Eric Mar Profile from San Francisco Chronicle Magazine April 2005; SF Bay Guardian Local Hero from 1998

The San Francisco Chronicle Magazine ran a profile of Eric Mar in April 2005:

Mr. Education Helping S.F. students learn is a full-time job -- and then some -- for Eric Mar
Sam Whiting
Sunday, April 10, 2005
by Sam Whiting

Tuesday night is meeting night at the San Francisco Board of Education, so Eric Mar will be there until midnight or later. That's no surprise as Mar, 42, is the board president. The surprise is that at 8 a.m. Wednesday, he'll be lecturing 50 or 150 undergraduates at San Francisco State University.
Where'd you grow up?
Sacramento. My parents both worked for the state of California.
Public or private school?
Public schools through UC Davis.
What is your day job?
I teach Asian American Studies and Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State. Usually I have four classes a semester with a grading load of 240 students, and it's piles of papers. I also advise undergrads who want to be teachers.
Do you tell them it's still a career worth going into?
Yeah. I tell them that because my wife, Sandra Chin-Mar, is a teacher and I'm a teacher, that it's a noble profession.
More

This was an older profile of me from the SF Bay Guardian when they selected me as a "local hero" back in 1998 when I was a leader of the Northern California Coalition for Immigrant Rights:
fullarticle

Eric Mar
Profile by Daniel Zoll
ERIC MAR was a sophomore at the University of California, Davis, in 1982, when he heard about the Detroit murder of 27-year-old Asian American engineer Vincent Chin. Chin was killed by two white, unemployed auto workers who blamed Asians for the decline of the U.S. auto industry. Chin's killers were let off, Mar recalls, with three months' probation and $3,000 fines.
Mar, now associate director of the Northern California Coalition for Immigrant Rights, says it was then that he started making connections between the Chin murder and this country's historic scapegoating of immigrants and Asians as a whole for economic problems. It was a major turning point in his political life.
"What struck me was, you could be of any class and be an Asian and could still be blamed ‹ and even killed ‹ for economic problems in this country," Mar recalls. "And I found it ironic that Chin was killed with a baseball bat outside of a McDonald's."
These days if you get involved in grassroots politics in San Francisco, it won't be long before you run into the 35-year-old Mar, who has been at the forefront of local, state, and national battles to save bilingual education, reform local elections, and protect the rights of immigrants, among other issues.
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SF Schools: The Real Story on Superintendent Arlene Ackerman's resignation?

To help folks get beyond the SF Chronicle’s propaganda and big business controlled mainstream media ‘spin’ on SF schools issues and the political drama around the 9/7/05 resignation of Superintendent Arlene Ackerman, we wanted to share a few alternative news sources that help fill in the holes left out by the mainstream press.

San Francisco Magazine’s September 05 article by Berkeley investigative reporter Rob Waters tells the complex story of the differences [and common ground] between Superintendent Arlene Ackerman and SF Board of Education members, United Educators of SF leadership and teachers, and parent, community and student groups.

SF Magazine September 2005 - “ Ackerman's Last Stand
By Rob Waters
The last few months have been one long schoolyard brawl for Arlene Ackerman, San Francisco's embattled superintendent of schools. She's no stranger to conflict, of course; her tenure here has been full of high drama. But during the spring and summer, tensions between her and most of the key players she deals with seemed to have reached the breaking point.
Faced with declining enrollment and huge funding cuts, she and members of the Board of Education spent numerous meetings sniping at each other and agonizing over which schools to close and whom to lay off. Parents, teachers, custodians, and even kids alternated between begging the board to spare their school or job and blasting the superintendent and the board for their callousness and irresponsibility.
Then things got personal. In June, former supervisor and mayoral wannabe Matt Gonzalez filed a lawsuit to void the rich new contract ($250,000 salary, $2,000-a-month housing allowance, and $375,000 severance package, even if she quits) that school board members—including one lame duck—awarded Ackerman late last year in an unusual, specially scheduled meeting. And it wasn't just Gonzalez who lashed out. Even high school students on the district's student advisory council voted 14-0 (with one abstention) to ask Ackerman to renegotiate her contract.
Ackerman's response—more parental than professional—only inflamed matters. When she heard about what the students were up to, she tried to cancel their meeting. And after the vote, her public relations office put out a bizarre 30-page press packet denouncing the students and unnamed people for "using students to further adult political agendas."
And then there's the gag order saga. Rumors that she had ordered district staff not to talk to reporters without permission blew into the open when teachers' union vice president Bradley Reeves told board members that the order was real and that district employees had been reprimanded for having unauthorized conversations. Ackerman supposedly got up and followed Reeves to the hallway, chastising him for his statement. Ackerman denies the entire incident, including the existence of any gag order, and she spoke graciously, and at length, for this article. But in June she told the Bay Guardian she would no longer grant the paper any interviews, and in late July, she announced that things had gotten so fractious around here that she was starting to think about quitting.
This being San Francisco, all the players in this school drama are liberals who believe in equity and educational justice. All agree that the greatest challenge facing the district is to address the huge achievement gap between the Asian (44 percent of the school district) and white students (10 percent) on the city's west side and the Latino (21 percent) and African American students (15 percent) on the east….”
Click here for the full story

Other reporting on the superintendent’s resignation has been more shallow – but SF Chronicle reporter Heather Knight’s Sept. 6, 2005 article on the growing number of critics of the Superintendent I think also led to her subsequent announcement of resignation the following day. Here’s Susan Ohanian’s comment on the Knight article:

“San Francisco Schools Chief Losing Support”Ohanian Comment: Why Is Corporate America Bashing Our Public Schools? provides information on what corporate-lead leadership in the San Francisco school had done to community-based programs before Ackerman arrived and a brief history of Ackerman's devotion to the test prep highway--in Washington D. C. and in San Francisco.

SF Chronicle, September 6, 2005 by Heather Knight
”If San Francisco schools chief Arlene Ackerman reveals this week she is leaving her post -- as many observers expect -- even some of her most avid supporters will agree it's time for her to leave.

… "She probably needs to find another place to be at this point," said Novella Smith, a parent who served as campaign manager for Ackerman backer Jill Wynns' successful bid for re-election to the school board in November.
"I don't think she has a choice," Smith said. "The silly nonsense is coming from every direction -- from her, too. It makes the children look mature." Pauline Vela, a member of Parents for Public Schools and Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth and a self-described busybody, said she no longer hears resounding support for Ackerman. "Very few parents I know would be shocked or saddened," she said of a potential departure. "For people, even some supporters of Ackerman, it will be a relief. People are just ready to say, 'Let's try somebody different.' "
…
Ackerman also has butted heads with the three over their support of Service Employees International Union 790, which represents custodians, secretaries and other school workers, and has scheduled a strike vote for Sept. 21-23 over their stalled contract negotiations with the district. Union members are upset that they last got a raise in July 2002 and don't get the same heath coverage for dependents as other district workers do. On Thursday, members of the union marched to Ackerman's office, where they chanted, "Arlene Ackerman, you can't hide! We can see your greedy side!"
If the union does strike, it could be a joint walkout with the local teachers union, which also is in contract negotiations with the district. "It would certainly be very effective, and I think it's quite possible," said Dennis Kelly, president of the teachers union.
…
Dennis Kelly, for one, isn't too bothered by the potential departure of Ackerman and the daunting task of finding her replacement. "I don't think the elected board is going to leave town, so I guess it's her turn," he said. "Superintendents come and go. The teachers, (classroom aides) and cockroaches -- we abide…."

