Being an educated, middle-class, white, English-speaking public school parent in San Francisco is like being rolfed daily by a really smug Guatemalan evangelical preacher with iffy breath who secretly drives a BMW.
Recently, after years of "research" and "parent input," SFUSD introduced a middle school feeder plan whereby elementary schools automatically feed into a designated MS. As with all plans introduced in this town, an uproar ensued, falling out largely upon ethnic and geographic lines. Hair was pulled, accusations leveled, parochial options threatened...(whoever thinks SF's ethnically diverse culinary excellence comes without a price has their head in a bowl of pho). I took a wait-and-see approach with regard to that plan. Then, this week, someone told me that the district's response to parent anger over the gross inequity in MS program offerings -- some schools offer honors classes and advanced "tracks" for qualified students while some categorically reject "tracking" as a racisttoolofsocialinjustice -- was a proposal to eliminate ALL honors classes from ALL middle schools. You know, even things up a bit. Stop the whining. Create equity. Sure, it's a
lower equity, but it's equity, dammit -- and you know how we over at 555 Franklin love us some EQUITY.
Gee, SFUSD, and you wonder why some parents spit in the road when your acronym is invoked?
But before I begin my rant at the asstarts whose aim is to dumb down the curriculum and offerings to make everyone look better, can I just say
where in Christ's stick have you been while the conversation about America's descent into ignorance has been going on?
So...my experience as an SFUSD parent has taught me several things. Here are some of them:
- There are lots of great teachers in SFUSD. There are even some brilliant ones. Certainly many hardworking ones. There are also a few lazy martyrs with poorly developed senses of humor. In other words, it's like every other bloated bureaucracy.
- Principals, administrators and superintendents are sometimes sucky because they have been promoted away from contact with actual human beings, often deliberately.
- Most kids with normative behavior, intelligence and socialization will thrive in most SFUSD elementary settings.
- All SFUSD cares about is closing the achievement gap. Repeat: The only thing SFUSD cares about is closing the achievement gap. If a giant tsunami engulfed SF tomorrow, the district heads would be riding the whitecaps in a panic, blathering about the achievement gap while saltwater filled the lungs of millions.
- SFUSD views caring about the achievement gap as a zero-sum occupation (i.e., if you care about the achievement gap, you can't care about anything else; it's mutually exclusive). SFUSD also believes the reverse is true: if you care about anything else, you can't possibly care about the achievement gap. Ergo, you are a rich racist pig.
- Wanting art, music and physical movement to be part of kids' days is a WPP*. In fact, anything that concerns anything other than closing the achievement gap is a WPP.
- If you desire academic rigor as an option for your child or any child, you are an elitist. If you are an elitist, you don't care about the achievement gap. Therefore you are a rich racist pig.
- If you are white, English-speaking, educated, middle-class or employed, you are a rich racist pig who only cares about your own precious snowflake. Also, the fact that you live in a shitty rental apartment, work at a public-interest nonprofit and drive a 14-year-old dented Corolla is irrelevant; you are still a rich racist pig.
- If your kid is white, English-speaking, or parented by educated, middle-class or employed people, she will be "just fine." She will be "just fine" even if she, say, gets her limbs torn off by pit bulls or scorches her retinas during an eclipse, forcing her to consume her educational opportunities blind and writhing in agony.
- A while ago, Chinese people sued SFUSD for essentially putting quotas on their kids (vis-a-vis the top schools and being locked out of various schools) and won. So now race isn't used as an enrollment factor, but it remains an obsession at SFUSD, where policy makers seem to believe that some magical demographic "diversity" balance will make illiterate, impoverished, unstable people give two shits about their offspring's education.
*White People's Problem
The elimination of honors proposal should be assessed in this context. The context is that nothing our well-intentioned but grossly underfunded district has tried has closed the achievement gap between AA/L students and A/W students. So why not try something new? Why not try getting rid of that nasty honors stuff -- it makes some kids feel bad about themselves, you know? Kids who already have so many problems. Plus, it's racist. And a violation of social justice. And inequitable. Did we mention equity? And racism? Besides, everyone knows GATE-identified and honors-capable kids will be
just fine.
