 The Education Gap
The education gap. What a neat little phrase. Clean, straight forward, defining. Our Latino and African American students are not learning as much or as quickly as our other students. The phrase gives the impression that all we have to do is give tutoring help in a couple of subjects and all will be fixed.
If we truly believe that, we are deluding ourselves by the most grandiose proportions.
We will be ignoring the ugly, and sometimes deadly, truth. In these communities some children view old age as living past 20; there are children having children; some parents never learn parenting skills, and many don’t see the value of sending their child to a school system that failed them. The system by which we are teaching our children is not working, compounded by the fact that many come from dysfunctional homes.
In the following program we hear from Omar Khalif exactly what it is like for his community. It is not pretty; it is raw, troubling and alarming. It is not a situation that many of us have exposure to but this is Omar’s world. Please have the courage to listen so you can appreciate the challenge our teachers face as our school district and city try to decide what we do next. The education gap from the viewpoint of Omar Khalif.
stan goldberg
to view the PPS-SF sponsored Senior Dad Candidate Forum select below
Http://seniordad.com/SrDad/SFBoE/SFBoE.html
to download topic #4 audio file select below
Http://seniordad.com/SrDad/fromstan/Egap.zip
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Candidate Forum Topic #3 JROTC
to view the PPS-SF sponsored Senior Dad Candidate Forum select below
Http://seniordad.com/SrDad/SFBoE/SFBoE.html
I have spent some time speaking with the man who runs the school district JROTC program. I also visited Lowell and spoke with the man who runs the program on that campus. I learned what is taught at each of the programs.
The JROTC teaches our children five periods a week, two of which are PE. They teach history, how to balance a checkbook, and other self-sufficiency skills. Some of the content of their textbooks is troubling, although more current editions are less so. I have been told that the district has not reviewed the courseware for ten years. In whatever form JROTC continues, if it continues, I feel that a review of the course content should be in order. Perhaps it is time to remove the history and civics component and replace it with more PE. At best, fully credentialed teachers who specialize in the subject matter could teach these courses.
The military recruitment issue has two poles. One end is the recruiter from WestPoint who comes to Lowell looking for the best and the brightest. The other end is the concern that JROTC personnel would recruit lower income youths, who would then be in an army that could send them to be ground up in a politically unpopular war. I confess that I have different feelings about each end of the pole. I would not want to limit the chances of a Lowell student to some day be head of our Army. I would feel uncomfortable if I felt our actions contributed to a young person dying overseas.
Now, at the last moment, a new plan, presented by four members of the board of education (two members who are about to leave the board, one incumbent, and one continuing member). I am sure these four will complain the loudest when Scooter Libby is pardoned along with anyone who ever worked on Wall Street by President Bush as he exits the White House. Lame duck house cleaning.
This rush to judgment, without due consideration of the “SERV” plan, is not in the best interests of the school district. This plan may be excellent, and if it is, after careful review, it will be passed, but this should be by the new board. It should not be a meal force fed without ample public review. Those in favor of and those opposed to JROTC understand that this type of heavy-handed action is exactly what has irked many segments of our parent community. Those in public office who seek our trust should consider this.
A view of JROTC in the SFUSD with Omar Khalif.
stan goldberg
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
New Mission Terrace Improvement Association
When your ideas are better then the (status quo) you don't have to say much to sale your position to the voters.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Jerri Lange
Carla, Omar and Jerri Lang had a chance to talk about family, children, careers etc. Jerri was the key note speaker at the 9th Annual Berry and Vera Lee Clanton Endowed Scholarship Fund.
Jerri Lange has had a wealth of experience in television (both in front of the cameras and behind the scenes). Between 1969 and 1979, she was host of a number of television programs which focused on community issues at KEMO, KBHK, KGO, and KQED (where she also served on the Board). Her colorful career yielded numerous awards in the field of broadcasting.As a professor of Broadcast Communications Arts at San Francisco State University, she taught Broadcasting and Affirmative Action, Women in Media, and Writing for radio and Television. She also lectured a graduate class in Communication at Stanford University. She was granted an interview with Professor Arnold Toynbee, historian and member of the Royal Institute of International Studies in London. Her credits also include special correspondent in africa for the San Francisco Chronicle, where she worked as an editorial secretary for three years. after turning her talents to public relations consulting, and editing and publishing a magazine, she left California for Honolulu, Hawaii, where she became writer, producer and host at KHET-TV. She also published, designed and created a unique multicultural magazine entitled Amberstar in 1985, celebrating and valuing diversity, a common thread throughout Jerri's life.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Students at KIPP perform better, study finds
Students at KIPP perform better, study findsAndre Lewis runs up the stairs at one of the KIPP public charter schools in San Francisco. (Lacy Atkins / The Chronicle)When was the last time you seen someone running to school? This is happening at both San Francisco locations. This is his run into a better future. Omar Khalif
Since their founding in 1994, KIPP public charter schools have won high praise from educators and politicians - some say bordering on worship - for their apparent success in helping poor children of color excel in school.
Philanthropists have bet millions of dollars on the growing national network of 66 schools, headquartered in San Francisco. The chorus of enthusiasts can be heard from the White House to corporate boardrooms and family kitchens.
But beneath it all lie some nagging questions: Is the success real? And if so, could non-KIPP schools mimic that success?
Now, an independent study of the Bay Area's five middle schools operated by KIPP (the Knowledge Is Power Program) concludes that its intense focus on the academic and social success of each individual child does have measurable benefits beyond what traditional schools have achieved - usually.
"Four out of five KIPP schools outperform their host district," says the report by researchers at SRI International of Menlo Park, which studied the two KIPPs in San Francisco, the two in San Jose, and the one in Oakland.
Students in most grades also made above-average progress compared with the national average, the researchers found. The five schools were not identified by name under an agreement with the school districts.
But all were middle schools, as most KIPP schools are across the country. Two KIPP high schools recently opened in San Jose and San Lorenzo, but were not included in the study. Nationwide enrollment is about 16,000.
KIPP students attend school for nine hours a day, compared with the typical seven. Each is expected to think about college. Saturday school and summer school are mandatory. Intense attention is paid to each student's skill level, and those scoring below grade level are tutored each day in a school culture where high achievement is admired, not scoffed at.
Students with questions are also expected to call their teachers' cell phone until 8 p.m.
At one of the schools studied, San Francisco's KIPP Bay Academy, a visitor recently asked eighth-grader Jessica Hart why the corridors were so quiet though students were changing classrooms. It was 4 p.m.
"Because there's students in class learning, and it's respectful," the 13-year-old replied.
Jessica's English scores were in the 16th percentile when she arrived as a fifth-grader - meaning that 84 percent of the nation's fifth-graders did better in English that she did. "At the end of the year, I was in the 75th percentile," she said.
How did that happen?
"Because I'm smart," Jessica said.
Discipline matters
Discipline is also taken seriously. Students typically have to write letters of apology for even minor infractions - being late, say, or forgetting to wear the complete uniform. At some schools, miscreants have to sit on a bench wearing a sign that says "Bench."
Principals and teachers undergo training in KIPP's operating procedures, although actual instructional methods are left up to them. Principals control hiring and budgets. And teachers receive 15 to 20 percent higher pay for working the additional hours.
