In San Francisco, White and Asian students academically outperform their counterparts of other races, particularly African-Americans and Latino students. This phenomenon is not unique to our City, but the gap is particularly pronounced here and we must urgently address it as a community. The Board recently passed a resolution pledging, among other things, to bring all groups to 60 percent proficiency by 2011. As a Commissioner, I will uphold this resolution and hold the Superintendent and the schools accountable for meeting this essential goal.
I also believe it is important to give every child access to a high-quality curriculum that is differentiated to his or her specific needs. High-achievers need more challenges; children with learning differences need to access information that is tuned to their developmental level or optimal learning style.
The district’s new strategic plan calls for reducing “the predictive power of demographics” in student outcomes. We must take a hard look at the way we distribute resources and set priorities throughout the district, to be sure they are aligned with best practices in education. We began this conversation with the passage of Proposition A, which addressed the problem of recruiting and retaining new teachers in our most challenging schools; what we learned from this successful campaign was that all stakeholders must keep an open mind and work together to craft a compromise.
