Posted on 01/06/2006 1:23:27 PM PST by SmithL
When the San Francisco school board votes Thursday on school closures and mergers, its decisions will almost certainly affect African American students far out of proportion to their representation in the city's public school district.
Many of the affected schools, with names including Malcolm X and Rosa Parks, are located in heavily African American neighborhoods, including the Western Addition and Bayview-Hunters Point, and serve by far more black children than any other racial group.
Of the 3,204 students affected by the changes, 30 percent will be African American, according to school district figures. At those schools that face outright closure, rather than a merger with another school, 39 percent of the 1,055 students are black. African Americans, though, make up just 13.7 percent of the city's 56,578 public school enrollment.
By comparison, Latino students make up 23 percent of students affected by the changes and 21.6 percent of the district. Chinese American students make up 17 percent of students affected by the changes and 32.1 percent of the district. White students make up 6 percent of those affected by the changes and 9.3 percent of the district.
The school board, having shut six schools in the past year, plans to vote Thursday on closing seven more schools in addition to merging 10 other schools into five campuses and relocating another 10 schools to different locations. The changes could save the district up to $5 million a year.
Superintendent Arlene Ackerman, the city's first African American schools chief, said the schools on the list were the ones hemorrhaging students, so they're the ones that should close.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
The eeevilll Republicans . . . oh wait . . . guess not.
Gays can't have children by birth.
FACT: Superintendent Arlene Ackerman, the city's first African American schools chief, said the schools on the list were the ones hemorrhaging students, so they're the ones that should close.
Superintendent Ackerman (an African American herself) directly contradicts the Chronicle's liberal editorial spin in the last paragraph. African American students are rapidly vanishing from the district - that's why "their" schools are being closed.
LOL!!!
If I wanted to be journalist I would skip College. I would just write articles about race, ethnicity, and poverty. Seems any article involving those three subjects is given instant publication in the mainstream media.
To paraphrase as Rush Limbaugh once said: "School closings; women and minorities hardest hit".
If you click the link and read further, it is a pity-party of parents saying "don't inconvience me - inconvience white families".
What an insult to Rosa Parks! Why would anyone allow a public school (or ANY edifice) to be named after that racist thug?
Where are they going?
Biggest reasons -
1. New parents tend to move out of town; larger homes are unaffordable in SF and the perception that the place isn't family-friendly.
2. Low birth rate
3. Blacks and other low-income people have been leaving because rents are too high.
"vanishing"--love the word
Richmond. Oakland. Los Angeles.
As if David Copperfield came to town.
Ackerman is a very competent administrator.
Too competent - the school board has forced her to resign; she is a lame duck at the moment. Our loss will be some other districts good fortune.
This asylum is indeed being run by the inmates.
Maybe he can make all of the "whining" go away also. I am not big in to magic shows but I would pay to see that!!
"Where are they going?"
Oakland and Richmond mostly I think.
Send her down to San Jose. I can't stand the administration at San Jose Unified.
Do you know what the criteria for closing the schools is?
In San Jose, the district is losing enrollment in the northern Hispanic area, and gaining enrollment in the southern white and Asian area. The schools in the north are also failing, and the schools in the south are doing okay with a few exceptions.
Our district closed my daughters school even though it was in the south in the area with gaining enrollment, and it was a school with great test scores (5th highest out of 31) in the district. The new school my daughters are going to sucks. They made it way too big, almost 900 kids for an elementary school. There are lots of discipline problems. All they do is reading/writing/math. There's not science, technology, history, social studies, pe, or music. My daughters are bored!
We're trying to go to a charter school next year.
It seems like the principal criteria for closure is lack of demand. In SF you can select your preferred school; many schools have far more applicants than available places, others don't manage to enroll to capacity.
The success or failure of a school seems to have little to do with the school facilities or teachers and nearly everything to do with the student body. If a school goes from 20% White/Asian to @60%, it will automatically become successful and desirable. This has happened several times in SF.
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