The SRI study offers few specifics about individual schools as part of an agreement with the districts. And the researchers were able to compare only three of the five schools against non-KIPP schools.
But at those three, they found that KIPP's fifth-graders scored significantly higher on California Standards Tests than non-KIPP fifth-graders, with the difference ranging from 6 to 33 percentage points.
The researchers were also asked by their sponsor, the Hewlett Foundation, to check out recurring questions: Are the kids at KIPP truly from low-income families? Do they really have low scores when they enroll in KIPP, or are they ringers?
"Bay Area KIPP schools do not appear to attract higher-scoring students," the report found. Fifth-graders entering the five schools scored worse than 40 to 91 percent of fifth-graders nationwide.
Student attrition high
Poverty rates ranged from 63 to 81 percent, and the five schools' student enrollment were overwhelmingly black and Latino.
Troubling, however, is that students leave KIPP schools in droves - 60 percent of fifth-graders left four of the schools 2004, before finishing eighth grade. In fact, the high attrition rate made it impossible for the researchers to study achievement in upper grades, the study said.
Yet researchers found a test-score benefit even in students who left early, said Katrina Woodworth, the lead researcher.
Asked why so many students were leaving, Woodworth said, "We heard from the schools that there are people who got more than they bargained for" in the lengthy school days. "If this many people are leaving KIPP, we'd love to know more about why."
High teacher turnover
Nor do teachers last long, quitting at a rate of 18 to 49 percent per year. Roughly 1 in 3 leave the classroom to become administrators.
Mike Rettberg, a third-year teacher at KIPP Bay Academy, smiled with pride Tuesday as he showed off a sign announcing that his class had the highest science scores of the city's middle schools.
"I get twice as much time to teach science" as teachers in traditional schools, said Rettberg, who arrives before 7 a.m. and works a 12-hour day.
"I would describe this as a burnout job," said Rettberg, who earns $60,000. "It's not coincidental that none of the teachers have kids."
But these kinds of results - deemed real by the new study - are what California educators have been looking for in their quest to close the state's substantial achievement gap.
So, are KIPP-like schools the answer?
"It really is exciting," state Deputy Superintendent of Public Instruction Rick Miller said of the new report. "These are important findings, showing that KIPP doesn't select the best and the brightest."
Funding and issue
But, he said, money stands in the way.
The report confirms that KIPP's approach costs more than the state pays them, which is less than $6,000 per pupil. Therefore, KIPP schools must raise between $400,000 to $700,000 per year to cover costs. Major donors are Gap-founder Don Fisher ($55 million) and the Gates Foundation ($18 million).
"You cannot run a KIPP program with the current per pupil funding the state of California provides," Miller said. "If people want these results, we all have to be willing to make the investment to get them."
E-mail Nanette Asimov at nasimov@sfchronicle.com.
Philanthropists have bet millions of dollars on the growing national network of 66 schools, headquartered in San Francisco. The chorus of enthusiasts can be heard from the White House to corporate boardrooms and family kitchens.
But beneath it all lie some nagging questions: Is the success real? And if so, could non-KIPP schools mimic that success?
Now, an independent study of the Bay Area's five middle schools operated by KIPP (the Knowledge Is Power Program) concludes that its intense focus on the academic and social success of each individual child does have measurable benefits beyond what traditional schools have achieved - usually.
"Four out of five KIPP schools outperform their host district," says the report by researchers at SRI International of Menlo Park, which studied the two KIPPs in San Francisco, the two in San Jose, and the one in Oakland.
Students in most grades also made above-average progress compared with the national average, the researchers found. The five schools were not identified by name under an agreement with the school districts.
But all were middle schools, as most KIPP schools are across the country. Two KIPP high schools recently opened in San Jose and San Lorenzo, but were not included in the study. Nationwide enrollment is about 16,000.
KIPP students attend school for nine hours a day, compared with the typical seven. Each is expected to think about college. Saturday school and summer school are mandatory. Intense attention is paid to each student's skill level, and those scoring below grade level are tutored each day in a school culture where high achievement is admired, not scoffed at.
Students with questions are also expected to call their teachers' cell phone until 8 p.m.
At one of the schools studied, San Francisco's KIPP Bay Academy, a visitor recently asked eighth-grader Jessica Hart why the corridors were so quiet though students were changing classrooms. It was 4 p.m.
"Because there's students in class learning, and it's respectful," the 13-year-old replied.
Jessica's English scores were in the 16th percentile when she arrived as a fifth-grader - meaning that 84 percent of the nation's fifth-graders did better in English that she did. "At the end of the year, I was in the 75th percentile," she said.
How did that happen?
"Because I'm smart," Jessica said.
Discipline matters
Discipline is also taken seriously. Students typically have to write letters of apology for even minor infractions - being late, say, or forgetting to wear the complete uniform. At some schools, miscreants have to sit on a bench wearing a sign that says "Bench."
Principals and teachers undergo training in KIPP's operating procedures, although actual instructional methods are left up to them. Principals control hiring and budgets. And teachers receive 15 to 20 percent higher pay for working the additional hours.
The SRI study offers few specifics about individual schools as part of an agreement with the districts. And the researchers were able to compare only three of the five schools against non-KIPP schools.
But at those three, they found that KIPP's fifth-graders scored significantly higher on California Standards Tests than non-KIPP fifth-graders, with the difference ranging from 6 to 33 percentage points.
The researchers were also asked by their sponsor, the Hewlett Foundation, to check out recurring questions: Are the kids at KIPP truly from low-income families? Do they really have low scores when they enroll in KIPP, or are they ringers?
"Bay Area KIPP schools do not appear to attract higher-scoring students," the report found. Fifth-graders entering the five schools scored worse than 40 to 91 percent of fifth-graders nationwide.
Student attrition high
Poverty rates ranged from 63 to 81 percent, and the five schools' student enrollment were overwhelmingly black and Latino.
Troubling, however, is that students leave KIPP schools in droves - 60 percent of fifth-graders left four of the schools 2004, before finishing eighth grade. In fact, the high attrition rate made it impossible for the researchers to study achievement in upper grades, the study said.
Yet researchers found a test-score benefit even in students who left early, said Katrina Woodworth, the lead researcher.
Asked why so many students were leaving, Woodworth said, "We heard from the schools that there are people who got more than they bargained for" in the lengthy school days. "If this many people are leaving KIPP, we'd love to know more about why."
High teacher turnover
Nor do teachers last long, quitting at a rate of 18 to 49 percent per year. Roughly 1 in 3 leave the classroom to become administrators.
Mike Rettberg, a third-year teacher at KIPP Bay Academy, smiled with pride Tuesday as he showed off a sign announcing that his class had the highest science scores of the city's middle schools.
"I get twice as much time to teach science" as teachers in traditional schools, said Rettberg, who arrives before 7 a.m. and works a 12-hour day.
"I would describe this as a burnout job," said Rettberg, who earns $60,000. "It's not coincidental that none of the teachers have kids."
But these kinds of results - deemed real by the new study - are what California educators have been looking for in their quest to close the state's substantial achievement gap.
So, are KIPP-like schools the answer?
"It really is exciting," state Deputy Superintendent of Public Instruction Rick Miller said of the new report. "These are important findings, showing that KIPP doesn't select the best and the brightest."
Funding and issue
But, he said, money stands in the way.