Click here for the full Susan Ohanian piece

-------------------------------------

Thanks to investigative reporter Tali Woodward and political editor Steve Jones, the San Francisco Bay Guardian’s coverage of the conflicts with the Student Advisory Council, the ‘gag order’ with the press, and differences with City officials reveals some of the important issues the mainstream press has been unwilling to cover –

Cover article from the June 29, 2005 issue:
“The $400,000 spin machineWe've never found the folks on Ackerman's PR team helpful, but we didn't expect them to assert that SFUSD students are stupid.
By Tali Woodward
VERY SOON AFTER Arlene Ackerman came to town to oversee the city's public school system, it was clear that her administration was going to make public relations a top priority. Within a couple of years, the school district's single spokesperson had been replaced with a team of four who work to package Ackerman's policy initiatives, monitor the flow of information, and stage press events. …”

Click here for the full article


This piece covers the conflict with teachers in the 57,000 student district:

“Against all enemies: Ackerman's aversion to debate is making it harder for the school district to grapple with serious issues.
By Tali Woodward and Steven T. Jones
SUPT. ARLENE Ackerman's long pattern of treating those who disagree with her as enemies has destroyed her relationships with key schools stakeholders and seriously restricted the district's ability to function.
Ackerman's battles with the elected San Francisco Board of Education have grabbed headlines for years, but this year she has simply stopped coming to many meetings, offering her recommendations on complicated and controversial issues, or engaging in more than cursory conversations with board members.
Lesser known but equally important is the devolution of her relationships with the teachers union, student groups like the Student Advisory Council, the Board of Supervisors, and the media (and not just the Bay Guardian, which Ackerman announced last week she would stop talking to).
At the same time, Ackerman has strengthened her ties to groups that have overtly conservative political agendas, from SFSOS to the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, which have become proxies in her political battles: staging press conferences and rallies on her behalf, blasting Ackerman's opponents in interviews and e-mail blitzes, and pumping up the indignation and turnout at public meetings.
Lately, the situation has come to a head in the form of this striking dichotomy: Ackerman works well with conservative political groups that want to influence school policy but not with the teachers who do the day-to-day work of educating the students, or the school board members elected by the people to supervise her. ..

Click here for the full article

Former student representative to the SF Board of Education Alan Wong gave his perspective on the conflicts with the Superintendent in the same June 29, 2005 issue.

Ackerman stifles dissent:
THE STIFLING OF dissent by some administrators of the San Francisco Unified School District has to stop.
by Alan Wong, Student Delegate to the SF Board of Education
"Two years ago, I spoke during public comment at a school board meeting to criticize the unilateral firing of Student Advisory Council staff by the administration. The next day – during school time and without the consent of my parents – I sat in my principal's office for an hour and a half while I was questioned, advised to give more respect to Supt. Arlene Ackerman, and told to stay mum. How do staff members at my school have the right to tell me what not to say at a public meeting of the school board?
At a meeting called by the district staff last month, district staff and Youth Leadership Institute, which works with SAC on a district contract, told SAC representatives that if we continued to advance resolutions opposing Ackerman's policy requiring teachers to reapply for their jobs at restructured schools and criticize her lucrative contract, the superintendent "would retaliate against the SAC," and our council would be dismantled. Later I found out staff members had also called individual students specifically for the purpose of asking them to take their names off the resolutions. …“

Click here for the full Alan Wong piece

----------------------

See also the San Francisco Bay View Newspapers voices of parent Kim Shree Maufus and Teacher/activist Jeremiah Jeffries as well:

”A win-win for School Supt. Ackerman and our children
by Kim-Shree Maufas
The Wong et al vs. SF Board of Education lawsuit goes to trial on Wednesday morning, Aug. 12, at 9:30 a.m. The Bay View is running articles and op-eds, the Chronicle is running articles and op-eds and the Bay Guardian ran an article in June – along with a terribly unflattering cover page – but yet we still can’t seem to get enough information out about the City’s independent entity known as the San Francisco Unified School District Board of Education and its superintendent, Arlene Ackerman. …”

Click here for the full article
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And, 2 final articles I think help to frame the political differences and struggles that went on between the Superintendent and the various communities, teachers and workers in the SFUSD. In January 2005 when I became the President of the SF Board of Education – SF Bay Guardian reporter Tali Woodward covered the process I began to work with the Superintendent and others to bring more cohesion, focus and unity within the Board and our stakeholder groups in the District.

SF Bay Guardian – January 19, 2005
“Reform school:
New school board leaders want more openness and community input, but will the power shift lead Ackerman to leave S.F.?
By Tali Woodward
Eric Mar didn't waste any time before trying to set a new tone for the San Francisco Board of Education. Just seconds after his selection as board president Jan. 11, Mar said that because of budget cuts coming from the state, "I believe we have this urgency that requires the board to do everything possible to treat each other with respect and work closely together.... I know I will put differences aside – no bad feelings from the previous year or years."
Mar and allies Mark Sanchez and Sarah Lipson have been in a running battle with the other three board veterans and the district superintendent Arlene Ackerman for the past few years. It's a struggle that long ago outgrew policy disagreements and became a clash of personalities.
Although Mar and his allies often praise Ackerman for her accomplishments, they sometimes take issue with her proposals, or more frequently, with the way she makes major decisions before seeking community input. As a result, they've often been cast by the media and their political opponents as rabid antagonists of the superintendent who want her out of the San Francisco Unified School District.
Lipson, Sanchez, and Mar maintain they've never wanted to force Ackerman out, and it's true that Ackerman has usually been the one to hint at her departure, telling reporters and others that she would rather resign than navigate a contentious relationship with the board.
Now, with a key swing vote from new member Norman Yee, Mar will lead the school board. What does it mean for a body that's seen so much acrimony that its so-called rabble-rousers are now in control?
Mar and company certainly haven't forgotten what they've consistently described as a systematic effort to freeze them out of decision making. But they seem to be making an honest pitch to turn things around. …“

More


In May, the Bay Guardian also revealed the big business ties to the SF School District and a bigger agenda of conservative and racist forces that were playing politics with the district:

Divide and conquer:
Why are the mayor and school superintendent supporting the right-wing operatives at SFSOS?
By Steven T. Jones

