The Lessons of San Francisco: It's possible to be too woke for the wokesters ... there are flashing red warning signs about racial identity politics, historical erasure, and the attack on merit-based selection in schools. ... While board members were busy striking poses, the kids were suffering and parents were incensed.
I think of Charlie Sykes as a very significant ally in the great struggle of our times -- the ongoing struggle to preserve democracy in this dis-United States. But he and his comrades understand very little about San Francisco public schools and their governance, so they are over-interpreting the school board recall.
The job from which three board members have been ejected is inherently dysfunctional, as are our public schools and perhaps the city itself. Let's dig a bit:
• The school board has been composed of seven members, elected for four year terms citywide.
• These campaigns are expensive and offer little to the winners except slightly higher citywide name recognition. For too many school board members, a seat is just a political stepping stone. (There have long been honorable exceptions -- but the committed ones are exceptions.)
• The job is essentially unpaid, offering a mere $6000 a year -- so members all need other jobs.
• Doing the job is very demanding. I once lived in the same household with a member. She received several pounds of paper by courier every day from the schools' professional administrators. She was expected to read and absorb it all -- you can guess what happened to most of it.
• A very high percentage of the voters who elect these school board members do not have children in the public schools. What do they (we) know? Children of all ages are only 13 percent of city residents. Many voters are childless -- or among the preponderance of white residents who, even if they have children, have left the public schools.
• The actual running of the system is accomplished by professional management hired by the board. In recent years, our public schools have a lousy record of attracting a long term, committed superintendents. This is not a good job, though maybe (like the board) a stepping stone.
• The school buildings are old, sometimes crumbling, and the system is broke physically and financially. SFPD loses students every year as families find they can't afford the city. With the students goes the state funding on which the system relies.
• Most of the teachers are doing their best, but they have a hella tough job in a crumbling system. They can't afford to live here any more than their students' families can. Their union fights aggressively to save the teachers from being blamed for the general mess and is a political power house. This is a major factor in the situation of the elected board members -- they are both management and supplicants.
• Despite decades of stratagems, all unpopular and many burdensome to parents, the city has failed to integrate its schools. At the higher grades, there aren't enough white students to make much of a difference. So "integration" is trying to mix together students from various racial and immigrant communities. This has always crashed into the cultural reality that many Asian-origin and especially Chinese families cling to the public schools as the necessary entryway to good lives. They care a lot and very specifically about their kids' experience. Although individuals certainly differ, many Black and Latinx families are less future-oriented and less inclined to fight education battles collectively as communities. This can create explosive situations -- and does.
So what does the recall reveal? Not much. Some incumbent school board members failed at their impossible job of keeping the volatile ship on an even keel -- and then there was a pandemic. And everything got worse.
I'm not upset that three of these members got booted. I remain upset that this rich city with generally decent values can't manage to run a better public school system that works somehow for students, teachers, and all communities. I don't claim to know how to get there. The successful recall should mean something changes. Let's hope whatever the new iteration looks like, it's better.
No comments:
Post a Comment