My friend Teri Olle has posted her own notes from the Jan. 12 Ad Hoc Committee on Student Assignment meeting. I’m reposting them here because they are much more complete than mine!
I thought people might be interested in some notes and impressions from last
night’s BOE Ad Hoc Committee on Student Assignment. Where I’m sure I’ve got it accurate, I will attribute comments to particular people. Otherwise, these notes are intended to be more of a general overview of the discussion.
The Ad Hoc committee comprises Commissioners Wynns (Chair), Kim and Maufas. The other members are invited to attend, but can’t vote. All members were present, as was Superintendent Garcia, district staff (whose names I don’t have, but I’d recognize the backs of their heads!), and about 20 members of the public.
I. District Staff’s Report
District staff presented an update on their research and data collection so far.
This information-gathering phase probably can be lumped into two categories:
a. Evaluating current enrollment/attendance patterns and trends in light of a
number of factors, including:
- current school capacities;
- transportation options;
- possibly outdated attendance area boundaries (and fact that many people don’t
have an attendance area school);
- possibly outdated definition of “alternative” schools (i.e., are the current
alt schools truly alternative?, should some regular schools be redefined as alternative?, should such a designation be scrapped altogether?);
- demand; and
- parents’ stated/actual preferences for choice v. proximity.
b. Guiding Principles
Staff is continuing to gather data, and during the meeting BOE members added
more data requests. Part of the information-gathering process involves developing
simulations — running different assignment processes to see what shakes out. Staff requested more guidance from the BOE as to what staff should be trying to maximize in running these models.
Staff noted a number of considerations that the community has identified as
important, but noted that many considerations compete with each other, such as:
- Choice v. predictability
- Choice v. diversity
- Proximity v. diversity v. choice
Staff asked the BOE to think about what is more important: diversity, predictability or choice.
(By the end of the discussion, Chair Wynns noted that given the complexity of
the process and the fact that they don’t yet know what the various models will show in terms of possible options, that the committee may have to back into guiding principles. Some commissioners did state their own goals, such as equity — both in terms of access and result, simplicity, community, transparency, but the committee did not provide a prioritized list of objectives for staff.)
II. Presentation by Professor Goodwin Liu (Boalt School of Law)
Prof. Liu presented and discussed social science research that demonstrates the
role of race in achievement of black students.
By way of background, SFUSD demographics look like this:
42% Asian/Pacific Islander
6% Filipino
21% Hispanic
12% African-American
9% White
9% Multiple or No Response
Note that there is no majority racial population.
In 2006-7, the following number of schools were “racially identifiable,” meaning
that they had a majority of a certain ethic sub-group:
8 schools had equal or greater than 50% black
16 schools had equal or greater than 50% Hispanic
37 schools had equal or greater than 50% Asian
AND, of those, 15 schools had equal or greater than 67% Asian
This means that although SFUSD has no majority racial group, about half of all
schools are racially identifiable.
Then Professor Liu presented the achievement gap data that many of us have seen, but is no less startling and depressing each time it’s presented. The upshot: there is a big gap between performance of Asian or white kids (Asians have an edge in math; white kids in English) and Latino or African American kids (Latino kids do slightly better in both math and English).
Professor Liu presented scatter graphs that showed a downward slide in a
school’s API score as the percentage of AA or L kids increases. He was careful to note that a correlation does not mean causation.
Professor Liu then ran through a set of studies that provide evidence of
race-specific effects. These are studies that have controlled for socio-economic status, so the effects are all about race. The upshot of the studies is this: black kids do slightly better in voluntarily “desegregated” schools, whereas they do much worse as the percentage of black students increases, and, interestingly, the negative effect is much stronger for high-performing black students.
Professor Liu also presented studies about teacher turnover, which is much
higher in schools with a higher percentage of “black and brown” (his words) students, even when you control for poverty and teacher salary. Teachers are the most important input, according to the consensus in the social science circles. Higher turnover causes instability and requires additional resources from senior teachers and administrators to keep the ship on track — a constant “resetting,” if you will.
He ended his presentation with a study on what it would take to pay teachers
enough to stay in lower achieving/high % AA/L schools. It’s a lot. White female teachers (who make up the vast majority of teachers) would have to be paid 43% more to stay in these schools; men are apparently a little easier. Interestingly, nonwhite teachers prefer schools with higher percentages of nonwhite students.
Prof. Liu ended by commenting on what’s happening around the country in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in Seattle/Louisville. He noted that the decision was very restrictive, though it did not make it impossible to consider race. He said that pretty much no one is considering using race, in part because schools districts are pragmatic.