The report confirms that KIPP's approach costs more than the state pays them, which is less than $6,000 per pupil. Therefore, KIPP schools must raise between $400,000 to $700,000 per year to cover costs. Major donors are Gap-founder Don Fisher ($55 million) and the Gates Foundation ($18 million).
"You cannot run a KIPP program with the current per pupil funding the state of California provides," Miller said. "If people want these results, we all have to be willing to make the investment to get them."
E-mail Nanette Asimov at nasimov@sfchronicle.com.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Thoughts of the day.
After leaving the SF Chronicle I decided to talk. Sometime you have so much you would like to say in the meeting but oftentimes you end up off track. So this is how I get my download off.
SF Professional VIP
This was a fun event, I was really shocked when everyone cheered. Now that took me by surprise. Lets see if I get their votes. I was also informed that I received the endorsement of the City Democrat Club.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Sen Obama on Education
Obama: I support charter schools and pay for performance for teachers. Doesn't make me popular with the teachers union. I support clean coal technology. Doesn't make me popular with environmentalists. So I've got a history of reaching across the aisle.Schieffer: Do you think the federal government should play a larger role in the schools? And I mean, more federal money?
This was a comment that I made on the 13th of Oct two days before Obama.
Obama: Well, we have a tradition of local control of the schools and that's a tradition that has served us well. But I do think that it is important for the federal government to step up and help local school districts do some of the things they need to do.
Now we tried to do this under President Bush. He put forward No Child Left Behind. Unfortunately, they left the money behind for No Child Left Behind. And local school districts end up having more of a burden, a bunch of unfunded mandates, the same kind of thing that happened with special education where we did the right thing by saying every school should provide education to kids with special needs, but we never followed through on the promise of funding, and that left local school districts very cash-strapped.
So what I want to do is focus on early childhood education, providing teachers higher salaries in exchange for more support. Sen. McCain and I actually agree on two things that he just mentioned.
Charter schools, I doubled the number of charter schools in Illinois despite some reservations from teachers unions. I think it's important to foster competition inside the public schools.
And we also agree on the need for making sure that if we have bad teachers that they are swiftly -- after given an opportunity to prove themselves, if they can't hack it, then we need to move on because our kids have to have their best future.
Where we disagree is on the idea that we can somehow give out vouchers -- give vouchers as a way of securing the problems in our education system. And I also have to disagree on Sen. McCain's record when it comes to college accessibility and affordability.
Recently his key economic adviser was asked about why he didn't seem to have some specific programs to help young people go to college and the response was, well, you know, we can't give money to every interest group that comes along.
I don't think America's youth are interest groups, I think they're our future. And this is an example of where we are going to have to prioritize. We can't say we're going to do things and then not explain in concrete terms how we're going to pay for it.
And if we're going to do some of the things you mentioned, like lowering loan rates or what have you, somebody has got to pay for it. It's not going to happen on its own.
Candidate Forum Topic #2 Special Education
On the day that we recorded our Candidate Forum “Special Education”, Carlos Garcia, Superintendent of the San Francisco Unified District School, a man I respect, made a speech before the San Francisco EdFund. In that speech he made a statement that I don’t respect which was, “the city's African American students post lower test scores than special-education students.” While we need to have our African American students perform better, the statement is divisive and furthers the incorrect premise that a student classified as ‘special ed’ carries with it a diminished expectation for the child. Being classified as special ed does not mean that a child is cognitively impaired, it means we need to place more teaching effort to assist that child in learning. I can quickly list a few special ed kids who would not fit the diminished expectations mold, Stephen Hawking, Sir Ken Robinson, Charles Schwab, and Carlos Garcia. It is into this charged atmosphere that our panel, including Marigrace Cohen, Omar Khalif, and Rachel Norton discuss special education.
stan goldberg
to view the PPS-SF sponsored Senior Dad Candidate Forum select below
Http://srdad.com/SrDad/SFBoE/SFBoE.html
To download the 1 hour Candidate Forum on Special Education select below
Http://srdad.com/SrDad/fromstan/SpecialEd.zip
Personal Support
Friends and SF Voters - Check out Omar Khalif
Hey Friends,
A few of you know that I've been on the campaign trail, not for Presidency, but for the SF Board of Education. I'm not running myself (at least not this year:-)), but I've been following the candidates and learning about some of the current hot topics in education besides the mayhem with the budget. This is definitely a change for me, listening to the platforms first-hand and learning the names of the candidates as opposed to seeing them on the ballot and making a fairly arbitrary choice based on the name that sounds the coolest or somewhat "political" or triggers a memory of some flyer that folks were handing outside of my Safeway.
There are 4 slots for the Board up for grabs this November, two folks are running for re-election, and the two major issues it seems is "closing the achievement gap" for Black/Latino youths and the re-instatement of JROTC, which was banned in 2006. Though board seats are elected positions, they are volunteer positions at $500/month designed to support the Superintendent and act as a sounding board for the community. There are about 15 people running, most of them seem to really care -- You've got an assortment of folks, including some very involved moms/dads, some of whom have some private sector experience.
The candidates that have been endorsed by various local and state groups include Rachel Norton, Sandra Fewer, Jaynry Mak, and Emily Murase. I encourage you do your own research on these folks, but I would like to draw your attention to Omar Khalif, who really is a breath of fresh air. He deals with Black youths everyday at SF "Juvie" Hall and lives in Hunter's Point, and has a real understanding of the system that has led to the achievement gap in the first place. He isn't asking for hand-outs from the government or adopting a victim stance. He brings it real and isn't afraid to offer solutions that others are afraid to voice let alone think about - like stopping social promotion (keeping back kids that can't read or write instead of shuffling them to next grade) or pointing fingers at the ever-powerful teacher's union.
He leaves people kind of stunned, but he is also well-liked and trusted. He is a democrat looking to move to Independent and he refused a mayoral endorsement during the last election because he wanted to remain politically neutral - He doesn't want to get caught in those political traps. On a softer note, he and his wife of 21 years, Carla, have raised four kids who have attended charter, public and private schools -- and as a result, he has a wide view of what works and doesn't work. Again, even though the position for Board of Ed is more of a supportive position, each candidate rallies for an issue that is near and dear to their hearts - some get pumped up about children with disabilities and others for providing safety and support for transgender/gay kids who come out in high school. But, with the achievement gap *everyone's* focus, I think it's a good idea to get someone on the Board who has lived and breathed the issues.
You can check him out at:
http://srdad.com/SrDad/SFBR/Entries/2008/8/26_Omar_Khalif-_Candidate_for_School_Board.html
Just thought I'd share what I've learned in the last couple of months, and spread the word if that feels right to you!
xxxooox
Hey Friends,
A few of you know that I've been on the campaign trail, not for Presidency, but for the SF Board of Education. I'm not running myself (at least not this year:-)), but I've been following the candidates and learning about some of the current hot topics in education besides the mayhem with the budget. This is definitely a change for me, listening to the platforms first-hand and learning the names of the candidates as opposed to seeing them on the ballot and making a fairly arbitrary choice based on the name that sounds the coolest or somewhat "political" or triggers a memory of some flyer that folks were handing outside of my Safeway.