MAYOR GAVIN NEWSOM has preached ideological moderation since his ascension to Room 200, but he and other centrist political leaders continue to associate with scorched-earth political operatives bent on spending big money in stealthy and deceptive ways to demonize those on the left.
A telling display of how downtown forces speak and flex their political muscle took place May 17 when the political advocacy group SFSOS held its third-anniversary luncheon at the headquarters of the Gap, followed by a fiery press conference slamming people who question whether school superintendent Arlene Ackerman's generous pay package was legally approved (see "Cutting the Golden Parachute," May 4).
The ringmaster of this circus was SFSOS head Wade Randlett, who partnered up with Gap founder Don Fisher, financier Warren Hellman, and U.S. senator Dianne Feinstein to start SFSOS.
... Ackerman, on the other hand, warmly embraced a crowd that has been taking shots at the progressive members of the school board. "It's great to be in a room with friends. Sometimes I don't know where my friends are, but they're all here," she began.
Ackerman then told a story about how earlier she had gotten pulled over for speeding and driving without a seat belt, only to have the cop recognize her and say, "You have one of the hardest jobs in the city. This ticket is on me."
The crowd seemed to be eating up her self-martyring approach, so she continued, noting that before moving to San Francisco five years ago, she considered herself a liberal. But now, "I'm definitely to the right of everyone in this city," she said, drawing cheers from many Republicans in the room.
To reinforce the point, she voiced her support for allowing children to attend their neighborhood schools and be subjected to a rigorous testing regime – both strongly pushed by SFSOS, which last year proposed a ballot measure to end school desegregation efforts but backed off in the face of criticism.
Ackerman and her spokesperson Lorna Ho later denied that she used the term "neighborhood schools," insisting that she said only, "Every neighborhood deserves a quality school," but Ho didn't get us the tape by press time as she said she would. "Neighborhood schools" is a loaded term that is essentially the opposite of desegregation, which Ackerman told us she still supports, although she didn't voice that support to SFSOS. In fact, she didn't make any statements that differed from its agenda.
"To be in a room where people care about you is really great," Ackerman enthused at the event, singling out her "partner and friend" Don Fisher for special appreciation. He spoke next, complaining about the political gains that the left was making in San Francisco three years ago.
"So Wade came along and we formed the Committee on Jobs, er, uh, SFSOS," Fisher said, inadvertently referring to the other downtown political group he supports, which is more honest about its business community connections than SFSOS.
… Playing politics
As Ackerman waited inside the building, Randlett and company stepped outside for a full-throated defense of the new contract she was granted late last year by a lame-duck board, which is now being challenged on procedural grounds mostly because of its generous golden parachute.
"They are trying to get rid of Arlene Ackerman," said Randlett who, like most, spoke in terms of an attack on Ackerman and children rather than about the narrower issue of her contract.
… School board president Eric Mar said he was saddened to see school and city officials participating in the event.
"I thought if we ignored them they'd go away, particularly after being discredited in the last election," Mar said of SFSOS. "By going to their luncheon, [Ackerman] is legitimizing them and making them seem like a credible group, as Newsom is as well."
… Ackerman was defensive when we asked about her relationship with SFSOS, saying, "My agenda is to work with everybody." But when pressed on her feelings about SFSOS, its agenda, and why she didn't join the mayor in challenging their approach, she told us, "I don't view this group as you do. I see them as partners in making this a great school district."
Wynns sees the relationship between Ackerman and SFSOS as benign, but Mar is concerned that the group has gotten Ackerman to stop making public statements in support of desegregation in exchange for their support on other issues.
While Mar was restrained in his criticism, Board of Supervisors president Aaron Peskin blasted the group and the officials who showed up. He called SFSOS "a tattered group of Fisher-funded, disgruntled, mean-spirited, reactionary, ineffective people with an e-mail list...I don't see how any rational human being can even acknowledge their existence."
He continued, "I think it's really sad for elected officials and civic officials to associate with anyone who wants to resegregate the schools and create regressive taxation."
Peskin has differed publicly with Ackerman over her alliance with SFSOS and her refusal to return his phone calls to discuss the matter, a tiff that spilled over into a colorful exchange at a restaurant that made the May 15 Matier and Ross column in the Chronicle.
"Arlene Ackerman is an idiot," Peskin told us. "She is politically naive and enamored with hanging out with rich people, and so she does what they tell her to do, whether it makes sense or not…."

More
Thanks to the Bay Area Independent Media Center for their great photos used on this blog and for their excellent coverage of Educational Justice struggles and their local and global reporting as well
http://www.indybay.org/education/.

Kozol's Call to Action - teach-ins leading up to BROWN case anniv. May 17, 2006?

Kozol's Call to Action? -
Oakland activist calls for teach-ins -
Harold Berlak, a senior research fellow with the Applied Research Center in Oakland, was on KPFA radio [94.1FM] this morning [9/27/05] for their drive time public affairs program. Berlak is also a fellow at the Educational Policy Unit, Arizona State University .
Like Jonathon Kozol, Berlak lamented the harm to schools caused by Bush's NCLB [No Child Left Behind] and the resegregation in urban school districts like SF, Oakland, LA, Richmond, etc.
When KPFA host Andrea Lewis asked him what his solution was, Berlak called for a social movement of parents, teachers and community people to stand up to the high stakes testing regime and the big business driven 'standards movement'. He said we need 'teach-ins' to help inform and involve regular parents, teachers, students and community members about the federal and state laws and policies which are pushing working class and kids of color further and further behind.
I have been talking with Berlak and others about coordinating a series of 'teach-ins' on educational inequality and conditions beginning in the Spring and building up to the anniversary of the BROWN v. BOARD OF EDUCATION case this coming May 17, 2006? Oakland communities held a teach-in and various rallies and demonstrations on the anniversary this past year.
Many progressive teachers, parents and community members will be gathering Sat, October 15th, 2005 at Mission HS in SF for the annual Teachers for Social Justice Conference -
http://t4sj.org/. We hope to pick up on Kozol and Berlak's 'call to action' at that time as well.
Check back here or email me if you have any suggestions or want to help us -
emar@sfusd.edu

----------------------------

KOZOL ON THE NEED FOR A NEW SOCIAL JUSTICE MOVEMENT - AND FOR FOLKS TO 'FIGHT LIKE HELL' TO CHANGE THE SCHOOL SYSTEM

Education Week
Writer Laments ‘Apartheid’ Schooling
By John Gehring

Q: What is the most effective way to begin challenging the status quo of segregated schools in our nation's largest cities?
A: The only way that this will ever change is by the mobilization of millions of ethical Americans, whatever their political positions. The young idealists who I meet at colleges don't want to do something sweet like mentor an inner-city student. That's fine, but charity is not a substitute for systematic justice, and they know it. I want to see an upheaval of decent young people who have the courage to call reality by its real name, and then go out and fight like hell to change it.

KOZOL ON THE NEED TO OVERHAUL THE SCHOOL FINANCE SYSTEM

Q: You write that the funding of education should be a federal, not a state or local, responsibility. Why would this be a better approach?
A: The present system of school finance is a hopeless mess and utterly inequitable. It depends on local property wealth, which makes it impossible to have a meritocracy. Even the state formulas that allegedly equalize funding never work. It's archaic and not in our national interest to leave the educational well-being of American citizens up to the whim or wealth of the village elders in some impoverished or wealthy town. We should scrap the entire system of school finance. All money for education in a democracy ought to come from the federal government. That's the only fair way to do it because districts and states are unequal. Kids don't go to school to be citizens of Oklahoma or Arkansas. They go to school to be Americans.

www.edweek.org

Tonight's SF School Board Meeting - No on Props 74 and 76; Elections Cmn Apptee

Just as a heads us up -
tonight's tues 9/27/05 San Francisco Unified School District Board of Education meeting begins at 7pm
at 555 Franklin Street, board meeting room.
agendas are online at www.sfusd.edu

2 main resolutions to be voted upon - [even though these resos are up for first reading - the board can motion to suspend the rules by a vote of 5 members to vote on the resos that meeting]

R. BOARD MEMBERS’ PROPOSALS Pg. 92 - 93 - FIRST READING
In Opposition to Proposition 74 – the "Punish New Teachers Act"
http://www.betterca.com/
- Commissioners Eric Mar, Jill Wynns, and Eddie Y. Chin

In Opposition to Proposition 76 – The California Live Within Our Means Act http://www.betterca.com/
- Commissioners Eric Mar, Jill Wynns, and Eddie Y. Chin

And one more item of interest -

K. SPECIAL ORDER OF BUSINESS Pg. 1 ACTION ITEM
1. Subject: Appointment of the Board of Education Representative
to the Elections Commission of the City and County of San Francisco
Recommendation: That the Board of Education appoints Jennifer Meek to the
Elections Commission as recommended by the Ad Hoc Committee on Elections
Commission. Other Education.

