Lately I feel like I’m playing Whack-a-Mole. Yesterday, I wrote about a blogger’s parting shot on the quality of our public schools; today’s ARGGH comes in the form of a Chronicle blog post that is supposed to be about whether San Francisco is affordable for families, but is really just another piece of lightly-informed judgment on the school district, blithely masquerading as fact.

Atop the piece is a photo of children in school uniforms jumping for joy, with the caption: “Yay! Our children can afford private school!” (Right, because everyone would attend private school if only they could afford it!) But what really got me steamed was the blogger’s attempt to describe how student assignment works:

The district, in order to foster socio-economic and ethnic diversity, does not enroll students in schools based on where children live. Instead, students are bused from one corner of the city to the other, ensuring that for instance not only Chinese students end up in schools in Chinatown, or that only well-to-do students end up in Pacific Heights. Such a mission is laudable in theory. Unfortunately, this means that the idea of living next door to your child’s school is about as likely as winning the lottery.

We do not arbitrarily and involuntarily bus students from one corner of the City to the other. We allow parents to submit a list of up to seven school choices; from some neighborhoods we provide busing to our alternative schools. The system seeks to assign parents to their highest choice where they add the most diversity, and last year, 78 percent of families received once of the schools on their list. Upshot: the system has a lot of problems,  but busing kids “from one corner of the city to the other” isn’t one of them.

Then I heard about an interview with Marc Benioff, founder of Salesforce.com that appeared in the Chronicle earlier this week. Among other things, cloud computing pioneer Benioff was asked: “You have long San Francisco roots. If you could change one thing about the City, what would it be and why?”  Here’s his answer:

I just cannot understand why we can’t have better schools. That private schools are the only option for the kind of high-net-worth crowd, I think, is ridiculous.It should be a major initiative. It should be something we’re all working on. We have to get our head out of the clouds. All this green stuff is great, it’s great we don’t have plastic bottles or plastic bags and all of that, but how about some great schools?

Do I really have to say it again? The schools aren’t perfect, but they are better than any of these folks are saying. And instead of beating us up on various platforms (hasn’t the Chronicle been accommodating in that department lately?), why not get involved and help us? I am sending an invitation to Mr. Benioff to sit down with the Superintendent to see if he can marshall some serious resources to get through the next two or three years with our forward momentum intact (I’ll post my letter once I’ve written it; I just had the bright idea as I was writing the post). Here’s his contact information if you’d like to chime in:

Marc Benioff
Chairman & CEO
Salesforce.com
1 Market St., Suite 300
San Francisco, California 94105

Phone: 415-901-7000
Fax: 415-901-7040

Couldn’t find an email address, but he does have a Facebook account.

*Thought added after a full night’s sleep: It should be pointed out that Salesforce.com, the company founded by Mr. Benioff, is a very progressive company, and its employees do a lot of volunteering in our schools. Last fall, for example, I was at Daniel Webster Elementary when at least 100 (probably more) volunteers from Salesforce.com were busily painting the interior of the school.

You might as well read about it here, since it’s already hit the local news. The latest issue of The Lowell, the student-run newspaper at Lowell HS, carries an innocuous-looking, business card sized ad reading “Free Music Downloads” in large letters, then a web site address in smaller type. The web address leads to a web site that distributes “white resistance” music, stickers and other materials.

The ad was apparently submitted via email and cost $30 to place. While a Chronicle story indicates that the contents of the web site might have changed between the time the ad was submitted and the time it appeared in print, other reports question whether faculty advisors actually checked the link. In addition to The Lowell, other high school newspapers around the country were apparently targeted.

In any event, this was an underhanded stunt, pure and simple, intended to dupe student journalists into promoting offensive content that most would never run if they realized its true intent.

(Note: while I try always to link to other news outlets when their original reporting informs the content of a post, I have decided not to do that here in order to avoid giving this web site additional attention.)

City Hall watchers know that the Board of Supervisors has been trying to reverse the layoffs of scores of workers in the City’s Department of Public Health; layoffs that directly affect school district workers because of “bumping” policies that allow workers in certain Civil Service job classifications to bump into jobs either in the school district or in the City.

