It is summer vacation for San Francisco school kids, but it is anything but slow for the Board of Education, school district administrators, and parents preparing for the fall semester. At the upcoming Tuesday Board of Education meeting, commissioners and the public will hear details about Superintendent Maria Su’s ethnic studies plan for the first time. The ethnic studies curriculum previously taught to ninth graders sparked so much controversy that Superintendent Su ended it in June and asked the Board of Education to buy a new one while declining to present the new curriculum itself for approval. Meanwhile, public opinion polls about schools in San Francisco and across the state suggest dissatisfaction with the direction of public education.
One of the Board of Education’s last actions at the end of the last school year was to approve a $1.2 billion budget for the upcoming year, which included $114 million in cuts and the buyout of over 300 educator contracts. While Superintendent Su and the board have made significant progress toward resolving a precarious fiscal situation that had developed over the years, less than 10 percent of San Francisco voters believe the schools are on the right track. A poll, conducted in July for the Blueprint for a Better San Francisco project, found that half of public school parents polled believed the schools are moving in the wrong direction. Nonetheless, Neighbors for a Better San Francisco, the organization sponsoring the poll of 533 likely voters, concluded that the school district’s plight is “fixable” if it emphasizes student academic performance and transparency in decision-making.
All polling has its limitations. The San Francisco poll, for example, was conducted in English and was limited to likely voters. But the less than 10 percent approval rating for San Francisco schools remains, and is even more powerful when examined in the context of other polling. The Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) surveyed 1,600 California adults in March and April and found that the percentages of both “all adults” and “likely voters” who believed that schools were going in the right direction was at least 45 percent. More significantly for the comparison, public school parents (56 percent) across California rated the schools more favorably than the general population — results not seen in San Francisco. Although the percentage of public school parents who believe the schools are going in the wrong direction in San Francisco, at 51percent, is the same as all voters statewide in the PPIC survey, San Francisco has a disproportionately high percentage of Democratic voters, which would be expected to increase faith in the public schools, as evidenced statewide.
San Francisco voters have an appetite for change and appear ready to embrace it and reward results. Polling this month by the San Francisco Chronicle documents significant favorable shifts in views on the city’s quality of life compared to a year ago and high marks for Mayor Daniel Lurie’s job performance, in office since January, and improvements for the Board of Supervisors. Whether Superintendent Su and the Board of Education can forge a path to higher favorability may have a lot to do with the issues they are facing next week.
According to the superintendent’s implementation timeline, teachers will not be trained on the new curriculum until less than a week before the first day of school.
The school district’s ability to attract students from private schools and to retain the students it currently enrolls largely depends upon parental satisfaction with what students learn in the classroom. Despite differences in how San Franciscans regard the quality of public schools compared to Californians statewide, both are driven by school quality. The three top priorities for schools according to the San Francisco poll respondents are improving academic performance for all students, strengthening literacy and math outcomes, and expanding access to college and career pathways. Statewide, the top priority is teaching students the basics including math, reading, and writing, which 91 percent of California respondents considered a very high or high priority.
In the San Francisco poll, when respondents were given eight choices of educational priorities, “teaching ethnic studies and social justice” finished eighth. When the superintendent presents the ethnic studies curriculum to the Board of Education and the public next week, it will be essential for her to highlight the curriculum’s track record elsewhere and its impact on student academic improvements. Up to now, school district officials have based their academic case on success from a different curriculum which, its supporters warn, will be hard to repeat and may produce “unintended and negative consequences” without intensive teacher training. According to the superintendent’s implementation timeline, teachers will not be trained on the new curriculum until less than a week before the first day of school.
To be successful, Superintendent Su’s ethnic studies plan must be aligned with parental expectations for improved student academic outcomes and presented in a manner that fosters trust in the governance of the school district. If it is not, future decisions and actions on budget cuts, school closures, charter petitions, labor contracts, and enrollment will be more challenging, and San Franciscans’ assessment on whether the schools are on the right track will be difficult to improve.