San Francisco allows parents to apply to any elementary school in the district, having done away with traditional school zoning 18 years ago in an effort to desegregate its classrooms. Give parents more choices, the thinking was, and low-income and working-class students of color like Cinthya would fill more seats at the city’s most coveted schools.Ignore that that magical incantation of "Research shows" is actually highly disputed. What have been the demonstrated outcomes of these strategies?
But last month, Cinthya’s parents, who are Hispanic, found out she had been admitted to their second-to-last choice, a school where less than a third of students met standards on state reading and math tests last year. Only 3 percent were white.
Results like these have soured many on the city’s school enrollment plan, which is known here as “the lottery” and was once considered a national model.
[snip]
What happened in San Francisco suggests that without remedies like wide-scale busing, or school zones drawn deliberately to integrate, school desegregation will remain out of reach.
[snip]
Research shows that desegregation can drive learning gains for students of all races. And on paper, San Francisco’s system showed promise. In recent years, it succeeded in breaking up racial concentrations at a handful of schools.
But over all, many parents and city leaders consider it a disappointment. The district’s schools were more racially segregated in 2015 than they were in 1990, even though the city’s neighborhoods have become more integrated, research shows. That pattern holds true in many of the nation’s largest cities, according to an analysis by Ryan W. Coughlan, an assistant professor of sociology at Guttman Community College in New York.So central planning doesn't work. Nice to have that confirmed.
Segregation looks different in San Francisco than in other parts of the country. The district is one of the most diverse in the nation: 35 percent of students are Asian, 27 percent are Hispanic, 15 percent are white and 7 percent are African-American. Schools here are not racially monolithic. But over the past several decades, white, Asian and Hispanic students, on average, have been clustered in schools with more children of their own races.
[snip]
Even the school district has acknowledged that a system of geographically zoned schools would most likely create more racial integration than the current, choice-driven approach.
[snip]
But the voices of parents who feel hurt by the lottery hold powerful political sway here. One family of two doctors whose child — like 12 percent of kindergarten applicants — was not admitted to any of the 15 schools they listed, said they would not send their child to the school they were ultimately assigned, which is across the city from their home. The school has struggled with underenrollment and low test scores, and is predominantly black and low-income.
The parents, who are Hispanic and asked not to be named, ended up putting down a deposit for a private school.
And even though this is represented as giving parents choice, it is not clear that that is quite what is happening. Twenty years ago, you chose where to live and your child went to the school which served that area. That is one form of school choice.
San Francisco implemented a system whereby you get to tell the School District which school you want your child to attend and they tell you which school your child will attend. I am not sure that that is really an increase in school choice. In fact, it looks like a decline.
And the result is that, with the City making the decisions for you, school segregation has increased.
As happens so frequently, I encourage NYT reporters to read their own paper. From a couple of years ago, San Francisco Asks: Where Have All the Children Gone? by Thomas Fuller. Some interesting facts to complement those above.
As an urban renaissance has swept through major American cities in recent decades, San Francisco’s population has risen to historical highs and a forest of skyscraping condominiums has replaced tumbledown warehouses and abandoned wharves. At the same time, the share of children in San Francisco fell to 13 percent, low even compared with another expensive city, New York, with 21 percent. In Chicago, 23 percent of the population is under 18 years old, which is also the overall average across the United States.These are some pertinent trends which would seem important to the first article.
[snip]
In 1970, a quarter of San Francisco’s residents were children, nearly twice the level of today. The overall demographic picture of San Francisco is a city with more men than women — 103 for every 100 women — and with no ethnic majority. Whites make up slightly less than half the population, Asians about one-third and Latinos 15 percent. The black population has markedly declined and stands around 6 percent.
[snip}
San Francisco’s public school system has around 53,000 students, a sharp drop from 90,000 in 1970. The decline is a reflection both of families leaving the city and wealthier parents sending their children to private schools. Around 30 percent of San Francisco children attend private school, the highest rate among large American cities.