Unfortunately, the legislation that would have restored the Public Health jobs failed to get the required eight votes yesterday (voting against were Supervisors Alioto-Pier, Chu, Elsbernd, and Maxwell). The Chronicle reports, however, that the legislation could go back to committee for changes, allowing the authors to try again for an eight-vote majority at some later date. Time’s a wasting, however — the first layoffs go into effect as early as next week.

As I said, I’m sorry the jobs were not saved, because that would have given our workers some peace of mind. But I also think this would have been at best a temporary solution — there’s no guarantee our secretaries and other workers wouldn’t get bumped out of their jobs again later. The real solution — the one no one at the City seems to want to talk about — is that we need to get real about Civil Service job classifications for school district jobs. In no reality-based universe is the job description for a school secretary the same as a clerk in the Department of Public Health — however wonderful and hard-working. Being a school secretary requires specialized knowledge of how the school district works, including budgeting and staffing mechanisms; and in many case bilingual skills so that this essential “face” of our school office can easily communicate with parents. You don’t even have to take my word for it: ask the principals, teachers, students and parents who have been coming to City Hall in droves and writing impassioned letters to their elected officials in order to make the same point.

Tonight we heard public comment from many families whose children are currently enrolled in the general education program at Dr. William R. Cobb Elementary. Families are worried their program will be closed, because the school district is implementing a Montessori program at the same site.

While my ability to talk about the specifics of this situation is limited, there has been no decision to either close the school, move a program, or end a program.

What I can say is that The Montessori program at Cobb was created to fulfill two objectives: implement programs that integrate Pre-K and elementary school programs in a seamless way; and create high-quality programs for African-American children. In several districts across the country (most notably Milwaukee), public Montessori programs have been implemented with very positive results for low-income children and African-American children, and this data was the spark that started the push for a Pre-K through 5th grade public Montessori program. Why locate this program at Cobb? There were existing preschool classrooms, the school was under-enrolled, and the principal was enthusiastic.

I don’t believe anyone saw the Montessori program as a way to marginalize the predominantly African-American families who currently attend the school. The objective (I believe, though I was not on the Board at the time the program was created) was to offer families from the Western Addition a unique and high-quality alternative program; and a program that would afford children a seamless transition from preschool to elementary classrooms. Because our preschool programs are required to reserve 60 percent of their seats for families who are low-income, job-hunting, or unable to afford preschool, the Cobb program was seen as a way to ensure that the least-advantaged families were first in line as we implemented a promising educational approach.

I’m posting a useful FAQ on the Cobb General Ed-Montessori situation that may help answer some of the questions swirling around.

Ariana Huffington makes an excellent point about all the misplaced Balloon Boy hysteria – why aren’t we worrying about the kids who are really at risk?

I find the media’s obsession with these non-stories especially galling when they lead to endless agonizing over the welfare of a child — agonizing that is sorely missing when there isn’t a hot air balloon or inner tube in shark-infested waters involved.

So now that we know that Falcon is safe, how about repurposing some of that concern for, say:

– the over 1.5 million children who are homeless.

– the 42 percent of homeless children who are under the age of 6.

– the one in six homeless children who suffers from an emotional problem.

It doesn’t have to be wall-to-wall coverage, but how about some coverage of the 75 to 100 percent increase in the number of children who are newly homeless because of the foreclosure crisis? Or the 13 million American children living in poverty?

Forty percent of teachers are disheartened and disappointed with their jobs, says a new study published this week. The study, conducted by nonprofits Public Agenda and Learning Point Associates and funded by the Gates Foundation and the Joyce Foundation, surveyed 900 teachers across the country.

Teachers surveyed fall into three broad categories which researchers designated the “Disheartened,” the “Contented,” and the “Idealists.”

