EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Paragraph 44 Independent Review (Report #16)

The SFUSD Consent Decree

1998-1999 has been a year of great change in SFUSD. The Brian Ho Settlement Agreement has significantly modified key portions of the Consent Decree, and Superintendent Bill Rojas has departed for Dallas after seven years at the head of the district. In the following pages, we document these changes at some length, and report on both the district's responses and the new leadership team's plans.

We also present extended coverage of key Consent Decree topics, including the new student assignment plan, Lowell High School, testing issues (particularly as they relate to LEP student assessment), staff development, and the CSIP/Reconstitution process.

In addition, we focus on recent events in Sacramento. The monitoring team has found that the State has failed to reimburse the district for large sums of money that the district has already spent in furtherance of Consent Decree goals and objectives. As a result of this failure, SFUSD's ability to pursue the direction set forth by the parties and approved by this Court has been compromised, and the students of the district have been precluded from obtaining the benefits that are rightfully theirs under this decree. We emphasize that before these events unfolded with regard to 1994-95 and 1995-96, the State had always reimbursed the district in full for its desegregation expenditures (subject to the 80% rule described below). Now, though, full reimbursement has been precluded. We find that this failure on the part of the State is particularly troubling during an era of great prosperity, when the state treasury is literally overflowing with billions of dollars of surplus money.

I. The Monitoring Process

This report reflects our monitoring team's second full year -- and third year overall --conducting an independent review of compliance with the terms and conditions of the SFNAACP v. SFUSD Consent Decree.[1] We began our monitoring process in late January 1997, and have since completed two independent reviews: Report #14 (September 1997) and Report #15 (July 1998). We are pleased to present Report #16, which contains our findings for the entire twelve-month period beginning August 1998 and continuing through July 1999.

At this point in time, we have visited all the middle schools and high schools in the district, and approximately three-fourths of all the elementary schools. On numerous occasions, we have visited the same school more than once, returning to explore specific issues that may have been raised by our initial visits.

Several basic guidelines inform our monitoring process. First, our overarching goal is to provide the federal district court and the people of the State of California with a context for assessing the progress of the San Francisco Unified School District under the terms of the Consent Decree. Since the Consent Decree impacts every school in the district, we have not limited our visits to the so-called "targeted" or "consent decree" schools,[2] but have made it a priority to visit every neighborhood and analyze the range of educational programs that are being designed and implemented district-wide.

Second, our approach to monitoring is an open and collaborative one. We have worked closely with district officials, and any concerns that are discovered in the course of our research are shared with them immediately. We continue to find that we are able to gain new insights into these concerns as a result of this openness.

Third, we have found that it does not serve the best interests of the young people of San Francisco to only examine Consent Decree issues in a vacuum. Thus we continue to include references to similar issues and problems at both the state and national levels. We must emphasize that this focus is not intended in any way to diminish or explain away any problems that we have identified.

It is important to note at the outset that SFUSD continues to be friendly, welcoming, open, and committed to Consent Decree principles. District officials are not defensive when difficult questions are raised, and they continue to welcome information regarding problem areas. Indeed, they do not hesitate to act in response to questions and concerns that have been raised by the monitoring team.

The material in this report is based on over 200 school site visits, an intensive review of district records and documents, an analysis of all 15 previous state monitor reports, and extensive ongoing meetings with district administrators, principals, classroom teachers, parents, students, and other members of the community. As always, we welcome feedback on any of these issues from all interested parties.

II. Patterns and Trends

A. Modification of the Consent Decree under the Ho Settlement Agreement

On February 15, 1999, the parties to the Brian Ho lawsuit concluded a settlement agreement which not only modifies the terms and conditions of Paragraph 13 but also points toward a transition to unitary status and a termination of the Consent Decree by December 31, 2002. The agreement, approved by this Court on July 2, 1999, will significantly impact the district's approach to Consent Decree compliance issues over the next few years.

This report focuses in some detail on the new Consent Decree requirements, and documents the first steps that have been taken by SFUSD in this regard. We will continue to monitor these changes very closely as events unfold over the next few years.