III. Discussion
My notes are a little haphazard here, but I’ll at least try to capture the
themes.
What role does socio-economic status play? Granted the national studies control
for that, but in SFUSD, how is SES a factor?
Some evidence that maxing low SES at 40% in a school is optimal for performance
of all students, but SFUSD has about 60% free/reduced lunch, so that’s not possible, but what about capping low-SES at some level, like 65%
What did the achievement gap look like prior to the “choice” assignment system?
Was the achievement gap similar or different back when the schools were less segregated.
(Partial response: some of this info is available from the Ho Consent Decree monitor’s annual reports)
How to parse out role of proximity in parents’ “choices” — staff gathering data
about what percentage of parents ranked a school within their zip code first, and what percentage ranked a school within a mile from their house first.
What would it look like — is it possible — to draw a map with zones that
actually would reflect racial diversity by school or in some sort of a school cluster zone?
Bussing is questionable practice — expensive, and not clear that it’s making
any difference, even in desegregating, much less closing the achievement gap.
Request that data be parsed by family, not student, and by first-time applicant
family compared to follow-on siblings.
Equity has to be a major goal. It’s what the BOE committed to in adopting the
Strategic Plan. Also, transparency and simplicity.
Equity in the process is crucial, and many families aren’t aware of the “choices” and even if they were, can’t take time from jobs or other children at home to tour schools, etc. Process does not work for them.
BOE members have very different views on the role of proximity. One member
stated that parents’ ranked choices do not indicate a preference for proximity; another stated that families will make it work and that the city is small; another member believes that attending a school across town is unworkable for many families because of transportation (don’t have car and bussing is spotty, outdated); more than one stated that the “school community” is more easily built when people live nearby, and that it’s just easier, especially for the K-5 set.
After people invest the time and effort in understanding the process and touring
and all that, people feel entitled to get one of their choices.
In some cases, highly segregated schools would be very diverse if the kids in
the surrounding neighborhood actually went to school there. Examples are Visitacion Valley and Willie Brown, I think.
Liu described this as a “collective action” problem — if a bunch of people see
others like themselves going to a particular place, they may be more willing to do it, too. So, a system that limited choice, in this instance, by prioritizing racial diversity that is easily achieved within a geographic area near a school, may work — those who really object may opt out, but many will give it a go if they see others like them doing it, too.
Liu also cautioned that more data will also muddy the waters. There will be no
perfect piece of data that will make it all clear. Also, he noted that really the
assignment system is not just about assignment, it’s about school reform, and assignment is a part of it. Without a look at and changes to some of the other factors (teacher turnover, resources, etc.), changing the assignment system is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Public comments:
- Request to consider info on effect of SES on achievement gap, etc. Also (and I
apologize for not capturing this — the person spoke fast and referenced a set of things that have been discussed in the past, some of which involve acronyms that I do not know… if you’re reading this, will you post your comments?)
- Request to consider the pre-5 set — all the data looks at people already in
the district, but there are lots of people who never come into the system. Their views of assignment and school options are valuable, since they obviously are voting avoid it altogether.
- Request for better customer service from the EPC, e.g., more transparency and
clarity about the process and the decisions that get made; consistent — and accurate — information; phones that get answered, etc.
- Concurrence with suggestion that equitable access be the goal, and recognition
that as schools improve, demographics shift; things change and this is true in the
make-up of the schools.
- Request to think about a weighted lottery (this man did a demonstration) where
the district is divided into 6 zones, and each zone is paired with a demographically
different zone. At the high school level, it goes like this: students can apply to any
school in the city. A student in the zone of the school gets a neighborhood preference (3 lottery tickets, if you will), a student in the paired zone gets a smaller bump (2 lottery tickets) and a student from outside those two zones gets just one shot. Run the lottery and pick a ticket to see who gets the spot.
IV. Next Steps
There are meetings of this ad hoc committee scheduled for
January 29th
February 12th
There will be additional dates set, including community input meetings, as the
entire BOE
sets its committee schedule and such.
The goal is to have the full BOE vote on a new system by April of this year. At
least one Commissioner (Kim) expressed concern that this is possible.
There is a schedule of the timeline, generally speaking, here:
http://portal.sfusd.edu/template/default.cfm?page=policy.placement.assignment
Also, you can submit your ideas on the assignment process here:
StudentAssignmentIdeas@sfusd.edu
This is not an interactive place for dialogue, but if you have thoughts or ideas, that’s the place to send them.
Teri Olle