• Disheartened teachers account for 40 percent of those surveyed and are twice as likely as other teachers to strongly agree with the view that teaching is “so demanding, it’s a wonder that more people don’t burn out.” More than half teach in low-income schools and 61 percent cite lack of support from administrators as a major drawback to teaching.
• Contented teachers make up 37 percent of teachers and are more likely to say that their schools are “orderly, safe, and respectful.” About two-thirds of this group teaches in middle-income or affluent schools, and the majority holds a graduate degree. Sixty-three percent strongly agree with the statement that “teaching is exactly what I wanted,” which is supported by the fact that 82 percent have been teaching for more than 10 years.
• Idealist teachers make up 23 percent of teachers surveyed and are more likely to believe that “good teachers can lead all students to learn, even those from poor families or who have uninvolved parents.” More than half are 32 years old or younger and teach in elementary schools, and 36 percent say that, although they intend to stay in education, they plan to leave classroom teaching in the future for other jobs in education.

These insights into how teachers see their profession particularly resonate with me this week, a week in which I had a very raw and honest meeting with the entire staff of one of our hard-to-fill elementary schools. I am not sure I have ever seen a staff as dedicated and cohesive as this one — they support each other and they are entirely committed to the district’s goals and the ideal of social justice. When you walk through the school, you can feel that you are in a place where all children are loved and challenged. But disillusionment is creeping in, because even though this staff is doing everything we ask of them (often more), it’s not enough. They don’t have what they need to do their jobs and the school doesn’t have the resources to offer its students what they need.

Because this school is “hard to fill,” most of the teachers are newer to the profession — and therefore low on the seniority list. Eighty-five percent of the teachers at this school got pink slips last year, and I couldn’t promise them that it wouldn’t happen again this year. This spring, many will get pink slips and the way it looks now, at least some of them will lose their jobs at the end of the year.

Their question for me was: What are you going to do about it?

Mainly what I can do is continue to remind the central office of the importance of bending over backwards to support sites, like this one, that are struggling under the weight of educating a high concentration of children who are low-income, disadvantaged and often traumatized by witnessing violence. There were a few specific “asks” we identified that I can agitate for at the district level, but I can’t solve the pink slip problem and I can’t solve the budget reality. Every site in San Francisco Unified feels underfunded, and we are continually prodding our budget mechanisms to ensure that funds are distributed equitably. Are there times equitable distribution doesn’t happen? Yes, but in large part curbing abuse is like adding a few drops to a very big bucket.

Part of the long-term answer is contained in the work we are doing to redesign the assignment system, since we’ve seen clearly in our data that schools with large concentrations of low-income children of color  are often low-performing schools. Some studies seem to indicate a “tipping point,” a threshold where the concentration of low-income children of color begins to affect the achievement of every student at the school. It’s easy to see how such a “tipping point” could arise: in the school I visited this week, a large number of the students have untreated post traumatic stress disorder. These students are unable to focus, are often disruptive, and eat up the lion’s share of their teacher’s time. They need specialized treatment to help them be available for learning; treatment that even the most skilled and caring teacher isn’t trained to provide.  If too many of these students are in the same school, our fragile support systems are quickly overwhelmed, and every student’s learning suffers.

But at the core is the same old truth “everybody” except 33 percent of the Legislature knows — California doesn’t fund its schools at a level that is realistic for what we expect them to accomplish. And until we do that, too many of our well-trained, dedicated teachers are going to  feel “disheartened.”

The Chronicle has done a really wonderful job getting to the back story behind the state’s decision last spring to withhold $1.5 million a month in reimbursements to SFUSD’s school lunch program for failure to follow required rules for participating in the program.

These rules, set by the USDA, are arcane, persnickety, and (as we have found out) non-negotiable. For example:

Teachers or lunchroom staff members are prohibited from handling the lunch cards or pushing the touch screens for the children. They are also not allowed to turn in a manual check-off sheet based on who they thought in advance would be taking a lunch.

In San Francisco, inspectors said school staff violated federal policies in each system.

The rules also say that lunchroom staff must see to it that a child serves him or herself at least three food items. No adult is allowed to hand a child, no matter how young, a tray of food.

Inspectors said at some San Francisco schools it went unnoticed when children took only one or two food items. That was another mark against the district.

