I promised I would post electronic copies of the two presentations we heard at this week’s Ad Hoc Committee on Student Assignment, and here they are, thanks to the diligence of Orla O’Keeffe. I am quite interested in what people think of the presentation from the researchers at Stanford — but I suggest you look at it while watching the webcast of Monday’s meeting (click on the “Video” link for Oct. 19; the researchers are on about 17 minutes in) to get the most out of this information-rich document. Additionally, I’m posting the presentation Ms. O’Keeffe delivered during the meeting, which summarizes the work done to date, the proposed options for a new assignment system, and the measurements that are being proposed for evaluating those proposed options.
Enjoy! And please let me know what you think.
Rachel Norton 
Hi Rachel – I’d like to suggest increased effort to increase awareness about school enrollment, maybe in conjunction with the Children and Famlies Commission and their network of non-profits, etc.. as opposed to extending the deadline date. I am not sure that extending the deadline date will decrease the number of late applicants.
Hi Rachel,
I was at the last meeting. I found your questions to the researchers very thoughtful and practical. I’m very pleased to find you have a web site, and that you’re so open to a conversation. Thank you!
I am concerned that the statistics being used for analysis ignore the #s of parents who are not in the system *because* they don’t want to deal with the current assignment. Is there a way to bring that information into the models?
I gathered from the discussions after the presentation that there is an assumption that wealthy people opt for private schools. I don’t think that’s true. I think the assignment system is so unattractive and many SF public schools have such a bad reputation, that people spend money they can’t really afford to spend to send their kids to private schools in SF (probably at the expense of college savings) without even trying to participate.
I truly believe more SF parents would participate in SF public schools if the assignment system was simple and neighborhood oriented. More students in the system would be great for the schools and the SFUSD budget.
So, I am hoping that if options being considered seem relatively equal from the perspective of the previously defined measures (which some of them do), they will be evaluated based on how attractive they are to the average parent (that would measure their ability to increase overall enrollment).
Also, while I think diversity is an important goal, I’m not sure it should replace the goal of providing a quality education, in any stated mission of the board. I was pretty disappointed to *not* find quality in the list of stated goals. I do believe that the assignment system can impact quality of schools, and that should not be allowed in a world-class city like SF.
Note that it would be very hard to set up a system which is NOT diverse in SF. I went to public school here, and all of them were diverse, before this was ever a stated “goal”.
Thanks again for listening!
Bear in mind that moving back the application/decision deadline would start to interfere with committment dates for the parochial and private schools.
Would there be a Round 2 in the new system, so that a certain percentage of slots would be only released in Round 2? If this were the case, then the penalty for missing the application deadline would be lessened.
Rachel, thanks so much for posting these. I was very impressed with the work the researchers have done so far, and with how carefully the board is weighing its options. My only concern is whether it will be done in time for 2011 enrollment. It seems there is still a lot of work to be done.
Hi Rachel,
Thanks so much for posting these presentations. However, it’s a bit disappointing – changes to the assignment system result in a few percentages here and there. Although it’s instructive to see the current system comes out in most metrics as last. It seems to me Choice + Local Preference followed by Academic preference has the edge, but there’s really only a few percentages here and there.