There are 4 slots for the Board up for grabs this November, two folks are running for re-election, and the two major issues it seems is "closing the achievement gap" for Black/Latino youths and the re-instatement of JROTC, which was banned in 2006. Though board seats are elected positions, they are volunteer positions at $500/month designed to support the Superintendent and act as a sounding board for the community. There are about 15 people running, most of them seem to really care -- You've got an assortment of folks, including some very involved moms/dads, some of whom have some private sector experience.
The candidates that have been endorsed by various local and state groups include Rachel Norton, Sandra Fewer, Jaynry Mak, and Emily Murase. I encourage you do your own research on these folks, but I would like to draw your attention to Omar Khalif, who really is a breath of fresh air. He deals with Black youths everyday at SF "Juvie" Hall and lives in Hunter's Point, and has a real understanding of the system that has led to the achievement gap in the first place. He isn't asking for hand-outs from the government or adopting a victim stance. He brings it real and isn't afraid to offer solutions that others are afraid to voice let alone think about - like stopping social promotion (keeping back kids that can't read or write instead of shuffling them to next grade) or pointing fingers at the ever-powerful teacher's union.
He leaves people kind of stunned, but he is also well-liked and trusted. He is a democrat looking to move to Independent and he refused a mayoral endorsement during the last election because he wanted to remain politically neutral - He doesn't want to get caught in those political traps. On a softer note, he and his wife of 21 years, Carla, have raised four kids who have attended charter, public and private schools -- and as a result, he has a wide view of what works and doesn't work. Again, even though the position for Board of Ed is more of a supportive position, each candidate rallies for an issue that is near and dear to their hearts - some get pumped up about children with disabilities and others for providing safety and support for transgender/gay kids who come out in high school. But, with the achievement gap *everyone's* focus, I think it's a good idea to get someone on the Board who has lived and breathed the issues.
You can check him out at:
http://srdad.com/SrDad/SFBR/Entries/2008/8/26_Omar_Khalif-_Candidate_for_School_Board.html
Just thought I'd share what I've learned in the last couple of months, and spread the word if that feels right to you!
xxxooox
San Francisco Charter Schools
This was a joint event with Creative Arts and the ACRON group. We had some unified school teachers as well as community advocates in attendance.
"CHARTER SCHOOLS ARE HERE TO STAY WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT"...
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
SFUSD Bully pulpit:
Bully pulpit: San Francisco schools Superintendent Carlos Garcia delivered a fiery sermon Tuesday, calling on every teacher and principal to ask themselves if their school would be good enough for their own child.
His voice shook with emotion as he told 700 people at the Fairmont Hotel that the city's African American students post lower test scores than special-education students.
"Our children are dying out there," he said. "We cannot continue to sentence our children to jail."
The annual San Francisco School Volunteers lunch honored those who give up their time or money to help students succeed in school across the district.
After his sermon on the mount of Nob Hill, Garcia presented financier Warren Hellman with the Honorary Volunteer of the Year. Garcia called Hellman "the patron saint" of San Francisco schools "even if he is Jewish."
In his acceptance speech, Hellman thanked the "Reverend Carlos Garcia."
His voice shook with emotion as he told 700 people at the Fairmont Hotel that the city's African American students post lower test scores than special-education students.
"Our children are dying out there," he said. "We cannot continue to sentence our children to jail."
The annual San Francisco School Volunteers lunch honored those who give up their time or money to help students succeed in school across the district.
After his sermon on the mount of Nob Hill, Garcia presented financier Warren Hellman with the Honorary Volunteer of the Year. Garcia called Hellman "the patron saint" of San Francisco schools "even if he is Jewish."
In his acceptance speech, Hellman thanked the "Reverend Carlos Garcia."
Race and Schools: The Need for Action
By Gary Orfield, Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles, University of California–Los AngelesIn a nation with 44 percent non-White students and extreme inequality in educational attainment, it's time we address these issues as seriously as we did during the Civil Rights era.
We have become a nation that accepts separate and unequal schools as if nothing can be done about segregation. As a nation, we expect our schools to create equal outcomes for students who leave their homes severely disadvantaged by family and community poverty, who arrive at their schools to find sometimes unqualified or inexperienced teachers, and who leave those schools as soon as they can. This double and triple segregation has become far worse since the U.S. Supreme Court began dissolving desegregation plans 16 years ago—a dissolution that continues to deepen and intensify segregation. Across 21st-century America, segregation has reached levels for millions of students once found only in the Old South. It has produced schools that require massive resources to offer the kinds of opportunities and instruction routinely available to students in privileged schools and communities.
In our cities we now have many schools with Black and Latino students who are almost entirely poor and teachers who have little or no help in addressing the consequences of deep tensions that often exist in neighborhoods heavily affected by immigration, gangs, and other issues. We are currently in the midst of a vast migration of the Black and Latino middle class to suburban school districts, districts that have very little diversity in their staffs and little or no preparation to avoid the polarization, inequality, and resegregation so many urban neighborhoods and schools experienced in years past. We have to work on issues of race in a nation that will soon have no majority race and where the most dramatic growth is among the population with the lowest educational levels.
In a nation with 44 percent non-White students and extreme inequality in educational attainment, it's time we address these issues as seriously as we did during the Civil Rights era. If we don't have a plan for racial equity everywhere, and for integration where possible, we are all too likely to replicate the failures of the past. Although education policy has basically ignored the issues of racial change and integration since the Civil Rights era, no one has figured out how to make school systems separate but equal and no one has figured out how White, suburban, middle-class teachers are to work effectively with students of color and linguistic minority students in complex, changing, interracial settings without good professional training designed to support multicultural education and diversity. Doing educational reform while ignoring the fundamental cleavages in society is profoundly counterproductive. We need a new Civil Rights agenda for our schools.
A first step is for educators to recognize and demand changes in the racial conditions outside the schools that make their work so much harder. Housing policy, wages policy, health care, and day care are among the most urgent issues. A second is to demand that there be a Civil Rights agenda for our schools. A third is to develop and implement training and support plans to give the nation's teachers the skills they need to better work with students of all backgrounds and to teach with materials and practices that fully recognize the contribution of all cultures and races to the United States.
Educators are well aware of two things. First is that President George W. Bush was fundamentally right when he highlighted massive inequalities in education for minority students. Second was that he was fundamentally wrong in thinking it can be solved by high-stakes testing of children and sanctioning of schools. The NCLB law is a classic example of this latter problem, as we have shown in ten studies and two books on NCLB implementation.
Punishing schools serving students with the least preparation and the most negative outside influences for not having accomplished rates of gain never achieved on any scale anywhere punishes the victims of multiple segregation and encourages their teachers and administrators to leave even faster than they might normally do. But even ending or drastically modifying NCLB won't make our schools' racial inequality go away or create positive race relations in schools and communities. In fact, many causal state policies would remain in place. We need different, positive policies that address our racial issues, policies that respect and employ the talents of our teachers. But such policies can't be simply about more money, nor should they lose NCLB's good parts—such as, for example, collecting much needed data on all groups within all schools.
There is far too much evidence that simply increasing funds without using the money very carefully doesn't change outcomes much, though money is certainly necessary to do what needs to be done. The three things that most powerfully influence educational outcomes are families, teachers, and other students who create a climate and level of competition. Curriculum, materials, and many other things can, of course, make a difference, but families, teachers, and other students are at the core. It's important to use money, for example, to support social policies designed to improve the conditions of families with school-age children.