Are you kidding me? At most schools, there are only a few adults staffing the cafeteria line. They’re supposed to make sure every child takes three items but not hand them the food? Oh, yes. The USDA (and the California Department of Education’s Nutrition Services Division, which enforces the USDA regulation) is deadly serious. So serious that last April they decided their findings were “egregious” enough to justify withholding $1.5 million a month in funds we would normally be reimbursed for serving our students free- and reduced-price meals. In case you weren’t keeping track, the amount withheld will top $10 million as of this month.

It should be said that the problems are with training and compliance at the school sites, not with the nutrition program administrators, and the penalties have nothing to do with the quality of the food. A commenter on one blog said something along the lines of “if people can’t follow the rules, they should be fired.” OK, let’s just fire the principals – who in the course of  a day are responsible for student safety and discipline, their school budgets, reams of paperwork that must be submitted to the central office, overseeing their teaching staffs and acting as instructional leaders, meeting with parents, oh, and making sure the bus isn’t late and that parents aren’t blocking driveways in the neighborhood . . . but shame on them if they don’t notice that children only took two out of the required three items in the lunch line!

But improve we must, and improve we will. Principals have gone through required training and school staffs are urged to familiarize themselves with the rules and make sure they follow them to the letter from here on out. Bottom line: the USDA gets to make the rules and they get to make us follow them. It’s strange, because with $2.68 to spend on each lunch (after overhead and labor, only about a dollar goes to the actual cost of the food) I don’t really see freeloaders breaking down the doors to get a free lunch they aren’t entitled to. But that’s the ultimate intent of the persnickety regulations: to make sure we aren’t giving away food to children  who could pay for it.

If you think this is unfair (and a ridiculous waste of our time and money), I urge you to make your feelings known to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Congresswoman Jackie Speier, and Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer. Our Federal representatives are the people with the power to help USDA see that perhaps these rules should make more sense and be easier for beleaguered schools to follow.

Tonight I am listening to Senior Dad (Stan Goldberg)’s podcast on “The State of Special Education,” featuring “known parent advocates” (inside joke) Katy Franklin and Robin Hansen, and Colin Ong-Dean, a sociologist who has written the just-published “Distinguishing Disability: Parents, Privilege and Special Education” — a book that is now on my Amazon.com wish list!  In this wide-ranging discussion you hear the righteous anger of parents who have seen the system fail their own children as well as others, as well as research from an academic who has studied the complexities and inequities of special education.

It’s really worth a listen, and not just because they say some nice things about me. For anyone who wonders why special education parents are so angry, this hourlong program is a must.

I’m amazed at the “controversy” – -probably fanned by a “slow news” Labor Day weekend — over President Obama’s plan to address schoolchildren. The President plans to tell kids to (gasp!) stay in school and stay off drugs. How dare he politicize education! As Joan Walsh writes in Salon:

Especially since, as has now been well-documented, President George H.W. Bush addressed American students in 1991, and Ronald Reagan did so via C-SPAN in 1988. (Bush talked mainly about the importance of education, while Reagan hailed the benefits of low taxes and the line-item veto.) President George W. Bush appealed to “the children of the country” to back the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001, to no public criticism. Admittedly, some Democrats accused his father of playing politics in ‘91, while Newt Gingrich ardently defended him. (Waiting for Gingrich to defend Obama. Still waiting.)

Next, they’ll be wanting to hang Obama’s picture on the wall!

The former Chancellor and two current admininistrators of San Francisco’s City College were charged today with using college funds for illegal political and personal expenses.  It’s always sobering to hear about misuse of public funds, and it makes me want to look deeper into our own mechanisms for overseeing expenses. Having volunteered on a number of SFUSD campaigns, I am certain we have followed the letter and spirit of the law to fundraise for our political campaigns. Still, news like today’s reminds me that anything can happen, and that it’s important to be continually vigilant when overseeing the spending of public monies.

I know, I just posted an awesome musical interlude, but here’s another – just can’t resist!

Love that South Pasadena Grade A Jug Band!

What a day!