I had requested that military recruiting and the district's efforts to educate students and parents of their right to 'opt out' of having their contact info shared with military recruiters be placed on the agenda for the 9/27 meeting but I am allowing staff more time to prepare a report probably for the next meeting. For more info: SF's College not combat or
American Friends Service Committee's Anti-Militarism program or
http://www.criticalconcern.com/recruiting.htm.

CLOSED SESSION - Averting a strike by custodians/secretaries/cafeteria workers -
The board also meets in 'closed session' [not open to the public, except for public comment period] to discuss a few other important matters -
1. update on mediation with SEIU Local 790 [seiu 790 SFUSD chapter] and other updates on negotiations with other bargaining units
2. update on desegregration 'consent decree' and upcoming fed court hearing
3. superintendent's contract; transition process for selecting a new superintendent
[the board is currently setting a date for sometime in October for a 'committee of the whole' or public hearing on the superintendent search process. Vice President Norman Yee and I want to ensure that we get a strong showing of parents, teachers, community members who can give input into the type of process the SFUSD should take to select our new superintendent.]

For future board of ed agendas click on the link below - because of the efforts of Sarah Lipson, Mark Sanchez and other board members - our agendas are now posted on the website usually on the Thursday preceeding the Tuesday board meetings [the board meets every 2nd and 4th Tuesday of the month, except in July].
AGENDA's

Jonathan Kozol's visit to SF's Tenderloin Elementary School

Jonathan Kozol visited San Francisco's Tenderloin Elementary School on Wednesday to bring his urgent CALL TO ACTION to us [Progressive Commissioners Mark Sanchez and Sarah Lipson were in the front row, Vice President Norman Yee was in the back row with me and teacher and United Educators of SF Exec Board member Sandra Chin Mar, my partner].
Since his 1967 expose "Death at an Early Age" about his early experiences as a young teacher dealing the racism and class inequality in Boston's schools, Kozol has been unrelenting in his advocacy and expressions of moral outrage about the inequities in our country's schools.
Now Kozol is on tour promoting his newest book The Shame of the Nation: the restoration of apartheid schooling in America.
One thing I respect about Kozol is his courage in standing up to big business groups, opportunistic politicians and 'traveling charletans' passing themselves off as silver bullet education reformers. I also appreciate his progressive vision of what education should be and his sharp critique of high stakes testing and how it is ruining our education system, or as he says, causing "mental decapitation" of students as well as "fear among teachers" and principals "running scared" who want to resist but won't.
In his CALL TO ACTION to SF Unified School District, Kozol said to the mostly younger teachers, squirming administrators and smiling school board members like me,
"I don't want to get you into trouble, but I will help you cause trouble!"
With the rightward direction in education that Bush and his Secretary Spellings and Arnold and his Secretary Riordan are steering us towards it seems to me that Kozol's call must be heard by many more to build the social movements we need to change the political course for our schools.

Shari L's 'An Old Soul' Blog is one of my favorites -
Here's her thinking on Kozol's relevance to teaching/schooling and how we can turn the tide against the the Bush administration:
An old soul blog - on Kozol

For other great books and resources on educational justice and equity - go to DC's teaching for change - http://www.teachingforchange.org/
or Milwaukee's Rethinking Schools website
http://www.rethinkingschools.com/publication/index.shtml

Campaign for Quality Education

JOIN THE CAMPAIGN FOR QUALITY EDUCATION AT BETTER SCHOOLS, AND A BETTER EXAM!
STATEWIDE EVENTS - Thursday 9/22*
FIVE CITIES, HUNDREDS OF STUDENTS, PARENTS, TEACHERS, AND CONCERNED COMMUNITY MEMBERS

OAKLAND
Richmond to Oakland, all across the bay, here to say- we want better schools and a better exam! 4:30-5:30pm
Oakland Tech, 4351 Broadway (between 42nd & 45th),
510.452.2728

SAN JOSE
Don’t block our futures with the exit exam!
March, Rally, Student Skit
5-6pm Meet at Cesar Chavez Plaza (at Market and San Carlos St.),
408.272.0236

FRESNO
The exit exam shuts the doors on us and we want a new set of keys!
6pm
State Bldg., 2550 Mariposa Mall,
559.443.1394

*LOS ANGELES-
9/29
Students, parents, and teachers unifying across L.A., raising their voices for a quality education for ALL!
4:30pm
Memorial Park,4650 W. Olympic Blvd.(corner of Olympic & Rimpau, west of Crenshaw Ave.)562.951.1015

SAN DIEGO
Students will be delivering hundreds of signatures on petitions to the Governor's office and demanding action!
3:30pm
State Bldg., 1350 Front St.,
619.641.775

For more info: -- Emmanuelle Regis
Statewide Campaign OrganizerCalifornians for Justice
4265 Fairmount Drive, suite 200San Diego, CA 92105 (619) 641-7750
emmanuelle@caljustice.org
www.caljustice.org

Eli Broad, Joe Strummer and Me

Joe Strummer must be rolling over in his grave. I've got the Clash's London Calling blasting on my high tech HDTV entertainment system in my top floor room here in the Mandarin 'Oriental' Hotel [18 months old and already being touted as one of Washington DC's fanciest hotels]. The room overlooks the Jefferson Memorial which lights up like a big nite-light over the Potomac River and the Tidal Basin not far from the White House. The SF Giants arrive today for a series with the WA Nationals, but that's not the reason I am here either.
One of the world's richest men Eli Broad [82nd in the world, and 45th in the US according to Forbes] and his Broad Foundation have brought me and other school board presidents, superintendents, CEO's, and teachers union presidents out here to announce their Broad Prize - touted by the business community as the 'nobel' prize of urban school districts.
Besides San Francisco, the other 4 urban school district finalists include Boston, NYC, Norfolk VA, and Aldine Texas [near Houston].
Boston has been a finalist 4 times already, Norfolk 3 times and Aldine 2 times. This is SF's first time as a finalist. Each finalist district will be receiving $100,000 of college scholarships and the big winner gets a half a million dollars.

RE: Broad Foundation's 'broad net' of big business influence in school districts throughout the US - see Susan Ohanian's analysis from the book she co-wrote with SF Freedom School founder Kathy Emery - Why is Corp America Bashing Our Schools
An Excerpt from the Ohanian/Emery book
Emery's other writing
Ohanian's books
See also Oakland Education Assn teacher Jack Gerson's take on Broad's 'handpicking' of their overseer - Randy Ward - and the foundation's negative impact on urban districts in CA
www.stoprandyward.com/gerson.htm
And lastly, see CEJ's Alex Caputo Pearl on Broad/Riordan and their impact on LA's schools and working class communities and targetting of liberal and progressive school board members.
www.calcare.org/reading/current/2001.03.html
For a different analysis - Forbes did a feature on Broad called Educating Eli - 10/6/03 - www.forbes.com.

We will find out who has won the Broad Prize at a press conference Tuesday morning with Bush's Education Secretary Margaret Spellings and others.

Teacher Spending Gaps = Inequality; dangerous CA ballot initiatives - no on Props 74-78

[Photo - 2005 Californians for Justice organize communities to fight for quality teachers and better schools in San Jose www.caljustice.org ]

EdTrust West's recent report on the hidden teacher-spending gap highlights many of the existing inequalities in SF and other urban school districts.
http://www.hiddengap.org/

School Board Commissioner Mark Sanchez in particular along with Commissioner Sarah Lipson have been championing the demand for accountability from our district on teacher salary info by school site and funding inequities in the schools in communities of color or those serving predominantly poor and immigrant students in our SF district.