Our recent survey of a national sample of NEA teachers, done in collaboration with the Southern Poverty Law Center, shows that teachers are segregated, that a great many are in racially changing schools (particularly in the suburbs), that teachers believe they can and should treat all students the same, and that those in geographic areas that still have significant White populations are least prepared for the changes that are coming. Teachers sincerely want to serve all students well, but they have little support and are constantly blamed. We now know that, while more than half of Latino children in large metropolitan areas and nearly half of Blacks already live outside central cities, serious segregation and inequality follow migrations of the non-White middle class. We also know that many suburban schools are ill-prepared for the changes currently in motion.
Treating all children the same sounds good, but it's very problematic. Consider your own children. How effective would you think a school where all the teachers had cultural and racial backgrounds different from you? Where classmates who understood your children's background and heritage were few? Where your children faced incidents of harassment, prejudice, misunderstanding, and hostility? Where no teaching took place about the positive contributions of your race or culture to the common society? Where the school passively accepted various forms of in-school segregation? Where your children ended up in dead-end classes or special education? What if your children's school only taught classes in a language they couldn't understand and they had no teachers to talk to in their own tongue? I think that almost any parent facing such a situation would think that positive ways to address these issues were urgently important. And so they are, no matter whose children are involved.
There have been no significant federal funds to address issues of race in the schools since the Reagan Administration eliminated the popular federal desegregation aid program 27 years ago. That law funded programs that involved training teachers, working on curriculum, helping students address racial divisions within schools, and other related issues. It had demonstrated success in both improving school race relations and raising achievement. Relatively simple techniques such as Student Team Learning had clear, significant, positive effects on both relationships and achievement. The program's funding helped create many new magnet schools that were both effective and integrated, public schools with autonomy to innovate, and faculties composed of teachers committed to their special mission. These were schools with the obviously necessary Civil Rights provisions, including extensive outreach and recruitment targeting underrepresented groups, clear desegregation standards, free transportion for all students who wanted to attend, and no rejection of students with disabilities or language issues—much better in these respects than many contemporary charter schools, which typically have no Civil Rights provisions and are, on average, even more segregated than public schools.
Yet, we have used federal and state funds to expand charters, and the Supreme Court decided last June to undermine key parts of the Civil Rights policies of hundreds of magnet schools. Teacher organizations need to encourage school districts to carefully examine legal ways to pursue integrated schools, and they need to ask Congress to restore support urgently needed for managing the vast racial transition our country is currently undergoing. If we don't figure out how to increase the graduation rates and college success of Black and Latino students, major portions of America will soon experience declines in average educational levels—an economic disaster.
The U.S. Supreme Court decided in the 1990s to end most desegregation orders, but many communities wanted to voluntarily maintain successful elements like magnet schools. Some, such as Louisville-Jefferson County, Kentucky, fought long court battles to maintain long-successful, district-wide plans. Unfortunately, in a 5–4 decision last summer, the Supreme Court undermined most of those plans. This forces hundreds of communities to either give up their efforts and accept much greater segregation or find the best available alternative to keeping diversityin their schools. The decision permits some limited direct use of race and it leaves other criteria for assignment—poverty, test scores, geographic diversity, linguistic diversity, and many others—perfectly legal. It is important for education organizations to encourage local school boards to do the necessary work to maintain as much as possible of their successful plans. We've been working with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund as school officials to try to find workable answers.
There are also provisions in federal law that could serve as a basis for positive action, such as the now empty promise of a right to transfer from a school being sanctioned under NCLB. Although this right is defined poorly and unfairly in NCLB, and good schools are often sanctioned, the idea that a student in a persistently weak public school should be given a chance to transfer to another, stronger public school could be part of a good plan. The problem is that there are very few opportunities to transfer to better schools because the right is limited by school district lines and spaces. Many existing transfers are from one weak school to another weak school, sometimes to a weaker school from one that failed on one of NCLB's many technicalities. This needs to be changed to stop transfers that produce no real gain and
to open up transfers to definitely stronger schools, often across district lines. Similarly, charter schools, which are often independent of district lines, should be required to adopt some of the key Civil Rights provisions of magnet schools.
The resurgence and expansion of segregation haven't happened because we've learned how to make separate schools equal. With rare exceptions, we haven't. Nor have they happened because we've learned that desegregation and integration don't work. In fact, we've never had more solid evidence about their benefits. Five hundred fifty-three researchers from 201 universities and research centers presented the U.S. Supreme Court with a summary of a half-century of research on these issues, showing that the Court was right in Brown and that going backward deepens educational inequality. Segregation's resurgence and expansion have happened because a very powerful and insistent legal and political campaign to attack and reverse desegregation is succeeding, primarily through transforming the federal courts, the Justice Department, and the White House. This transformation is so deep that policies once
considered severely inadequate to protect the rights of minority students in the Civil Rights era are now prohibited by the United States Supreme Court, and practices producing segregation once held to be constitutional violations are now approved. The coming election will be very important in the next stage of the battle over the courts and over American justice.
Four decades after Dr. King's death, we are a very different nation. We are a nation where the White population will become the minority in the nation's schools in just a few years. We are a nation where nearly a fifth of public school students come from linguistic minority families. Even though there is no significant effort to desegregate our schools now, thousands of American schools, mostly in the suburbs, are going through racial and ethnic change as Black and Latino families move away from central urban areas and many city schools experience displacement of one minority by another. Since teaching is the one profession that must interact effectively and in great depth with nine-tenths of the nation's young people, lack of training and support means, at best, lost opportunities for deeper and more effective relationships. At worst, it means being helpless in the face of serious divisions coming into our schools from the outside community. American parents, by very large majorities, want their children to grow up understanding how to relate successfully with all groups in a diverse society. For this to happen, and for our society to avoid projecting into ever larger sectors of suburbia the kinds of poor race relations and resegregation that damaged so many urban neighborhoods, teachers must have the tools to understand and relate to students and parents from all backgrounds and to help children understand the very diverse and changing society they will live in.
Addressing these issues isn't a luxury or an optional part of education. It goes to the core of what makes our schools and communities work. We need new dedication to addressing these issues. Younger teachers are well aware of this necessity, but often find too little support and too many pressures. There are positive models and experiences we can draw upon. They don't take a great deal of school time or cost a lot of money, and they tend to produce real academic gains. Addressing these issues is part of the groundwork for successful education reform and community stability. It's time we insist that these issues find a place high on the agenda of all education and community leaders.
About Gary Orfield
Gary Orfield has written books and spoken out against standardized testing, particularly the use of test scores to deny high school graduation. His central interest is the development and implementation of social policy, with a focus on the impact of policy on equal opportunity for success in American society. In addition to his scholarly work, Gary has been involved with developing government policy and has participated as a court-appointed expert in several dozen Civil Rights cases, and he has been called to testify in Civil Rights suits by the U.S. Department of Justice as well as by many legal services and educational organizations.
About the Visiting Scholars Series
NEA Research periodically hosts the Visiting Scholars Series as a forum intended to help link policy initiatives with educational scholarship. Prominent scholars are asked to link their research to recommendations for closing achievement gaps.
Contact us for more information.
