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by Sophia Chupein
On Oct. 25, the San Francisco Board of Education unanimously agreed upon a new set of goals and guidelines to advance student outcomes over the next five years. The new “vision, values, goals and guardrails” are the result of the many town halls and virtual meetings conducted by the board in an effort to fully understand the needs of San Francisco schools. This effort included Superintendent Dr. Matt Wayne’s listening tour with San Francisco Unified School District public schools.
The district’s three primary long-term goals are the following: “increasing the literacy of all third-grade students, increasing the math proficiency of all eighth grade students, and increasing the percentage of high school 12th graders who are college- and career-ready.” Hitting these goals, a detailed description of which you can find here, would address some of the district’s primary pitfalls. However, as most of us know, blanket solutions don’t benefit everyone equally. Our BIPOC and special education students are usually left behind by initiatives like these.
SFUSD doesn’t have a great track record in regards to closing student achievement gaps. Recent reading and math test scores, released just prior to the district’s new five-year plan, show that the racial achievement gap has persisted throughout the pandemic. The data shows that the academic proficiency rate of Black students in the district is a staggering 56% lower than their white and Asian American classmates.
The district needs to improve its program assessment strategies.
It’s noteworthy that this gap is relatively the same as it was before the pandemic, and that California has minimized learning losses slightly better than other states. However, this is far from a cause for celebration. This five-year plan is a great step forward, but if SFUSD really wants to reach these goals by 2027, the district needs to improve its program assessment strategies.
Alida Fisher, recently elected school board member and longtime special education advocate, spoke to the problems that come with the implementation of new student initiatives. S.P.I.R.E. (Social, Physical, Intellectual, Relational & Emotional), Fisher mentioned, is a multi-sensory structured literacy program that the district adopted to help students who are struggling to read. While the district has been training teachers to use the program for five years, we still don’t have any data on whether the program is working or not.
“We’re not stepping back after the fact and determining whether or not the program was a success. We’re not learning from it. We’re not taking those lessons and implementing a better program next year. And considering we’re in education, that’s kind of a problem.”
We don’t want to see this trend bleed into other educational initiatives. For instance, the African American Achievement and Leadership Initiative (AAALI), which set goals for closing the Black achievement gap in 2015, has persisted through three different superintendents. The only way the district can decide whether or not to continue funding a program like this is through reassessment and intervention. If SFUSD really prioritizes increasing student achievement, it will continue to reassess and improve upon existing programs like AAALI and S.P.I.R.E. alongside its other goals.
This article was funded by the National Association of Black Journalists 2022 Black Press Grant. Sophia Chupein is the Social Media Manager and a community journalist for the SF Bay View. She holds a BA in Environmental Studies from UC Santa Barbara. Sophia can be reached by email at sophia@sfbayviewnews.wpenginepowered.com.
