Tag: African American Parent Advisory Council

This is part of an ongoing series, “Learning while Black: The fight for equity in San Francisco schools,” being broadcast on KALW’s Crosscurrents. African American students across the country are much more likely than any other student group to be placed in special education, and that’s true at San Francisco Unified too. The district’s troubled history has plenty to teach us about what is and isn’t working for Black students with special needs today.

When students at Malcolm X Academy returned to their elementary school in the Bayview in August to begin a new year, they came back to a changed environment. Over the summer, part of their school building had been taken over by KIPP Bayview Elementary, a charter school operated by Knowledge is Power Program, the largest charter network in the country and in San Francisco.

Recently, there have been many notable accomplishments in our public schools in the Bayview. Dr. George Washington Carver Elementary School’s principal was awarded Principal of the Year. Students at the Willie Brown Academy just won a statewide competition on healthy eating. And Malcolm X Academy’s fifth grade math and English test scores beat out KIPP Middle School’s fifth grade scores – that’s the charter chain that wants to take space away from Malcolm X.