Sanchez and Lipson have also called for a budgeting process that is fair and equitable which addresses the inequities for example between the east side Mission High School which receives over 1/2 a million dollars less than Washington High School because veteran teachers are concentrated in general in west side schools like Washington and Lowell High Schools.

for more info:
San Francisco Report in pdf format
www.uesf.org
-------------------------

CA's November Election will soon be upon us!
There are only a few more weeks to educate communities and voters about the dangerous measures sponsored by anti-public school, right-wing, big business, fundamentalist and anti-teacher forces - for more info on why we should vote
No on 74, 75, 76, and 78 and also No on 73 -

Alliance for a Better CA campaign website
Planned Parenthood's No on 73 site
SF's United Teachers
CA Federation of Teachers

To Plug in locally in SF
through Thursday September 29, 2005
teachers, students, parents and concerned community activists will be participating in a phone bank at the San Francisco Labor Council. Together we can defeat the Governor.
Who: Everyone who cares about public education and democracy and social justice
What: Phone Banking at the SF Labor Council
When: September 12-29, Monday through Thursday, 5:00-9:00 p.m.
Where: SF Labor Council, 1188 Franklin St. map
Info: UESF Political Director Ken Tray (415-956-8373)

San Francisco County Alliance Headquarters
c/o Service Employees International Union - United Healthcare Workers1338 Mission, San Francisco, CA 94103 [Map]Phone: 415-503-5797 Fax: 415-563-9914
Campaign Manager Robert Haaland

Watts 40th Anniversary, March on Washington, & Teachers Speak Out - Books Not Bars!

Teachers Speak Out About CYA

On the 40th anniversary of the Watts Uprisings ['riots'] grassroots groups are converging on Washington to build a stronger movement for racial and economic justice. For more info check out Family Members and Friends of Incarcerated People of Alabama. Over 2 million imprisioned!.

TEACHING MOMENT: See also the great LA Weekly coverage of the anniverary -
Joe Hicks' commentary Great Perspective from the Watts Labor Action Committee on the need for 'self-determination' for our communities.

ALLIANCE BUILDING/MOVEMENT BUILDING?
Education Not Incarceration, with the support of Critical Resistance and Books Not Bars, was successful in winning stronger teacher support for their various campaigns at the National Education Association representative assembly gathering in LA recently. Congrats to the groups working to build more unity among teachers, students and grassroots groups and a stronger movement for educational justice, and to reform the prison industrial complex.
For more info on these efforts contact Jonah Zern of Education Not Incarceration.
----------------
On another front - Books Not BarsBooks Not Bars (BNB) is fighting to redirect California's public resources away from punishment for young people and towards opportunity.Currently, their "Alternatives for Youth" Campaign is fighting to close the California Youth Authority (CYA) eight youth prisons. They also coordinate a statewide network for parents of incarcerated youth, called Families for Books Not Bars. And, they have a youth organizing and leadership development program called Let's Get Free.

From Books Not Bars:
Mass incarceration is a crisis in California.
For decades, the state has poured money into its abusive, costly, and ineffective prison system, claiming this will make neighborhoods safe from crime. So, what do we have to show for this? The largest, and most expensive, prison system in the nation. A prison system that warehouses and abuses people, the vast majority of whom are from low-income communities of color. And streets and neighborhoods that are no safer than they were twenty years ago. BNB has a different vision for how to make our communities safe and healthy. We know California’s current prison system was never meant to truly provide for the safety and well being of low income communities and communities of color. We also know what these communities need instead. The government should invest in opportunity -- not punishment. The safest communities are the ones with the best schools and the most jobs -- not the ones with the biggest police departments or the most jail cells. This is the future that California deserves. It is the future that Books Not Bars is fighting for.
------------------------

The National Education Association (NEA) – an organization representing 2.7 million educational professionals – wrote a letter to Governor Schwarzenegger expressing deep concerns about the CYA

July 25, 2005
Dear Governor Schwarzenegger:
On behalf of the 2.7 million members of the National Education Association (NEA), I am writing to advise you of our great concern for inmates of the California Youth Authority (CYA).As education professionals, we are dedicated to opening the doors of opportunity for all children. While we are committed to the goal of great public schools for every child, we recognize that every child is not law abiding. However, we do not believe that children who run afoul of the law should also forfeit their opportunity to receive a quality education which greatly improves their chances of becoming productive citizens.Currently, the state of California spends only $7,692 per student for education, while spending $80,000 to $100,000 to house a child as an inmate of the CYA. By contrast, the state of Missouri spends half that amount on juvenile offenders, while housing them in small, supportive centers. Missouri's 15 percent recidivism rate, compared to your state's rate of 91 percent is further proof that there are successful alternative approaches to rehabilitating youthful offenders.As you consider transformation of the CYA, we would encourage you to look toward replicating the efforts of states like Missouri. For the state of California to not follow the lead of other states in restructuring your program in a manner that would provide youthful offenders with an environment leading to rehabilitation and greater opportunity for success as adults would lead us to recommend closure of the CYA.As you know, NEA members work in every level of public education -- from pre-school to university graduate programs. We are committed to the education of all, especially our youth. We urge you to stand with us by improving the opportunities for inmates of the CYA, and sending an important message that emphasizes education over incarceration.
Sincerely,
Reg Weaver
NEA President

Why Open Prisons and Close Schools?

Critical Resistance and Education Not Incarceration are 2 groups that are doing excellent work linking the struggles for educational equity with the horrendous rise of the prison industry or the prison industrial complex, as some call it, in CA and throughout the country.
This op-ed from the San Francisco Chronicle was actually the work of Critical Resistance.

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE OPEN FORUM
Why open prisons and close schools?
Eric Mar, Dawn Ligaya Williams
Wednesday, June 1, 2005

Click Here for the Full Article

Without a ribbon-cutting ceremony, inspiring speeches or champagne toasts, today marks one of the most controversial opening days for any state project in the last 25 years. Today, the notorious Delano II prison, a $750 million gift from the state to the prison guards' union, will open.
As California unwraps its 33rd state prison -- what the Los Angeles Times called perhaps "the most controversial prison project in California history" -- we are simultaneously being forced to close schools, libraries and hospitals. Where are our priorities?
Several statewide polls of likely voters have all found the same thing: Californians consistently identify prison spending as the budget item they most want cut in this time of crisis.
Other states nationwide have decided to close prisons. But in California -- where we imprison more people than any other state except Texas, according to the federal Bureau of Justice statistics -- the Department of Corrections will spend an additional $100 million per year, every year, to operate a new prison that Californians don't need, can't afford and don't want.
Meanwhile, Education Week ranked California 44th in the nation in per- pupil spending -- more than $600 per student below the national average. Study after study shows that investing in education pays huge dividends over paying to imprison. So why do our schools suffer billions in underfunding, while prison spending swells to rival the percentage of our state budget spent on higher education?
Underfunding education means schools are closing, class sizes are increasing, teachers and support staff are being laid off, basic supplies and books are lacking, extracurricular activities are no longer affordable and after-school programs have been drastically reduced.
...

Click here for the full article

More info on Critical Resistance and Education Not Incarceration, etc.:
http://www.criticalresistance.org/
http://www.ednotinc.org/
http://www.prisonactivist.org/crisis/prison-industrial.html
This is a great piece by Angela Davis on Racism and Prisons from Colorlines Magazine
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=849

Teachers 4 Social Justice - friday event!

