Notes to the New Superintendent about Student Enrollment (edit this)
Mr. or Ms. New Superintendent (and Candidates), here is a leftinsf primer about SFUSD and student enrollment.
As you know, the District has a lottery for students who want to attend schools that have more applicants than seats. Those who have siblings in the school get automatically in. The applications of those that don’t have siblings in the school are weighed by a variety of factors ranging from quality of their sending school to income level.
Now if we look at my previous post, you will note my comment about the same schools that were popular last year are still popular today. Note that all of these schools are in the west side of the City. Rooftop, Lincoln, Clarendon, Presidio, Lincoln, Lilenthal and Hoover-every single one of the “popular” schools are on the west side. And almost every one of these schools are located in fairly affluent neighborhoods.
It is interesting to note that the school with the highest API in the District, Alice Fong Yu Elementary School (also located in the west side) is not on the top 5 list.
One neighborhood in the City that is not affluent, is the Bayview/Hunters Point. I just came from a memorial for a 17 year old girl with three offers to college who was killed in pass-by shooting.
All of the schools in the Bayview have space:
-Carver ES
-Bret Harte ES
-Malcolm X ES
-George Washington Carver ES
-Willie Brown Academy (4-8)
-Thurgood Marshall HS
The only exception is Thurgood Marshall High School where your predecessor sent the long-time principal of our academic magnet high school to be the principal at Marshall.
Another neglected neighborhood in the City is the Western Addition. Your predecessors closed three elementary schools and a middle school in the Western Addition. It is interesting to note that none of the five remaining elementary schools-Grattan, New Traditions, John Muir, Rosa Parks and Dr. Cobb-are on the handout where the District is trying to increase enrollment. It could mean that a large number of parents have suddenly discovered the schools in the Western Addition or…someone wants at least one of the Western Additions schools to close due to lack of enrollment. I personally am hoping for the former.
One more aside, Superintendent. Please note that only 20% of the incoming kindergarteners, 28% of the incoming 6th graders and 25% of the incoming high school students choose their attendance area school as their first choice.
People have been elected by stating the words “neighborhood schools.” A case in point is Ed Jew. Ed Jew ran on a platform that every child would be able to go to a neighborhood school-and the facts are that only a minority of children are choosing their attendance area school. Please note that Mr. Jew represents the Sunset at the Board of Supervisors-and his district includes Lincoln and in nearby District 4, Lowell High School.
Again, 74% of the incoming 9th graders put Lincoln down as one of their choices. And when you come to SF, you will quickly note that 74% of 13-14 years olds don’t live in the Sunset-so they must be choosing a nonattendance area high school.
In the last three years, we have closed Treasure Island ES, Golden Gate ES in the Western Addition, DeAvilia ES in the Western Addition, John Swett ES in the Western Addition, Cabrillo ES in the Richmond, Luther Burbank MS in the Excelsior, Enola Maxwell MS in Potrero and Gloria R. Davis MS in Bayview. All but Cabrillo ES was on the east side of the City.
Throughout the community meetings to determine the criteria of how you will be chosen, the compliant was that the student process selection was unfair and that resources were not being evenly distributed.
School assignment and distribution of resources among schools will be one of your biggest challenges.
March 29th, 2007 at 5:31 am e
Lowell High School is in District 7, not District 4.
March 29th, 2007 at 7:41 am e
The shift in students from east side to west side schools has nothing to do with gravity. It is all about parental selection.
Note that kids from the West side are now traveling East across town to Galileo because it is becoming a top-notch high school. When other schools in the east side improve, parents will turn the tide and start shifting their children east.
So how do we make our east side schools better?
1. Hire principals with backbone and guts (ie, principals who are not afraid to shake-out bad teachers in spite of the irrational protection that the teachers’ union provides to its incompotent members)and teachers with a strong work ethic.
2. Throw money at east side schools. Yes, take money away from west side schools and give it to east side schools. Why not? The poor-performing schools need the dosh a lot more. West side schools can fill the gap through parental involvement and fundraising.
AND THIS IS THE HARD PART:
3. Improve parent ethics. Let’s face it, kids with only one parent at home are often handicapped from the beginning. They tend to struggle in school.
March 29th, 2007 at 10:34 am e
The obvious reason that Alice Fong Yu isn’t on the “most popular” list is that it’s an all-Cantonese-immersion program, K-5 (it shifts to teaching Mandarin in 6-8). That means kindergarten is taught entirely in Cantonese, gradually shifting to English year by year. There are definitely families who want that, but the market is specific and limited.
As Kim notes by implication, families who live near high-achieving and/or popular schools tend to want guaranteed (also known as mandatory) access to their local school, while families who live near struggling schools tend to favor an all-choice enrollment system. Reconciling that is one of the major challenges of the job. Of course that can all be fixed if we “just make all the schools good!” — as newcomers to this issue are always perkily suggesting (in ignorance of the fact that this challenge is what it all boils down to).
March 29th, 2007 at 10:35 am e
Has it ever occurred to anyone that if parents were given the option of sending their kids to a neighborhood school, a minority of parents choosing an attendance area school for their kids would quickly become a majority?
I couldn’t agree more with point #3 above - parental involvement in a child’s education is directly correlated with that child’s academic performance. Simply throwing money at a problem might make us feel like we’re doing something positive, but it’s an approach that stinks of politics. If we really want to help our kids academic performance, begin and end with the parents. They are the key to a successful child’s education.
March 29th, 2007 at 11:10 am e
Parents are given that option, helpsfo, and yet, as Kim says: … only 20% of the incoming kindergarteners, 28% of the incoming 6th graders and 25% of the incoming high school students choose their attendance area school as their first choice.
March 29th, 2007 at 11:46 am e
For the vast majority of schools, every student that applies gets in. It’s only the schools that get more applicants than seats where the diversity index kicks in.
Most parents/children are choosing schools not in their attendance area, i.e. their “neighborhood school.”