Entries tagged 'SFUSD'

Wednesday, May 28th, 2008

Recognizing Schools’ Place in Inequality

San Francisco Unified’s school board unanimously approved a new strategic plan for the district at a meeting Tuesday night.

That alone would normally not be news, except this time the planning was headed up by Tony Smith, deputy superintendent of instruction, innovation and social justice for the district.

Smith, who came to SFUSD from the superintendent post in Emeryville, came to his role with a strong appreciation for schools’ place in preserving much of the inequality that exists in society today. That belief is clearly evident in the new plan.

“For far too long, demographics, specifically the socio-economic, linguistic and racial backgrounds our our children, have often closely correlated to their success in school. We refer to this historical trend as the ‘predictive power of demographics,’” the plan states.

This admission alone is historic for a school district, as much of this predictive power comes from districts’ and states’ policies, which often disadvantage students of color or students from low-income neighborhoods.

Staffing policies that encourage the newest, least experienced teachers to teach students who most need the help are a prime example. The New Teacher Project’s report, “Unintended Consequences,” explained this phenomenon in much detail in 2005 and little progress has been made since in most major school districts.

The plan commits the district to rethinking all of its policies and practices from the viewpoint of having acknowledged its historical contributions, something that is undoubtedly going to be difficult and painful at times, but in the end should be a positive experience for the district and its students.

But Smith has been around long enough to realize that change will not come with words alone. Thus, he proposes assessing schools’ progress not on test scores alone, which is way too common nowadays, but on each school’s “ability to disrupt the historically predictive power of racial, ethnic, linguistic and socio-economic student attributes.”

That’s a much higher calling, but one the district (and the rest of the country) desperately needs.

(Photos from Flickr user dlemieux)

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