This paper, Race and Schools: The Need for Action, by Gary Orfield, Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles, University of California–Los Angeles, is a Research Brief from the NEA Research Visiting Scholars Series, Spring 2008, vol. 1b.
We have become a nation that accepts separate and unequal schools as if nothing can be done about segregation. As a nation, we expect our schools to create equal outcomes for students who leave their homes severely disadvantaged by family and community poverty, who arrive at their schools to find sometimes unqualified or inexperienced teachers, and who leave those schools as soon as they can. This double and triple segregation has become far worse since the U.S. Supreme Court began dissolving desegregation plans 16 years ago—a dissolution that continues to deepen and intensify segregation. Across 21st-century America, segregation has reached levels for millions of students once found only in the Old South. It has produced schools that require massive resources to offer the kinds of opportunities and instruction routinely available to students in privileged schools and communities.
In our cities we now have many schools with Black and Latino students who are almost entirely poor and teachers who have little or no help in addressing the consequences of deep tensions that often exist in neighborhoods heavily affected by immigration, gangs, and other issues. We are currently in the midst of a vast migration of the Black and Latino middle class to suburban school districts, districts that have very little diversity in their staffs and little or no preparation to avoid the polarization, inequality, and resegregation so many urban neighborhoods and schools experienced in years past. We have to work on issues of race in a nation that will soon have no majority race and where the most dramatic growth is among the population with the lowest educational levels.
In a nation with 44 percent non-White students and extreme inequality in educational attainment, it's time we address these issues as seriously as we did during the Civil Rights era. If we don't have a plan for racial equity everywhere, and for integration where possible, we are all too likely to replicate the failures of the past. Although education policy has basically ignored the issues of racial change and integration since the Civil Rights era, no one has figured out how to make school systems separate but equal and no one has figured out how White, suburban, middle-class teachers are to work effectively with students of color and linguistic minority students in complex, changing, interracial settings without good professional training designed to support multicultural education and diversity. Doing educational reform while ignoring the fundamental cleavages in society is profoundly counterproductive. We need a new Civil Rights agenda for our schools.
A first step is for educators to recognize and demand changes in the racial conditions outside the schools that make their work so much harder. Housing policy, wages policy, health care, and day care are among the most urgent issues. A second is to demand that there be a Civil Rights agenda for our schools. A third is to develop and implement training and support plans to give the nation's teachers the skills they need to better work with students of all backgrounds and to teach with materials and practices that fully recognize the contribution of all cultures and races to the United States.
Educators are well aware of two things. First is that President George W. Bush was fundamentally right when he highlighted massive inequalities in education for minority students. Second was that he was fundamentally wrong in thinking it can be solved by high-stakes testing of children and sanctioning of schools. The NCLB law is a classic example of this latter problem, as we have shown in ten studies and two books on NCLB implementation.
Punishing schools serving students with the least preparation and the most negative outside influences for not having accomplished rates of gain never achieved on any scale anywhere punishes the victims of multiple segregation and encourages their teachers and administrators to leave even faster than they might normally do. But even ending or drastically modifying NCLB won't make our schools' racial inequality go away or create positive race relations in schools and communities. In fact, many causal state policies would remain in place. We need different, positive policies that address our racial issues, policies that respect and employ the talents of our teachers. But such policies can't be simply about more money, nor should they lose NCLB's good parts—such as, for example, collecting much needed data on all groups within all schools.
There is far too much evidence that simply increasing funds without using the money very carefully doesn't change outcomes much, though money is certainly necessary to do what needs to be done. The three things that most powerfully influence educational outcomes are families, teachers, and other students who create a climate and level of competition. Curriculum, materials, and many other things can, of course, make a difference, but families, teachers, and other students are at the core. It's important to use money, for example, to support social policies designed to improve the conditions of families with school-age children.
Our recent survey of a national sample of NEA teachers, done in collaboration with the Southern Poverty Law Center, shows that teachers are segregated, that a great many are in racially changing schools (particularly in the suburbs), that teachers believe they can and should treat all students the same, and that those in geographic areas that still have significant White populations are least prepared for the changes that are coming. Teachers sincerely want to serve all students well, but they have little support and are constantly blamed. We now know that, while more than half of Latino children in large metropolitan areas and nearly half of Blacks already live outside central cities, serious segregation and inequality follow migrations of the non-White middle class. We also know that many suburban schools are ill-prepared for the changes currently in motion.
Treating all children the same sounds good, but it's very problematic. Consider your own children. How effective would you think a school where all the teachers had cultural and racial backgrounds different from you? Where classmates who understood your children's background and heritage were few? Where your children faced incidents of harassment, prejudice, misunderstanding, and hostility? Where no teaching took place about the positive contributions of your race or culture to the common society? Where the school passively accepted various forms of in-school segregation? Where your children ended up in dead-end classes or special education? What if your children's school only taught classes in a language they couldn't understand and they had no teachers to talk to in their own tongue? I think that almost any parent facing such a situation would think that positive ways to address these issues were urgently important. And so they are, no matter whose children are involved.
There have been no significant federal funds to address issues of race in the schools since the Reagan Administration eliminated the popular federal desegregation aid program 27 years ago. That law funded programs that involved training teachers, working on curriculum, helping students address racial divisions within schools, and other related issues. It had demonstrated success in both improving school race relations and raising achievement. Relatively simple techniques such as Student Team Learning had clear, significant, positive effects on both relationships and achievement. The program's funding helped create many new magnet schools that were both effective and integrated, public schools with autonomy to innovate, and faculties composed of teachers committed to their special mission. These were schools with the obviously necessary Civil Rights provisions, including extensive outreach and recruitment targeting underrepresented groups, clear desegregation standards, free transportion for all students who wanted to attend, and no rejection of students with disabilities or language issues—much better in these respects than many contemporary charter schools, which typically have no Civil Rights provisions and are, on average, even more segregated than public schools.
Yet, we have used federal and state funds to expand charters, and the Supreme Court decided last June to undermine key parts of the Civil Rights policies of hundreds of magnet schools. Teacher organizations need to encourage school districts to carefully examine legal ways to pursue integrated schools, and they need to ask Congress to restore support urgently needed for managing the vast racial transition our country is currently undergoing. If we don't figure out how to increase the graduation rates and college success of Black and Latino students, major portions of America will soon experience declines in average educational levels—an economic disaster.
The U.S. Supreme Court decided in the 1990s to end most desegregation orders, but many communities wanted to voluntarily maintain successful elements like magnet schools. Some, such as Louisville-Jefferson County, Kentucky, fought long court battles to maintain long-successful, district-wide plans. Unfortunately, in a 5–4 decision last summer, the Supreme Court undermined most of those plans. This forces hundreds of communities to either give up their efforts and accept much greater segregation or find the best available alternative to keeping diversityin their schools. The decision permits some limited direct use of race and it leaves other criteria for assignment—poverty, test scores, geographic diversity, linguistic diversity, and many others—perfectly legal. It is important for education organizations to encourage local school boards to do the necessary work to maintain as much as possible of their successful plans. We've been working with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund as school officials to try to find workable answers.