San Francisco has an exceptionally low percent of population who are children and that percentage has been in long term decline.It is not clear to me from this reporting that SF ever had a particular issue with segregation per se. Especially if reverting to the traditional geographic zoning would reduce "segregation". If whites are a small minority of the student body, how many schools can there be which are majority white such that diversification is a putative solution? And really, any race. The largest plurality is Asians at 37% of the student body.
San Francisco has a small and declining African-American population.
San Francisco has a large issue with gentrification.
San Francisco has an exceptionally large population of school children who attend private schools rather than public schools.
White students in the San Francisco Unified School District are the same proportion as are blacks nationally - 15%.
This report from SFUSD suggests that the problem is not segregation per se but racial/social economic status/cultural academic performance issue.
Asian American, White, and Filipino Americans are outperforming their peers in other California school districts but African American and Latino students are markedly underperforming other California school districts. This general statement is especially true when high and low income families are differentiated.
A conclusion backed up by this report from a group more concerned about inequality of performance.
San Francisco Unified School District has large gaps in student learning
Percent proficient in English and math, 2016-17
And it is worth noting that the above report makes the claim that SFUSD is doing especially poorly for its black and Hispanic poor students when compared to other California School Districts serving similar populations.
It appears from a quick scan of data that SFUSD hoped that giving parents input to decisions ultimately made by administrators and focusing on desegregation in an already pretty integrated school system would naturally lead to improved outcomes. It did not. Parents don't like it, kids don't like it, SJW advocates don't like it and the results in terms of both degree of segregation and by academic achievement are worse than they were twenty years ago.
Perhaps focusing on excellent academic achievement might be an alternative approach which might pay dividends.
I believe that to be true, but it is exceptionally complicated and difficult. In the Times article, one parent says.
“Until our schools are being made to have the same resources and quality as the other schools in the other areas, I’m not going to disadvantage her,” Ms. Batiste said of her daughter, Victoria.A nice sentiment but it hides more than it reveals. I would guess that SFUSD is pretty attentive to spending the same amount per student by school. Even if they are enormously diligent in that regard, they cannot easily stop well-off parents from making additional resources available to their child's school one way or another. And more to the point, research everywhere indicates that, above some minimum level, the issue is not about resources. A point made frequently in the comments section of the article.
For example, Washington, D.C. spends nearly twice as much on educating their students as do the average American school district. And for twice as much spending they get about half the results or less in terms of graduation rates, school test scores, college admissions, etc.
Having the same resources and having the same results are not the same. The reality is that some schools will need much greater resources and may still come up short in terms of the same results. And it introduces all sorts of other issues of fairness. Why should one parent effectively have to pay twice as much in taxes to cover the education of someone else's child compared to what is being paid to educate their own child. That is not a great social dynamic.
One final note. The comments to this NYT article are quite striking. I do not see the NYT as a bastion of conservative thought but you might question that assumption when you look at what, presumably liberal, readers are saying. It is not that they are wrong, it is that what they say is so similar to centrists and conservatives.
This is probably another Great Revealing - Educational outcomes are the result of families and not racial discrimination or unequal spending. Long known to be true but usually studiously ignored.
Lilith
USAApril 25
This is a tough topic. Growing up white and middle class in the deep south in the nineties, I went to school with kids bused in from the projects. It was awful. So many of the kids from the projects were violent and disruptive, and the classrooms were chaotic. I was painfully shy, and so, so many of these students tormented me. The only escape from the constant bullying and occasional death threats were the honors classes I eagerly signed up for.
As an adult I have sympathy for the poor kids. I can’t imagine their home lives. But as a twelve year old, I just remember feeling afraid and wishing they wouldn’t torment me. I would never, ever, under any circumstances send my children to schools like the ones I went to. The schools I went to growing up are now segregated again, busing proving a failure. I don’t know what the solution is. This is indeed a tough topic.
357 Recommend
Sue
New JerseyApril 25
The most important factor in school success is involved parents. Shuffling kids to a school across the city may make everyone feel good but without the family making education a priority, nothing will change.