1. Anti-racist school reform specialist Enid Lee will be in SF this Friday!
2. August 11th T4SJ conference planning meeting -
Conference Keynote announced
3. '05-'06 Study Groups - visit http://t4sj.org for more info
4. Youth Empowerment Summit

1. Anti-racist school reform specialist Enid Lee will be part of a summer series that KPFA (La Onda Bajita) and New College of California are hosting this Friday, August 5th from 8-8:30pm and she will take questions from people in the audience.

Please arrive at 7:30pm and have your questions ready! 780 Valencia in San Francisco. Or Listen live on KPFA 94.1 fm too.

2. Get involved in T4SJ's 5th annual educators conference, "Teaching for Social Justice: An Act of Revolution" at our next general meeting. Thursday, August 11th from 6-8pm at 523 Dolores St, SF. If you can make the meeting, email us at teachers4socialjustice@yahoo.com or see you there! Visit our website to learn more about the conference http://www.t4sj.org/ or to donate and help make the conference happen. The next planning meeting will take place Tuesday, Sept. 6th, 6-8pm, location tba.KEYNOTE SPEAKER ANNOUNCED: Linda Chrisitansen, Teacher, Author and Activist will speak at the 2005 conference. Linda is author of "Reading, Writing and Rising Up: Teaching about Social Justice and the Power of the Written Word" and frequent contributor to Rethinking Schools.

3. T4SJ presents it's 5th year of grassroots professional development with our '05-'06 Study Groups. T4SJ Study Groups provide teachers with focused, peer-based professional development opportunities that are tied to existing classroom practice, vs. one-shot "training" workshops that happen in isolation. Curriculum is built around investigation of a specific topic through research and personal experience. Study groups presented this year will be:- Teaching and Social Justice for New Teachers and Student Teachers- Justice and Access through Math and Science- Parent and Teacher Collaboration- Intersections of Discipline and Racism- High Stakes Testing Action GroupVisit http://t4sj.org/ for registration information or more info about study groups.

4. "RESIST THE SYSTEM"The 3rd Annual Youth Empowerment SummitAugust 9th, 2005 11am-8pm @ SF State UniversityOn August 9th, high school student organizers from Making Waves will bring together over 200 youth along with some of the leading Bay Area youth development agencies and artists to SF State. The Summit is FREE to youth and will provide workshops and panels in the areas of Social Justice and Youth Activism, followed by an Arts Festival featuring some of the hottest performers and artists celebrating culture and consciousness.FREE for participants who PRE-REGISTER. Download registration form at http://www.branson.org/makingwavessummit and send it back to Making Waves....space is limited...so register now!

For more info on Teachers 4 Social Justice - www.t4sj.org.

Inspiration for this blog - CEJ - Los Angeles

The title of this blog and inspiration comes from the amazing organizing and movement building work of the hundreds of teachers, students and parents united under the mass organization in Los Angeles called the Coalition for Educational Justice or CEJ. Bravo to CEJ and the many other folks organizing to change our schools and society.

See links to other movement organizations in the links section.

For more background on CEJ:

Article on Brown v. Board of Education and building a movement to change LA schools

The LA Weekly featured the young leaders and organizers of CEJ last summer and in 2001 -

2004 piece
2001 piece

UCLA's Teaching to Change LA website featured one of their leaders Kirti Baranwal, Alex Caputo Pearl and others:

Interview with Kirti
Interview with Alex

Other info on CEJ:

CEJ's analysis on high stakes testing

CalCare on CEJ

My father - Richard Mar - Rest in Peace

The 1st anniversary of my father’s death is approaching on August 13th. He would have turned 87 on Sept. 4th.

I have been spending time with my mother who has come out to SF from her home in Sacramento to visit with me and my twin brother. It is a relief to see her laughing again and able to cope with my father’s death.

One of my mentors, SF State organizer and rabble-rouser extraordinaire, Tim Sampson gave us all some useful advice on coping with the impending death of loved ones in 2001 before he quietly passed away on the morning of Christmas Eve 2001:

"To you who are about to die: Please take time to say goodbye... (I)t is so important and wonderfully useful to the person who is dying to initiate the goodbye saying. This opens up the space to recognize that death may be coming soon..."

Tim suggested what the visitor to a dying person might say, "I hope to be able to see you again soon. But just in case, I want to say goodbye and tell you how much you have meant to me even though..." He continued, "I am learning how to keep my emotional affairs in order, my bags packed, so to speak so when I die, I won’t regret not saying goodbye to the people I care for."

I unfortunately wasn’t able to say ‘goodbye’ to my father before he died on August 13th last year because he didn’t want me to know that he was dying. I wish my father had initiated the goodbye so that I could have hugged him one last time.

On the anniversary of his death and his life I just wanted to honor his memory. Goodbye dad. I miss your laugh, stupid jokes and the warmth and love you gave to all of us.
--------------------

For more info on the life of organizer Tim Sampson - a founding staff member of the National Welfare Rights Organization and longtime professor of Social Work at SF State University
Our Union CFA's tribute to Tim

For more info on my dad - Richard Mar -
From the Sacramento Bee 2004

SFUSD resegregation & 10 'unresolved issues' from 2005 consent decree report

SFUSD's 10 Key Unresolved Issues under the Terms and Conditions of the Decree
From Consent Decree Monitor Stuart Biegel's 22nd Anual Monitoring Report
filed August 1, 2005

Biegel Report # 22 - August 1, 2005

1. Low academic achievement at certain chronically low performing schools.
2. The inability of certain other schools to sustain gains that were originally achieved under the Decree.
3. A pattern of continuing resegregation at close to half of the District schools since 1999, and an inability to identify and implement adjustments in the student assignment plan that could address this resegregation to the extent practicable.
4. A persistent gap between the academic performance of African American and Latino students overall and the performance of the District as a whole, and an inability to define a vision and reach goals that could address this gap to the extent practicable.
5. An inability to confront the crisis that is evident within the African American community in San Francisco, a crisis that is reflected in highly troubling numbers on a range of traditional objective indicators and shows little sign of dissipating.
6. An ongoing lack of compliance with the Paragraph 12 within-school desegregation mandate of the Decree, resulting in a persistently different, less challenging curriculum for students in certain racially identifiable and socioeconomic-status-identifiable programs and classrooms.
7. Continuing issues regarding inequitable distribution of Consent Decree funds, with many schools that evidence the greatest needs in this context still receiving significantly less money than other, higher performing schools. Also, continued evidence of inappropriate allocation of these funds by administrators at certain school sites.
8. An inability to develop and maintain District-wide professional development programs that address the basic requirements of Paragraph 36 and convey basic Consent Decree principles and Philosophical Tenets to teachers and school site administrators.
9. Substantially different approaches and ineffective efforts regarding school discipline from school site to school site, resulting in a continuing lack of compliance with the mandate of Paragraph 38.
10. Vestiges of segregation, present in the District prior to 1978, that are reflected in both the continuing existence of low expectations for low income students of color and in the segregative nature of many District programs, particularly in the area of special education.

August SF Board of Education Meetings

I am still working on the blog technology. This is definitely a blog in progress.
San Francisco Board of Education meetings for August are
Tuesday 8/9 @ 7pm at 555 Franklin Street @ McAllister Street, SF.
Tuesday 8/23 [same place same time].
There are also a bunch of committee meetings. I know there is a buildings and grounds cmtee meeting coming up this week.
For info on board of education meetings, including the agenda items, how to get childcare, parking etc. go to
www.sfusd.edu
and click on the board of education hyperlink.
I meet with the Superintendent and Vice-President Norman Yee Tues 8/2 to set the agenda for 8/9.