The good news: California schools showed gains on the 2008 state testing, adding to a consistent record of improvement on the books since 1999. San Francisco did well too, improving as a district to an API score of 772 from 764 ayear earlier.

The bad news: Deputy Superintendent for Instruction, Innovation and Social Justice Tony Smith was hired by Oakland Unified School District to be Superintendent of the Oakland public schools.  Of course this is a loss, since Dr. Smith was part of the heart and soul of the change happening in San Francisco. But we wish him well and the work here will continue even as he moves on to other challenges.

The good news: President Obama’s handpicked Secretary of Education Arne Duncan was in San Francisco today meeting with students, teachers and district leaders to see first hand the change that is happening here in San Francisco, and gave what was described as an “inspiring” address to 700 community leaders at a lunch this afternoon.

The bad news: Earlier in the day, Secretary Duncan told mayors and urban Superintendents that California had “lost its way” on education reform. Hopefully that rather depressing statement means that we are on the short list to qualify for “Race to the Top” funds that the U.S. Department of Education will be awarding later this year.

This weekend I’ve been in Sacramento at an annual legislative action conference sponsored by the  California School Boards Association. I’m told that usually many different legislative topics are discussed but not this year. The budget crisis is The Topic and the news is not good. Yesterday I blogged about the problem, and how the propositions on Tuesday’s ballot won’t really solve it (that’s why I’m opposing all of them except 1B).

If the Legislature and the Governor continue to oppose tax increases and other revenue measures, the way out of this abyss in the short-term is going to be extremely painful for everyone who depends on publicly-funded services. In one of today’s presentations we were told that if , as expected, the ballot measures don’t pass, California public schools will sustain a cumulative cut of at least $9 billion over the two years beginning in July 2008 and ending in July 2010. That is approximately $1,440 per student in cuts over two years! And even if by some unexpected reason the propositions do pass, the cuts will be devastating, so don’t think that voting yes saves us as a state much, if any, pain over the next two years.

But some of the most interesting discussion this weekend has been about possible long-term solutions to our recurring budget problems. First we heard a presentation by Jim Wunderman of the Bay Area Council, who is traveling up and down the state trying to build support for a new Constitutional Convention.  Mr. Wunderman’s premise is that the state’s government is hopelessly broken, and that incremental reforms cannot fix the problem, even if the Legislature  were functional enough to enact them.  Since only a 2/3 vote of the Legislature can call a Convention, the Bay Area Council proposes putting initiatives on the ballot which would allow the voters to call such a Convention.

This idea is intriguing, but risky. It’s terrifying to think of putting the state’s entire constitution up for grabs (think of what happened with Prop. 8 in November!), so most people think the scope of such an effort should be limited to governance and budget issues. Mr. Wunderman says his organization’s effort has found rough consensus around opening up the following issues:

• Governance, including the structure of the Legislature and the executive branch;
• Elections, including the referendum and initiative processes, campaign finance and term limits;
• Budget process, including the 2/3 vote to pass a budget, the term of a budget, and spending mandates;
• Revenue distribution, including the revenue relationship between a local government and the state.

But getting something as ambitious as this done could take years. The last time the state undertook extensive revisions to the Constitution was when it created the “California Constitution Revision Commission” in 1962, which reduced the document to 40,000 words from 75,000 words in the 14 years it was in existence.  In the end, incremental reforms might make more sense and get the job done more quickly, assuming the Legislature can find the will to enact them.

As another alternative, a group called California Forward is proposing a group of reforms aimed at fixing the budget process.  These proposals include two so-called “guard rails,” which would keep the Legislature from making bad budgeting decisions:

• A “pay-go” provision that would require policy changes that increase costs to also contain provisions identifying where the money would come from, whether from new revenue or spending reductions somewhere else;
• A “budget stability” provision that would identify one-time revenue and hold it in reserve for those times when tax revenues dip below expectations.

The group’s proposals also include three ideas which they say would encourage state government to make better decisions:

• Instituting a multi-year budgeting mechanism to help local governments better predict future revenues;
• Creating a results-based budget process that would allow legislators more latitude to decide whether to continue, increase or alter programs and policies based on their results;
• Creating a system of evaluating programs based on progress, which gives legislators adequate time to review whether programs are achieving their goals and determine what changes should be made for programs to improve.