356 Recommend
LM
Piedmont, CAApril 26
There is another option that SF parents choose in response to the lottery: they leave the city entirely. My husband and I lived in the Marina neighborhood of SF when we had our first child. Our home happened to be around the corner from one of the better public elementary schools in the city. But given our residential zip code, it was highly unlikely that we would ever place into that school with the lottery. So rather than face the prospect of spending $30k a year on private school tuition, we moved to the East Bay, where our son is now enrolled in a “10” public elementary school that is a 7 minute walk from our home. We know many other families over here who have moved for the same reason. Among other things, the lottery has caused families to flee the city — a kind of “child flight” reminiscent of the “white flight” that drove Caucasian families to the suburbs years ago.
315 Recommend
Paige Nittler
San FranciscoApril 25
And San Francisco has also done away with honors classes for middle school because “they are inherently inequitable.” There is no respite for students who want to learn.
292 Recommend
A F
ConnecticutApril 26
I have personal and professional experience with low income, majority minority schools.
The reality is that low income black children are disproportionately violent and disruptive, and often have serious behavioral issues and cognitive disabilities that have a very real impact on school safety and learning. This is not their fault; it is the legacy of racism, of lead poisoning, of poor maternal health, of the trauma of poverty.
But pretending the problem does exist, and pretending that affluent parents will pretend it does not exist when the well being of their own children is at stake, only leads nowhere.
Instead of chasing the integration unicorn, we need to first, deal with the problem at the root. All the money in the world for school is worthless if children show up to kindergarten with already intractable developmental issues. We need to start treating poor maternal health and unprepared motherhood among black women like the massive public health crisis it is. Better family planning leads to better maternal health, which leads to healthier babies and children. We need safer housing for the poor. We need quality childcare and preschool for low income children.
Then we need to give all low income neighborhood schools the funding and resources they need to be excellent, no matter who attends them. This includes even smaller classes, more social workers, whatever it takes to give these children and their families what they need to excel.
280 Recommend
mkm
NycApril 25
What a shock, parents could care less about diversity and segregation. Parents want the best education they can get for their kids and will do what they have to do to get it.
274 Recommend
KC
San FranciscoApril 25
We live within 5 minutes walking distance of two public elementary schools, and the fact that we’re unlikely to get into them means we’re moving. We’re an “affluent” family (ie the enemy according to this article), but we both work, we can’t afford a $3 million house in SF, and we’re not paying $30K a year for private school. All I want is for my kids to get the best education they can possibly get, and I would happily send them to public school if SF didn’t enforce this insane lottery system that everyone hates.
This city is broken.
251 Recommend
Norville T. Johnson
NYApril 26
So what we are really seeing here is that many parents do not want to participate in a social justice experiment with their children’s education on the line. If they have the means, regardless of race, they opt for private schools. Forcing integration is not the answer. I wonder how many of the kids actually socialize in these schools or if they tend to assimilate with kids they live closer to and can see after school.
There are few options here beyond banning private schools or changing the funding model to distribute money more equitably.
Neither is likely to happen.
239 Recommend
Alex Mazon
CaliforniaApril 26
It’s not the schools people. It’s the parents. Parents who value education and are highly involved in their child’s education will always do better academically. Asian students are a good example of how valuing education impacts a child’s success in school.
219 Recommend
Jeff
ORApril 25
Been teaching 18 years, 2 in SF and 16 in small town Oregon. One of the main challenges of almost every urban public school is managing disruptive student behavior. That was the biggest challenge of the middle school I taught in. If kids come to school ready/able to learn, then most even half-decently run schools can do their job. The endless cycle of inner city poverty and the unfortunate ignorance/depression/lack of faith in self and institutions it creates will never produce many students that are psychologically capable of succeeding in school or life. Those students, sadly, often ruin it for everyone else as well.
217 Recommend
Anji
San FranciscoApril 25
My daughter went to one of the higher ranked elementary public schools in SF that is well integrated racially and socioeconomically, but the problem is that the kids who come from lower socioeconomic homes, or homes where English is not their native language those kids did not perform as well as the children from more educated families . The teachers as well as the PTA dedicated lots of resources and went out of their way to help these students with additional assistance before school, as well as buying materials they could take home, etc. One of the biggest problems is the three month summer break, children from more educated households continue to read, attend camps, travel and learn over the break while many of the other children are in daycare or in front of a TV. When the fall comes many of those kids have fallen behind and much of the progress that was made the prior year is gone. These kids take longer to get up to speed and the gap widens as the years go by. It's time we look at the school year and perhaps change this. It was set according to the agricultural season but it's no longer relevant to most Americans.