I am also working with the Parent Advisory Council [PAC] to set up a reception for the incoming PAC members.
Looking forward also to the upcoming Teachers 4 Social Justice conference:
"Teaching for Social Justice: An Act of Revolution"
When: Saturday, October 15, 2005, 9am-4pm
Where: Mission High School, 18th and Church Street, SF
Who: Teachers and educators from the Bay Area and beyond
Why: To explore empowering learning environments through curriculum and practice and to provide a forum for networking and community building.
http://www.t4sj.org/

Lastly, when I return from a short vacation in LA I will post more info on what to expect for the Fall of 05.
Upcoming big topics include Student Assignment and our district's desegregation plan [see the archive], more anticipated budget cuts for 06/07 which may mean more school closures and/or layoffs/cutbacks, whether the Superintendent will retire or not and possibly choosing her replacement, etc.

Racial Justice and Educational Equity in SF Schools

The Struggle for Racial Justice and Educational Equity in SF Schools


100 years ago the all-white San Francisco Board of Education declared:
“Our children should not be placed in any position where their youthful impressions may be affected by association with pupils of the Mongolian race.” [1905, SF Board of Education] .

In response to a 1884 lawsuit brought by Chinese immigrant parents Joseph and Mary Tape challenging the SF School District’s racial exclusion of their 8-year old daughter Mamie and other Chinese students from the all-white Spring Valley Elementary School, the School Board and Superintendent set up a separate segregated “Oriental” school where they later sent Japanese, South Asian and other students of color for generations.
Today, one hundred years later, I preside as the President of the San Francisco Board of Education. My key allies on the 7 member Board are teachers Mark Sanchez and Sarah Lipson, both leaders in SF’s Green Party and local social justice activists. A 4th board ally is early childhood education expert Norman Yee, a longtime Chinatown community leader who joined the Board earlier this year. We and the various social movements and constituencies we are working with have a daunting task ahead of us as we try to literally swim uphill making progressive policy changes in the downpour of big-business driven laws and dictates from both D.C. and Sacramento and the frustrating internal barriers from bureaucrats in our own district.

The key threats and challenges I see before us include:
Breaking down the ongoing institutionalized racism and economic inequality in the schools
Challenging privatization, big business influence and ongoing de-funding of public education
Ending the growing military recruiting and militarism in schools
Countering the increasing conservative efforts to limit democratic participation, eliminate progressives on school boards and teachers from the decision-making process and maintain a system with very limited participation from parents, students, teachers and grassroots groups

For many educators, ‘No Child Left Behind’ [NCLB] - the federal education law passed in January 2002 which imposes a punitive high stakes testing system and sets many schools and whole districts up for failure and potential takeover by voucher systems, charter schools and bureaucratic or private management companies control – is the main threat to democratic education as we know it. For an excellent breakdown of NCLB see teacher/activist and Rethinking Schools Editor Stan Karp’s “The NCLB Hoax”
[at www.ZMag.org or at www.rethinkingschools.org ].

Harold Berlak, a senior research fellow with the Applied Research Center in Oakland, breaks down how CA’s state ‘accountability’ and high stakes testing system [including the CA High School Exit Exam] fits hand in hand with NCLB and the big business agenda. “NCLB as well as state policies that mandate standardized testing technology tied to prescribed curriculum undermines democratic values and cultural diversity,” he says.
“At the core of democracy is the commitment that ordinary people should be able to exercise their right to participate fully in making decisions that affect their lives and the life of their communities. This includes control over the public schools that educate their children. No Child Left Behind and state standardized testing mandates shift political control of schools from local communities, local governing boards, parents and teachers to state and federal governments bureaucrats, test experts, and private contractors, who are distant from classrooms and everyday school life. “ For Berlak’s primer on NCLB and CA’s testing system see Berlak Analysis .

Author/activist Kathy Emery, longtime teacher/writer Susan Ohanian and others have laid out a troubling picture of how NCLB is only the “latest manifestation” of a campaign begun in a 1989 corporate-politico education summit which brought together a ‘Business Roundtable’ of the top 300 CEO’s in the U.S. to develop a strategy to transform public education in the corporate image.

For a lively and insightful analysis of the origins of the corporate and right wing assault on public schools see “Why is Corporate America Bashing Our Public Schools?” by Kathy Emery and Susan Ohanian [Heinemann, 2004] and see other articles by Emery at
www.educationanddemocracy.org.

According to Emery by 1995, this ‘Business Roundtable’ had redefined its agenda to include “nine essential components” and by 2000 they had managed to create an “interlocking network of business associations, corporate foundations, governor’s associations, non-profits and educational institutions” that had successfully persuaded their state legislatures to adopt the first three components of their high stakes testing agenda. Emery suggests that the NCLB is “merely a more draconian version of California’s 1999 Public School Accountability Act” which began our state’s system of high stakes testing and ‘standards-based reforms’.

One other danger or pitfall progressive school board members and activists need to be wary of is what Rethinking Schools Editor Barbara Minor calls “foundation-driven reforms” from sources such as the Wal-Mart backed Walton Family Foundation, Billionaire Eli Broad’s Los Angeles-based Broad Foundation, and Bill Gates’ Gates Foundation.
Minor warns that education reform initiatives around the country – “from small schools to vouchers to pay-for-performance to charters – are often instituted not because the community demanded them, but because some foundation decided to fund the initiatives.” Conservatives have been partially adept at claiming the reforms came from the bottom up, she says.

The big business and right wing assaults don’t only threaten the nuts and bolts of our existing public school system. They threaten more fundamentally what former 60's new left leader turned education professor William Ayers calls a vision of education that “embraces as principle and overarching, the aspiration of the people to become more fully human [encouraging] us towards further knowledge, enlightenment, human community, toward liberation.” That struggle for an educational system that supports the “humanization” of students and invites their transformation is what is at stake today in SF schools and throughout the country.


Racial and Economic Justice in SF Schools

Some 50 years after the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision [ending segregation] and 30 years after the lesser known Lau v. Nichols decision [supporting bilingual education/language equality and the needs of English learners] our San Francisco schools, like most schools throughout the country, are still very unequal in terms of race, class and immigration status of the students. The UCLA based researcher that monitors SF’s progress towards integration and racial equality in August 2003 reported that more than 40 of San Francisco's 119 public schools have "severely resegregated" and cautioned against "a continuing slide toward additional resegregation."

The Board faces a key historic decision in the next term that will impact our ongoing struggle against ‘resegregation’, and for racial and economic justice in student assignment and redistribution of resources for educational equity in our district.

The SFUSD Consent Decree which came about in 1983 as the result of the NAACP lawsuit from 1978 [and several decades of struggle before that time] is set to sunset on Dec. 31, 2005 though the policy will continue through the end of June 2006 and the $40 million per year from the state for desegregation efforts in SFUSD [out of our total $600 million budget] will continue after that date.

Our district is very far off from the goals of the Consent Decree and our efforts to eliminate the ‘vestiges’ of discrimination in our schools. And, unfortunately, 51 years after the Brown decision, we have made little if any progress in closing the achievement gap and ensuring equal educational opportunities for African American, Latino and English learner students in our district. Nonetheless, the courts will be letting our district off the legal hook for ensuring equity and diversity in our classrooms. So parents, teachers, students and community groups have to keep the pressure on the district to maintain our historic commitment to educational justice in our public schools.