B. Change in District Leadership

In the Spring of 1999, Superintendent Bill Rojas announced that he was leaving SFUSD after 7 years and would be accepting the position of Superintendent of Schools in Dallas, Texas. The monitoring team has worked closely with Superintendent Rojas over the past three years, and in previous reports we have noted the significant contributions he has made. Not only has Superintendent Rojas played a major role in furthering Consent Decree goals, but he has been instrumental in fostering the emergence of the district as a national trend setter in a variety of important ways.

In Report #14, we noted that " Superintendent Rojas has been a national spokesperson for both increased equity and higher academic standards, and innovative programs in place throughout the district have received national attention in this regard." In Report #15, we documented Superintendent Rojas' aggressive commitment to Consent Decree principles, a commitment that "was not always evident in the years immediately prior to 1992."

Linda Davis, who has served as Deputy Superintendent of SFUSD since 1986, has been appointed to the position of Interim Superintendent. The monitoring team has had contact with Ms. Davis throughout the past three years, and we have found that she has always shared Bill Rojas' commitment to Consent Decree principles. Indeed, she has been a consistent force for positive change in this context over a long period of time.

We look forward to working with Ms. Davis and her leadership team, and are confident that the momentum generated during the Rojas administration in this regard can and will continue to serve the best interests of all the students in the community.

C. Testing Issues

Given the nature of the Consent Decree reporting requirements, district test scores inevitably play an important role in the monitoring process. Yet from the beginning, this monitoring team has gone out of its way to emphasize the fact that although test scores are important indicators, they are not the only indicators of district performance and student academic achievement. Thus, in Report #14, we referenced other "objective indicators of school quality" -- developed by the Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards & Student Testing (CRESST) -- which could serve as "a good generic model" in this regard. In Report #15 we went much further, documenting in the academic achievement section (Paragraphs 39-41) a range of factors in addition to standardized test scores which -- when taken together -- present a much more complete picture of progress in this context.[3] We continue to follow such an approach in the pages of this independent review.

As we discussed in last year's report, the district under Superintendent Rojas has taken the position that LEP students should not be tested in English until they are able to understand what it is they are being asked. Thus SFUSD has reduced the number of limited-English proficient (LEP) students taking the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills (CTBS) over the years, and it went to court last year to challenge the testing requirements of the new statewide assessment program. At this point in time, the courts have ruled in favor of the district, and a bill in the state legislature would codify this ruling.

While the policy issues in this area are very controversial and certainly merit legitimate ongoing inquiry, it is important to point out that our monitoring team has always found district officials to be both open and forthcoming in this area. In fact, these practices have been a matter of public record for years...reflected in both the district's reports to this Court and in the independent reviews of the monitoring team. In Report #15, for example, we explained exactly how the district approached CTBS testing, and we provided detailed percentages of exactly which students are tested and just which scores are reported.[4]

In Early 1999, SFUSD decided to stop giving the CTBS, since students must now take another test of basic skills -- the state-mandated STAR test (aka the Stanford 9). This change will impact the scope of our report this year, since the comparative data that the district has traditionally provided for the monitoring team was not available before our report must be filed. Thus, for Report #16, we rely on a combination of the preliminary STAR test results and other objective indicators. Additional comparative data will be provided in future reports.

D. General Findings

In general, it is important to note that SFUSD -- overall -- is a quality school district that continues to make progress across the board. Our monitoring team has included former classroom teachers and administrators, experienced researchers affiliated with major universities, and several current or former supervisors of teacher education. Members of our team have visited a very large and varied number of schools and school districts nationwide and overseas, and thus we have viewed the schools in SFUSD within this larger context. Especially when compared with other urban districts, San Francisco comes across as a vibrant education community that continues to be a trend setter in many ways.

III. The Desegregation Component Generally

A. Paragraph 12 Compliance and the Problem of Within-School-Segregation

Paragraph 12 of the Consent Decree states that "[a] major goal of the provisions of the Consent Decree shall be to eliminate racial/ethnic segregation or identifiability in any SFUSD school, program, or classroom and to achieve the broadest practicable distribution throughout the system of students from the racial and ethnic groups which comprise the enrollment of the SFUSD."