There are also provisions in federal law that could serve as a basis for positive action, such as the now empty promise of a right to transfer from a school being sanctioned under NCLB. Although this right is defined poorly and unfairly in NCLB, and good schools are often sanctioned, the idea that a student in a persistently weak public school should be given a chance to transfer to another, stronger public school could be part of a good plan. The problem is that there are very few opportunities to transfer to better schools because the right is limited by school district lines and spaces. Many existing transfers are from one weak school to another weak school, sometimes to a weaker school from one that failed on one of NCLB's many technicalities. This needs to be changed to stop transfers that produce no real gain and
to open up transfers to definitely stronger schools, often across district lines. Similarly, charter schools, which are often independent of district lines, should be required to adopt some of the key Civil Rights provisions of magnet schools.
The resurgence and expansion of segregation haven't happened because we've learned how to make separate schools equal. With rare exceptions, we haven't. Nor have they happened because we've learned that desegregation and integration don't work. In fact, we've never had more solid evidence about their benefits. Five hundred fifty-three researchers from 201 universities and research centers presented the U.S. Supreme Court with a summary of a half-century of research on these issues, showing that the Court was right in Brown and that going backward deepens educational inequality. Segregation's resurgence and expansion have happened because a very powerful and insistent legal and political campaign to attack and reverse desegregation is succeeding, primarily through transforming the federal courts, the Justice Department, and the White House. This transformation is so deep that policies once
considered severely inadequate to protect the rights of minority students in the Civil Rights era are now prohibited by the United States Supreme Court, and practices producing segregation once held to be constitutional violations are now approved. The coming election will be very important in the next stage of the battle over the courts and over American justice.
Four decades after Dr. King's death, we are a very different nation. We are a nation where the White population will become the minority in the nation's schools in just a few years. We are a nation where nearly a fifth of public school students come from linguistic minority families. Even though there is no significant effort to desegregate our schools now, thousands of American schools, mostly in the suburbs, are going through racial and ethnic change as Black and Latino families move away from central urban areas and many city schools experience displacement of one minority by another. Since teaching is the one profession that must interact effectively and in great depth with nine-tenths of the nation's young people, lack of training and support means, at best, lost opportunities for deeper and more effective relationships. At worst, it means being helpless in the face of serious divisions coming into our schools from the outside community. American parents, by very large majorities, want their children to grow up understanding how to relate successfully with all groups in a diverse society. For this to happen, and for our society to avoid projecting into ever larger sectors of suburbia the kinds of poor race relations and resegregation that damaged so many urban neighborhoods, teachers must have the tools to understand and relate to students and parents from all backgrounds and to help children understand the very diverse and changing society they will live in.
Addressing these issues isn't a luxury or an optional part of education. It goes to the core of what makes our schools and communities work. We need new dedication to addressing these issues. Younger teachers are well aware of this necessity, but often find too little support and too many pressures. There are positive models and experiences we can draw upon. They don't take a great deal of school time or cost a lot of money, and they tend to produce real academic gains. Addressing these issues is part of the groundwork for successful education reform and community stability. It's time we insist that these issues find a place high on the agenda of all education and community leaders.
About Gary Orfield
Gary Orfield has written books and spoken out against standardized testing, particularly the use of test scores to deny high school graduation. His central interest is the development and implementation of social policy, with a focus on the impact of policy on equal opportunity for success in American society. In addition to his scholarly work, Gary has been involved with developing government policy and has participated as a court-appointed expert in several dozen Civil Rights cases, and he has been called to testify in Civil Rights suits by the U.S. Department of Justice as well as by many legal services and educational organizations.
About the Visiting Scholars Series
NEA Research periodically hosts the Visiting Scholars Series as a forum intended to help link policy initiatives with educational scholarship. Prominent scholars are asked to link their research to recommendations for closing achievement gaps.
Contact us for more information.
This paper, Race and Schools: The Need for Action, by Gary Orfield, Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles, University of California–Los Angeles, is a Research Brief from the NEA Research Visiting Scholars Series, Spring 2008, vol. 1b.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Pro Bono San Francisco
Today 10/13/08 along with some others candidates, I had the opportunity to speak with a group of retired voters. They seem to really have a handle on the issues that affect our schools. In the recording you will hear how I respond to their question.
http://www.box.net/shared/6y7614gnyb
http://www.box.net/shared/6y7614gnyb
Saturday, October 11, 2008
I'm on Da 2008 Ballot Man!!!
I had to just get something off my chest. I don't want to be the madd guy...but the people really need to know.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Getting ready for the show
1.
This is how I get myself ready to present to some of the voters here in San Francisco. We are getting closer to the end of the game, thought I'd let you in.
Hola Omar!
I have been following your u-tube posts. I just want to let you know that the post "Golden Gate Ave." [which is extra off the hook since I live off GG Ave.] was significant. As an athlete for 25 years [futbol player] your analogy regarding keeping things on the field and not present to take away from the context resonated so well with me.
You have such a big heart Omar and it shows. I appreciate your spirit, your willingness to share that part of you with everyone else that let's us see the whole person...a man with a connection to his heart and mind that drives his passion and guides his leadership in loving the community.
Keep up the good walk on right path. I support you 100% and know that others do as well.
Freedom,
Just having some fun with the voters.
3.
When I was at the forum, I kinda got off track alittle so I decided to re-read my napkin too you as well as expand upon the thought process.
This is how I get myself ready to present to some of the voters here in San Francisco. We are getting closer to the end of the game, thought I'd let you in.
Hola Omar!
I have been following your u-tube posts. I just want to let you know that the post "Golden Gate Ave." [which is extra off the hook since I live off GG Ave.] was significant. As an athlete for 25 years [futbol player] your analogy regarding keeping things on the field and not present to take away from the context resonated so well with me.
You have such a big heart Omar and it shows. I appreciate your spirit, your willingness to share that part of you with everyone else that let's us see the whole person...a man with a connection to his heart and mind that drives his passion and guides his leadership in loving the community.
Keep up the good walk on right path. I support you 100% and know that others do as well.
Freedom,
Just having some fun with the voters.
3.
When I was at the forum, I kinda got off track alittle so I decided to re-read my napkin too you as well as expand upon the thought process.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
wATCHING PAINT DRY WOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER
The questions where all over the damn map. This is what's wrong with the SAN FRANCISCO SCHOOL BOARD ELECTION.
HIGH EXPECTATION IS ALWAYS BETTER THEN A HAND OUT ! I WONDER ABOUT OUR SF SYSTEM
I WONDER IF THIS CHILD WAS EVER SOCIALLY PROMOTED? MAKES YOUR WONDER...HMMMMMMMMM!
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Endorsements, controversies and tidbits about the school board race
1. I have to comment on candidate Omar Khalif. "I’ve never talked to him face to face", but from what I’ve seen at several forums and meetings, I like the guy. He appears to have a droll sense of humor and a self-deprecating good nature, appealingly combined with the guts to take unpopular and un-PC positions. Unfortunately I disagree with enough of his positions to make it a deal-killer, but he still deserves mention.
2. Do you agree as all right-thinking people should do, or are you vile scum? And when did you stop beating your wife? All 14 questions are worded in similar fashion.Given the phrasing of the questions, I’m giving credit for guts and principle to any candidate who had the cojones to disagree with even one. Here are the few, the proud: Marigrace Cohen, Omar Khalif, Emily Murase and Jill Wynns. (Only Khalif, for the record, disagreed with the question I quoted.)
