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.

SF SCHOOLS ARTS MASTER PLAN, ARTS in SF SCHOOLS 3/25 Fri 5:30

SF Public Schools are in the midst of developing an Arts Master Plan with various arts educators, artists, the big dominant arts organizations, some parent groups, etc.
The impetus came from strong grassroots support for Supervisor Ammiano's Prop H [Nov. 04] which will provide more City funding for Arts, Music, Sports, Libraries, etc. in the SF Schools.
However, to prevent the large arts organizations and wealthy arts donors from dominating the process, we need more grassroots community arts groups, artists, students, parents and stakeholder groups to inform themselves about the process and speak out to the board of education and the superintendent on your concerns.
The model master plans we are looking at are LA, Chicago, Houston.
We also clearly need more voices speaking out for multicultural arts and inclusiveness in arts education as well.
Once completed and adopted by the Board of Education, the Arts Education Master Plan will serve as the blueprint that the School District, families, the arts community, the City, funders, and all other arts education stakeholders will use to work together to provide comprehensive sequential arts education for every student in the San Francisco Unified School District. We hope the Plan will greatly strengthen arts education throughout the SFUSD and will revitalize the arts in the schools and throughout the community for future generations.
For more info and to let your voice be heard - contact:
Kevin Marlatt - SFUSD Arts Eduction Master PlanProject Manager
artsplan@sfusd.edu
Cell: 415-359-4240.

----------
INVITE:
Parents, students, teachers and school staff, andcommunity friends of SF public schools:
Please join us for our monthly Student Art Reception,featuring student art from21st Century Academy and Luther Burbank Middle School.
Thanks Commissioner Mark Sanchez for setting up the artwork!Unwind, relax, have fun, marvel at the great studentartwork, mingle, celebrate, enjoy finger food!!Children welcome.
WHEN: Friday, March 25th, 5:30-7:30PM
WHERE: SF Unified School District, Board Meeting Room,555 Franklin Street, 1st Floor (McAllister Street)[parking on streetand in lot [enter on McAllister Street]
Public Transportation:BART - Civic Center stationMUNI - 5 Fulton, 47 or 49 Van Ness

Save the dates for the next receptions – 5:30-7:30pm Fridays –April 22, May 20, June 10. Same time, same place.
Feel free to contact me if you have any suggestions.emar@s...or
415/730-4188.
In unity,
Eric Mar, President
San Francisco Board of Education