This makes me really mad. Categorically lowering the bar across the board makes me really mad. Calling smart kids and parents elitists because they are smart and work hard makes me madder. Also: Acting like every student accomplishment can be attributed to socioeconomic entitlement and every lack of accomplishment to socioeconomic disadvantage makes me really fucking torqued. Pretending teachers can effectively differentiate instruction in classrooms where some seventh graders can't even read makes me really fucking mad. My Grandma Syl would roll over in her grave, yell
meshugenah! and kick somebody's ass
if she heard this nonsense (even with a fifth-grade education she knew a cop-out when she saw it).
I'm not saying the problems my immigrant forebears faced were the same as the ones facing disenfranchised kids now. Surely some of them were. Others? Maybe not. But comparing them is a silly game with no winner (plus, I'm a dyed-in-the-wool SF lefty, and according to the San Francisco Values Bylaws, we're not allowed to play that game anyway). No. I'm saying it is disingenuous as shit to pretend that
culture, habits, behavior, individual agency and parental accountability have no place in this discussion. Because here's the thing: Regardless of the evil forces at work in kids' worlds today, without a belief in individual agency, kids
will not be able to summon the will to succeed--or even try to succeed.
And we will never, and I mean NEVER, gnaw away at the achievement gap without acknowledging the roles these forces play in student performance.
Instead, we will tread water, spouting off identity politics drivel while generations of students fail to learn enough to be fully functional beings in democratic society. And so I say, carry on, social justice zealot morons, carry on! Go ahead, lower the bar...and wait for me. Because I am coming down to 555 to bury myself like a tick in your haunches (along with about 10,000 Chinese mamas and papas). Just in case it grants me more credibility vis-a-vis the wholesomeness and universality of my intentions, know that my third-grader hasn't even been GATE-identified yet. Although she is smart as can be, she may never be. In fact, she did not even score "advanced" on the language arts portion of the STAR test last year. So fuck you and your hidden BMW, SFUSD!
Yesterday while I was running, I did some more woolgathering on these and other issues facing public education. If these thoughts appear less than substantive, keep in mind that it was a
really short run.
On the role of social justice in education policy: So, let me get this straight. You're public schools in California, with no money because the regressive property tax structure enacted by greedy conservatives, corporate interests and their fearful retired cronies has bankrupted us, and you're trying to take on multigenerational poverty, immigration reform and institutionalized racism in addition to teaching the three Rs? Godspeed, bitches.
On homework: Uh...shut up and fuckin' do it?
On testing: Less would be good. More relevant would be good. More actionable would be good. None would be idiotic.
On the achievement gap: Lots of our Cantonese students are poor, yet they do great.** Whatever they're doing, do that.
**The suicide rate among kids raised by Tiger Moms is outside the scope of this rant.
On discipline: Love discipline. Discipline is the shit. What could we possibly get done without discipline? Realizing a calling without discipline? Pshaw! What? Discipline's a dirty word? We're not allowed to say "discipline"? Surely you...your play-based, attachment parenting-infused preschool didn't approve of teaching discipline? Oh, I see...but how do kids learn to finish anything...oh, you have to go nurse your eleven-year-old? Oh, okay...well, catch ya at the Waldorf parade.
On the elimination of honors: If your goal is to drive every smart kid in San Francisco into private schools by sixth grade, congrats, you have achieved your objective.
Rant done.
p.s. I realize this rant will be taken by some as a rationale for evading public education. In fact, the opposite is true; we-the-people have never needed your participation more.
Like Warren Buffett, I continue to believe that public education is it--the one true path, the foundation of democratic society, our sole hope for a future, the place the money should flow. So call me what you will, but please send your kid to public school like a good little American. The end.