By Tim Redmond
I find it hard to believe that D1 supervisor candidate Sue Lee is allowing her supporters to resort to this sort of pandering, but here it is: Fliers from the landlords are going out attacking her main opponent, Eric Mar, over “neighborhood schools.”
That’s a buzzword for re-segregation. I hate to be that harsh and blunt, but it’s the truth. THe pro-neighborhood schools people may be well-meaning, but if they get their way, and school assigment is done primarily on the basis of where you live, the schools are going to face some ugly problems.
Eric Mar’s been on the school board. He understands this better than most. Sue Lee ought to understand it, too.
I get the frustration that some parents in the Richmond feel: After all, there are quite a few good schools in that part of town, and their kids won’t necessarily get into those schools. But there’s a very good reason for that: If every kid went to a school in his or her neighborhood, we’d have a lot of segregated schools. That’s not only terrible for the kids, it’s against federal law.
Imagine: All the Asian and white families in the Richmond could keep their kids in schools that were almost entirely Asian and white — and the kids in Bayview Hunters Point would go to schools that would be almost entirely African American. Where do you think the resources are going to go?
My kids go to McKinley Elementary in the Castro. Their classmates are a picture of San Francisco — black, white, Asian, Latino, Pacific Islander; kids from single-parent families, kids from traditional families, kids from gay families … not all of them can walk to school (we commute from Bernal Heights), but it’s a wonderful educational situation. It’s what public schools ought to be.
And it’s tricky in a city like San Francisco, where we still, sadly, have some hihgly segregated neighborhoods. But it’s worth the effort.
Frankly, I can’t believe anyone in this liberal city really thinks the schools would be better off if we didn’t have policies that seek to integrate the classrooms.
Besides, San Francisco parents have made it very clear, over and over, that they want school choices. They don’t want to be forced into one neighborhood school (especially if they live in a poor neighborhood or one where the local public school isn’t very good). Why can’t kids from Bayview go to Rooftop and Clarendon?
I’ve been through the San Francisco school assignment process, and it isn’t perfect. And every time someone complains to me about it, I ask them the same question: How would you make it better? It’s a tough one; either you accept that some schools are going to be segregated and some kids denied the opportunity to attend the best schools in town and all kids denied the value of learning in a diverse environment — or you accept that fact that not everyone can go to the neighborhood school.
Of course, you can insist that San Francisco provide excellent schools in every neighborhood, and we should — but really, that’s a copout. It isn’t happening now, and it’s not going to happen in the next five years, and unless the state spends a lot more on education, it’s not going to happen at all. Look: My school has some fairly well-off parents with organizing skills and time on their hands. We can raise money for special programs, and we have an active PTA and lots of volunteers. We just got a new playground built.
In a school that serves almost entirely a low-income community, the parents don’t have money to pour into special programs, they’re working two jobs to pay the rent and don’t have time to spend on the school — and it’s not fair. Clarendon parents raise $200,000 a year, because they can. So Clarendon gets programs that other schools don’t. If the state doubled education spending, we’d be better off, but it won’t, and we’re not.
So you simply have to let parents choose to send their kids to schools out of their neighborhoods — and you have to accept the fact that some kids from richer parts of town won’t be able to attend their local school.
Sue Lee ought to know that. It’s a disgrace that she is allowing this to happen in her name.