The school my daughter went to was an ideal scenario where the community was working together to bring up the scores of all of the students. There were many things the PTA did and funded to make it more equitable, but there are other factors outside of school that need to be addressed.
206 Recommend
Nicholas
New YorkApril 25
I can't believe the NY Times didn't have one mention of the history of current NYC DOE chancellor Richard Carranza as superintendent of SFUSD and how caused an educational crisis by eliminating Algebra in middle schools there.
Carranza was also very happy to send his daughter to an academically rigorous school, Lowell HS which in recent years has admitted few black students but now claim NYC's specialized high schools are segregated and must have racial quotas.
182 Recommend
wanschural
caledonia, mnApril 25
@Jon
Actually, I think we should focus our attention on the fathers of these "dysfunctional kids". Or did the single mothers just happen to get pregnant all on their own?
182 Recommend
E
AnywhereApril 25
I wish the NY Times had included the details about Carranza ending the honors classes in middle school. That was a huge reason why we pulled our daughter out of our local SF public school and opted for private middle school. Its a race to the bottom.
171 Recommend
Thomas A. Hall
FloridaApril 26
I love my visits to San Francisco. I hitchhiked there nearly fifty years ago and have gone back many times (now in a plane!).
The school diversity, school segregation issue doesn't just affect liberal cities, it is the raw nerve ending that cuts across every financial and social strata in our nation.
As conservative as I am, I firmly believe in equal opportunity for all. I sent my very white children to minority public magnet schools in our district. While hispanic students were okay, the black students either ignored my kids or actively sought to rob them, harass them or physically assault them. The cultural differences were simply ridiculous. The 15% of white kids banded together for protection and excelled academically regardless.
Meanwhile, my progressive friends pulled out all of the stops to avoid having their kids attend the same schools. I won the moral high ground, but, from a practical standpoint, my profoundly hypocritical liberal friends, who regularly denounce my conservative politics, won the academic battle.
Our educational policies in this country are dishonest and are based on liberal ideology, not facts. At their core, liberal progressives know this. It is revealed in their school choices for their own children.
My grandson will NEVER attend a majority minority school if I and his parents can manage it. Thirty percent minority seems to be the approximate tipping point between success and a rapid decline in educational quality, by my observations.
165 Recommend
kaydayjay
ncApril 25
In many years of teaching I have NEVER seen good students lift up poor ones. In fact, introducing poor students into better learning environments, generally degrade the environment and penalizes the better students.
As is the case in most education dilemmas, the inconvenient answer is PARENTS.
165 Recommend
Andrew
SavannahApril 25
This is a sensitive topic. As a public school teacher here in Savannah, I witness this constant obsession with promoting diversity and desegregation in the educational school system and its unintended repercussions. All I can say is through my years of experience, no matter what race the student may be who walks in my classroom, life at home dramatically; I'll say that again, dramatically influences a student's academic success as well as their failure. No city, state, or federal government plan can remedy a public school's shortfalls without taking into consideration the importance of a healthy and stable home life.
154 Recommend
Michael
San FranciscoApril 25
I’m surprised this is not mentioned here, but it is precisely because of these issues that many parents move to the suburbs when their kids hit school age. That was true of myself and many other similarly situated friends of mine. This is a big part of the reason why SF has the lowest percentage of kids of any major city in the US. To give an example, I had a neighbor when I lived in SF that like me had three kids, and they were in three different schools in three different parts of the city, causing him to have an extraordinarily complicated morning dropoff routine that took him about two hours to complete. My wife and I just wanted to be somewhere where the kids could go to the school down the street and we would know it was a good or at least ok school. Given the astronomical price of housing and the high property taxes that flow from that, that shouldn’t be too much to ask, but so it goes...
149 Recommend
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