In the next few months the Board will to discuss and choose a new student assignment plan. The future of what our SF schools will look like demographically depends in large part on the Board’s action this coming session.
Involvement thus far has been mostly limited to insiders, legal and academic ‘experts’ and district bureaucrats with even very low level involvement from the mainstream parent organizations like the PTA and almost no involvement from grassroots parent groups or the teacher’s union United Educators of SF [UESF].
Key is the new board’s ability to maintain our commitment to racial and economic justice and redistribution of resources to bring about educational equity while acknowledging the changed demographics of the post-desegregation era. To get involved - contact: Teachers for Social Justice [ www.t4sj.org ]; Parents for Public Schools [ www.ppssf.org ];
Chinese for Affirmative Action [ www.caasf.org ] or
Youth Making a Change [Y-MAC] [ www.colemanadvocates.org ].

Key Opportunities
for Racial Justice
and Educational Equity
in our Schools

If Malcolm X was correct that “the future belongs to those that prepare for it today,” then we teachers, parents, students, and grassroots community folks in SF, Oakland, Richmond and other urban districts may be in even more serious trouble down the road unless we start taking advantage of key movement building opportunities that are currently before us.

It seems to me, the key opportunities for our work today include:

Supporting grassroots parent and student organizing at the local community level
Strengthening parent/teacher/community alliances, especially in low income communities
Building broader/deeper/more visionary coalitions among the scattered
and relatively weak single-issue groups
Developing an educational justice vision and movement that can connect progressive school reforms with other social and human needs

Organizations that are building our multiracial
movement for educational justice:

Teachers for Social Justice - October 15th 2005 conference -
www.t4sj.org
United Educators of SF – Peace, Justice and Human Rights
Committee – www.uesf.org
SF People’s Organization - Education Caucus www.sfpeople.org
Books Not Bars www.booksnotbars.org
Californians for Justice – www.caljustice.org
Applied Research Center – www.arc.org
Education Not Incarceration - www.ednotinc.org
College Not Combat – www.collegenotcombat.org
SF Organizing Project – www.sfop.org
ACORN – www.acorn.org
Coleman Advocates/Parent Advocates for Youth/Youth
Making a Change
www.colemanadvocates.org
National Coalition of Education Activists –
www.nceaonline.org

My daughter graduates! [from preschool]

SFUSD White/middle class flight Timeline

San Francisco Schools - Historical Context: white/middle class flight

1968 – 78 -
When SF and other urban districts in the late 1960s began integrating schools through various methods white students and middle class families left the public schools in droves. For example, almost overnight the SF public schools lost more than 8,000 students [mostly white], bringing its total enrollment down from over 90,000 students to 82,757 after the first integration effort aimed at the elementary school level. The district lost 1/3 of its students in a 10 year period shrinking down to 60,000 students in 1978, the year African American communities and others sued to challenge the institutional racism in the district.
1978 –
the NAACP filed a lawsuit to desegregate the SFUSD which was finally settled in 1983 with a ‘Consent Decree’ or court ordered desegregation plan for SF schools.
1992 –
the Judge overseeing the Consent Decree allows new Superintendent Bill Rojas to expand the consent decree ‘reconstitution’ requirements to all of SF schools. He begins a process of scapegoating teachers and low income kids by “reconstituting” ‘failing' schools throughout the district [wiping out all staff from top to bottom and replacing them with totally new staff].
1994 –
a group of disgruntled Chinese parents frustrated over their children’s rejection for admission to SF’s elite Lowell High school sue the district to dismantle the Consent Decree.
1999 –
a Federal judge in the context of the conservative backlash in the courts rules that SFUSD must stop using race and ethnicity to assign students which leads to ‘rapid resegregation and growing racial isolation in the schools. The Harvard Civil Rights Project's research shows this trend occurring in most urban school districts around the country.
2001 –
In campaigns against privatization and for racial justice and educational equity teacher activists Eric Mar and Mark Sanchez are elected to the Board of Education
2001-02 –
SFUSD begins use of ‘diversity index’ [a race-neutral lottery system which uses 6 equity factors to increase diversity and opportunity in SF schools] – rapid resegregation and growing inequality continues despite new policy initiatives by the new Board of Education members.
2002 –
Green Party teacher and parent Sarah Lipson is elected to the School Board. She is the first Green to be elected in SF [Sanchez was a democrat and changed his party affiliation to the Green Party with former Supervisor Matt Gonzalez shortly after being elected to the Board]
2005 –
SF Unified School District now has 57,000 students but is losing students at about 800 a year. To close a $22 million deficit this year the board closes 5 schools, downsizes another and lays off 200 teachers and paraprofessionals.
The Consent Decree is expected to sunset or end at on December 31, 2005.

CA Educational System - Overview

From Californians for Justice:
http://www.caljustice.org

An Overview of the California Educational System
This section presents an overview of the educational system in California. The data from this section was collected in the spring of 2001; it will be updated soon.

How many students are there in California? What grades?
In 1999-00 California had almost 6 million public school students(5,951,612)
nearly 4.2 million in elementary, middle school, and junior high(4,194,356 in K-8)
nearly 1.7 million in high schools(1,675,393 in grades 9-12)
81,863 students in ungraded programs (such as special county programs)
Public school students are 90% of all students in the state; there were 640,802 private school students in California – a little less than 10% of all students.

What are some demographics about California’s students?

Race/Ethnicity
Approximately 63% of California’s public school students are people of color and 37% are white.
Among all students, 42% are Latino (42.2%); 11% are Asian, Pacific Islander, or Filipino (exactly 8% Asian, 0.6% Pacific Islander, and 2.4% Filipino); nearly 9% are African-American (8.6%); and 1% are Native American (0.9%). Another 0.4% are "Multiple or No Response" according to the Department of Education.

Language
A quarter of California’s students — nearly 1.5 million — are English Learners (24.9%, or 1,480,527). Even more are bilingual — there is no number for the students who are fluent in English but also speak another language at home.
More than a third of Kindergarteners are English Learners (36.1%). One in 10 twelfth-graders (11.1%) are English Learners.The most common primary language is Spanish at 82.6% (1,222,810 students).The next 9 most common languages are Vietnamese (2.7%), Hmong (1.9%), Cantonese (1.7%), Tagalog (Filipino, 1.2%), Khmer (Cambodian, 1.1%), Korean (1.1%), Armenian (0.8%), Mandarin/Putonghua (0.7%), and Russian (0.5%). There are another 5.6% of English Learners with other languages.

Income
Nearly half of California’s students receive free or reduced price lunch (47.3%).About 15% of California’s students are children of CalWORKS recipients (14.3%).There are no other figures kept that directly relate to income. The figures for free or reduced price lunch do not represent all low-income students, particularly in higher grades – it has been found that as they get older, many students do not participate in the free lunch program even when they qualify, either because of stigma or because they dislike school lunch.
----------------------

Compiled From:California Department of Education (CDE)"Ed-Data" Statewide ReportFigures are for 1999-2000 school year, except for rates on graduation, UC-CSU eligibility, dropouts, and revenue, where the figures are for 1998-1999.
California Basic Educational Data System (CBEDS)Figures on districts from the 1998-1999 school year.
CDE 1999-2000 Data for Private Schools in California
CDE "Ed-Data" SiteUnderstanding California's School Facilities Crisis. Published April 1998.