I’m not sure whether either of these proposals are “the answer,” or even if there is an answer. But I appreciate that there is serious, non-partisan thinking being done around the state on the topic of how to get us out of this mess. What do you think we should do?

Judging from my email inbox and the crowds at the March 24 meeting, the answer to that question is — evidently yes.  Last night was my most difficult meeting yet, because it was the evening our resolution to reinstate JROTC hit the agenda. I knew it was coming, I knew a number of people would not be at all happy to see my name as a co-sponsor, but knowing ahead of time you are going to upset or disappoint someone –even if you believe in what you are doing — doesn’t make it any easier to see the disappointment and anger in their eyes when they confront you face to face.

Of course, last night was just the beginning – there are a number of long, angry meetings yet to come and I should get used to it. I am sorry this issue is so contentious, I’m sorry that it’s impossible to find a compromise, and yes, I’ve given up trying to find one. The only way out I see is forward — reinstating the program, calming the supporters down, and continuing to work on alternatives that will give kids who don’t care for the JROTC program and their parents a leadership training option that doesn’t have a military connection. In the end, I hope what will happen is that kids will truly have a choice.

We did make some progress on that latter front, tonight: hidden in the consent calendar resolutions we approved was a contract for $30,000 with a consultant who will write the curriculum for our new SERV program. SERV will train students as emergency responders through a partnership with the City’s Office of Emergency Management. People are pumped up about the possibilities for this program and I think it’s going to be a great opportunity to show that we can build an alternative that offers kids the mixture of public service, physical activity and leadership skills that JROTC proponents value.

I also want to acknowledge that in some circles, among a number of people I respect and care about, my decision to join with Commissioner Wynns in sponsoring this resolution is unimaginable and deeply wrong.  By way of explanation, I can only say — I hear you, I understand where you are coming from, and after a lot of thought and investigation I’ve chosen to make an imperfect decision that, from where I sit, helps a lot of kids while hurting none. The data points that are most meaningful to me are:

• The program is voluntary;
• No child is excluded from the program, regardless of sexual orientation, race, ability or other criteria;
• We hire our instructors according to non-discriminatory SFUSD hiring practics;
• The number of children who eventually join the military is LESS among JROTC participants than those who have never taken JROTC;
• Kids who participate say in large numbers that the program helped them gain confidence, leadership and physical abilities they wouldn’t have had otherwise;
• A large number of San Franciscans feel, because of the passage of Proposition V in November, that this issue is unresolved and should be taken up by the Board. Similarly, a large number of San Franciscans feel, because of the passage of Prop. 8 in November, that the issue of same-sex marriage is unresolved and should be taken up by the Courts.  It’s not so much that “the voters have spoken,” but rather that in regard to each issue, a large group of people feel disenfranchised by a narrowly-decided, hotly-contested decision.

Californians who value equal rights, justice and tolerance suffered a crushing defeat with the passage of Prop. 8 last month.  Like many people, once it became clear that an early lead the polls was being erased by devastating and deceptive advertising, I gave a significant amount to the No on 8 campaign through Equality California in order to make sure we got our message out.  So it was particularly galling to hear how ineffective and badly managed the No on 8 campaign was.

Today in the mail I got four identical solicitations from Equality California asking me to give still more money to the effort to overturn Prop. 8 (“Every dollar you send brings us closer to equality”). I know from my own campaign just how expensive direct mail like this is. Sending me four letters indicates how badly managed the Equality California donor list must be, and it’s infuriating. I’d like nothing better than to overturn Prop. 8, but Equality California isn’t getting any more money from me.

Tonight we saw a television commercial for the newest version of Monopoly – all electronic, without that annoying paper money. At the end of the ad, the smirking child actress says: “Fast and without cash–that’s how I play. How do YOU play Monopoly?”  Perhaps I’m a traditionalist, but the financial turmoil of the past year makes me think that perhaps “fast and without cash” is perhaps the wrong lesson.