I think it's too bad that she can't come and speak with me face to face but yet have this opinion...lol what do she think I'll do bite her. And if she could do better then put down the pin and get in the race.....hmmmmmmmmm! Now that's a thought.
Caroline Grannan S.F. Education Examiner
2. Do you agree as all right-thinking people should do, or are you vile scum? And when did you stop beating your wife? All 14 questions are worded in similar fashion.Given the phrasing of the questions, I’m giving credit for guts and principle to any candidate who had the cojones to disagree with even one. Here are the few, the proud: Marigrace Cohen, Omar Khalif, Emily Murase and Jill Wynns. (Only Khalif, for the record, disagreed with the question I quoted.)
I think it's too bad that she can't come and speak with me face to face but yet have this opinion...lol what do she think I'll do bite her. And if she could do better then put down the pin and get in the race.....hmmmmmmmmm! Now that's a thought.
Caroline Grannan S.F. Education Examiner
Topic #1 Assignment
School assignment is the thorn that sticks every parent as their first contact with the San Francisco Unified School District. The current system confuses some, is daunting to others, and down right painful to those 1800 families who don’t get any of their seven choices of school assignment. There must be a better way. The system was constructed, patched and re-patched as court decisions moved the district one way and bared others. Now free of court restraint, the district is attempting to craft a system that will meet the educational needs of its students and the demands of parents for proximity and equity. In this discussion, four candidates for school board view school assignment; Barbara Lopez, Marigrace Cohen, Omar Kharif and Jaynry Mak.
CLICK LINK TO LISTEN.
PPS-SF sponsored Senior Dad Candidate Forum select below
http://www.srdad.com/SrDad/SFBoE/SFBoE.html
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Thursday, October 2, 2008
JROTC may hinge on election
By Beth WinegarnerExaminer Staff Writer 9/29/08 San Francisco’s embattled high school military program could still have a fighting chance, depending on who is elected to the Board of Education this November.
Examiner file photo SAN FRANCISCO – San Francisco’s embattled high school military program could still have a fighting chance, depending on who is elected to the Board of Education this November.
Two years ago, the school board voted to phase out the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program and it is now scheduled to end its run in The City’s public high schools in June 2009. However, the November ballot includes a nonbinding measure asking residents to support JROTC.
Voters will also be asked to choose between 15 candidates vying for four open seats on the school board. Several of the candidates told The Examiner that if Measure V passes, they would move to keep JROTC, including challengers James Calloway, Marigrace Cohen, Omar Khalif, Jaynry Mak, Emily Murase and Rachel Norton, as well as incumbents Jill Wynns and Norman Yee.
Those who support JROTC said they felt the decision by the current board to end the program was motivated by politics rather than the needs of students.
School board members Mark Sanchez and Eric Mar, who supported ending JROTC, are now running for seats on the Board of Supervisors, while Wynns and Yee, who opposed the ban, are running for re-election.
“Their curriculum is really about life skills, not military indoctrination,” Murase said. “It’s also really inclusive — there are gay students in the program, which means San Francisco could be the first place for social change in [the military].”
More than 1,600 high school students were enrolled in JROTC when the board voted to end the program. By December 2007, enrollment had declined to 858.
Additionally, the Board of Education voted last spring to bar students from earning physical education credits for JROTC classes, following a state mandate that all physical education classes be taught by instructors with PE credentials.
Nearly 20 percent of students said they enrolled in the program because they didn’t want to take physical education classes and could get the credits through JROTC.
As a replacement program to JROTC, district staff have proposed a leadership-based program focusing on ethnic studies.
Challengers Harold Brown, Sandra Fewer and Kimberly Wicoff said they wouldn’t bring JROTC back under any circumstances. While Brown opposed the program on the grounds that the military does not welcome gays, the others simply felt the issue needs to be put to rest.
“This issue has divided the district long enough,” Fewer said. “I’m ready to move forward and create a better leadership program for all students.”
bwinegarner@sfexaminer.com
Candidates taking sides in JROTC debate
What it is: Measure V, Policy Against Terminating Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps Programs in Public High Schools
Question: If Measure V passes, even though it’s nonbinding, would you introduce or support a Board of Education resolution reinstating JROTC?
Yes
James Calloway
Marigrace Cohen
Omar Khalif
Jaynry Mak
Emily Murase
Rachel Norton
Jill Wynns
Norman Yee
No
Harold Brown
Sandra Fewer
Kimberly Wicoff
No response
Glenn Davis
Alexander Young Lee
Barbara “Bobbi” Lopez
Kelly Wallace
Voters will also be asked to choose between 15 candidates vying for four open seats on the school board. Several of the candidates told The Examiner that if Measure V passes, they would move to keep JROTC, including challengers James Calloway, Marigrace Cohen, Omar Khalif, Jaynry Mak, Emily Murase and Rachel Norton, as well as incumbents Jill Wynns and Norman Yee.
Those who support JROTC said they felt the decision by the current board to end the program was motivated by politics rather than the needs of students.
School board members Mark Sanchez and Eric Mar, who supported ending JROTC, are now running for seats on the Board of Supervisors, while Wynns and Yee, who opposed the ban, are running for re-election.
“Their curriculum is really about life skills, not military indoctrination,” Murase said. “It’s also really inclusive — there are gay students in the program, which means San Francisco could be the first place for social change in [the military].”
More than 1,600 high school students were enrolled in JROTC when the board voted to end the program. By December 2007, enrollment had declined to 858.
Additionally, the Board of Education voted last spring to bar students from earning physical education credits for JROTC classes, following a state mandate that all physical education classes be taught by instructors with PE credentials.
Nearly 20 percent of students said they enrolled in the program because they didn’t want to take physical education classes and could get the credits through JROTC.
As a replacement program to JROTC, district staff have proposed a leadership-based program focusing on ethnic studies.
Challengers Harold Brown, Sandra Fewer and Kimberly Wicoff said they wouldn’t bring JROTC back under any circumstances. While Brown opposed the program on the grounds that the military does not welcome gays, the others simply felt the issue needs to be put to rest.
“This issue has divided the district long enough,” Fewer said. “I’m ready to move forward and create a better leadership program for all students.”
bwinegarner@sfexaminer.com
Candidates taking sides in JROTC debate
What it is: Measure V, Policy Against Terminating Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps Programs in Public High Schools
Question: If Measure V passes, even though it’s nonbinding, would you introduce or support a Board of Education resolution reinstating JROTC?
Yes
James Calloway
Marigrace Cohen
Omar Khalif
Jaynry Mak
Emily Murase
Rachel Norton
Jill Wynns
Norman Yee
No
Harold Brown
Sandra Fewer
Kimberly Wicoff
No response
Glenn Davis
Alexander Young Lee
Barbara “Bobbi” Lopez
Kelly Wallace
With Choice has come resegregation.
With more choice has come resegregation / Board's challenge: Reconcile imbalance with least parental uproar Omar Khalif (left), with daughter Lailah Duke, 12, and wife Carla Duke, is pleased with public schools in Bayview-Hunters Point. Chronicle photo by Frederic Larson 2006
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
The San Francisco Examiner
There was a question asked regarding the budget?
My response was that if we were to create a "School Trust Account". We as School Board members and district employees should create a better product, before we asked the business private sector and voters for another thin dime. In spite of State and Federal lack of funding for our schools in the future.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
