S.F. schools take on racism, classism

The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

San Francisco Superintendent Carlos Garcia took a first stab at putting his mark on city schools Tuesday with a plan that pushes the district to face racism and classism head on.

The district's strategic plan adopted by the school board 6-0 Tuesday night focuses on reversing the typical academic outcomes for black, Hispanic and poor students.

Although that sounds almost like a reworked version of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, district officials say they are working off a corporate model that puts everyone - from school board members to custodians - under the microscope in different ways.

A new grading system will expose schools - even the popular, high-scoring ones - that are failing to address the institutional racial inequities within their walls.

"The issues we're dealing with are capital D Democracy issues," said Tony Smith, deputy superintendent of instruction, innovation and social justice, and the plan's architect.

The question, however, is how to solve those deep-rooted societal problems that are playing out in schools. So far, no urban district has bridged the achievement gap or created schools of equal quality for children regardless of their race or income.

The solution, according to the superintendent's plan, starts with a top-down acknowledgement that the schools are contributing to the inequities in society, Smith said.

Training will also be crucial, he said.

That means, Smith said, asking teachers some hard questions, including: "Do you have experience working with these kinds of kids?"

Each school will be judged by how well it "serves each and every student based on that school's ability to disrupt the historically predictive power of racial, ethnic, linguistic and socio-economic student attributes," according to the plan.

Successful programs would be identified and worked into other schools.

A scorecard will measure school and the district performance across a wide range of indicators including:

-- "Percentage of schools that are fully integrated racially, ethnically and socio-economically."

-- "Percentage of SFUSD teachers with a district supplied laptop that is functional and has current software."

-- "Number and percentage of students who drop out of school between grades 6-12."

-- "Number and percentage of students who vote in their local student government elections."

The scorecard is based on a business model created in the 1990s.

We almost don't know where to begin with this other than to say: it doesn't appear like the three R's are a top priority when you hear phrases like "social justice" thrown around.