In Report #15, we noted that while the district continued to be substantially in compliance with the requirements of both Paragraph 12 and Paragraph 13 with regard to school-by-school desegregation, the same was not true with regard to the desegregation of programs and individual classrooms. While we note that in general within-school segregation is one of those intractable nationwide problems that have defied easy solution, we also are aware of a growing body of research in this area that could serve as the basis for some concrete policy decisions at the district level to continue building on the work of the Rojas administration and ameliorate the impact of within-school segregation over time.

Indeed, we have found increased sensitivity to these issues throughout the SFUSD community in 1998-1999. But while there have been some ongoing efforts to move toward more heterogeneous grouping at the elementary level, the problems we have identified in this context remain substantially unresolved...and much work still remains to be done.

B. The Ongoing Prevalence of Low Expectations

As time goes by, the monitoring team continues to uncover evidence of low expectations for student achievement throughout SFUSD. While it must be emphasized that the great majority of educators in the community do not share the view that only certain students can achieve at the highest levels, and that less people share such a view with each passing year, there are still a substantial number of classroom teachers, school site administrators, and district-level administrators whose actions reflect continuing low expectations for certain students and student groups. Such low expectations are vestiges of segregation that have not been eliminated to the extent practicable.

The Consent Decree itself and specifically the Special Plan for Bayview-Hunters Point sought to address this form of discrimination directly. In particular, the philosophical tenets -- which were adopted to establish expectations for both learning and behavior and that have come to be viewed as central to the implementation of Consent Decree goals -- explicitly address the issue of expectations and focus on changing the prevalent view that only some students can achieve and that if they do not achieve it is not the fault of the school.[5]

Throughout both Phase One and the entire Rojas administration, these tenets have served as guiding principles, and innovative SFUSD leaders have worked hard to try to break up the cynical culture of low expectations that had permeated the district at all levels. As previous reports by the monitoring teams have shown, great progress has been achieved. But, as we noted in Report #15, two significant vestiges of segregation still remain unresolved: (a) a different, lower quality ("dumbed-down") curriculum for students in certain racially identifiable and socioeconomic-status-identifiable schools and classrooms, and (b) substantially different approaches to school discipline from school site to school site. Both these problems are directly related to continuing low expectations for certain students and student groups.

The monitoring team continues to find numerous examples a different, lower quality curriculum for key segments of the student population in San Francisco. At certain schools that remain racially identifiable, and at others that are clearly identifiable as low socioeconomic status, children consistently are presented with a "dumbed-down" curriculum based on continued low expectations on the part of too many teachers, counselors, and administrators.

In light of this ongoing evidence uncovered by the monitoring team, the issue of low expectations must remain a relevant component of our analysis under Paragraphs 12 & 13 (assignment of students to schools & classrooms), Paragraph 36 (staff development), and Paragraph 39 (academic achievement). Thus, in the main text of this report, we explore the interrelationship between these topics at some length.

C. Paragraph 13 Desegregation Requirements: Assessing District Compliance for 1998-1999

The 1999 Settlement Agreement represents a major turning point for the Consent Decree. Before the agreement, no regular school in SFUSD could contain more than 45% of any one race or ethnicity, and no alternative school could contain more than 40%. Such a determination was made by referring to the nine categories spelled out in the original Consent Decree. In addition, at least four of the nine categories had to be represented at each school.[6] After the settlement agreement, these requirements are no longer in effect.

This report, therefore, must examine both the last round of district-wide, school-by-school enrollment figures under the old requirements, and then it must move on to discuss and analyze the new requirements. Finally, it must assess the steps that the district has taken and is planning to take to comply with the imperatives of the settlement agreement.

Before turning to the school-by-school enrollment figures, however, it is important to reference the district's Optional Enrollment Request (OER) process.[7] In Report #14, we highlighted several key questions that had been raised by members of the SFUSD community regarding the OER process. In particular, we noted that African American and Latino families have not been participating in the OER process to the same degree as families of other races and ethnicities. We also noted concerns relating to the dissemination of information to parents.[8] While district officials were sensitive to these concerns when they were raised in 1997, we have not seen any progress in this regard over the past two years. Too often, it is the parents with more money and more time who can obtain additional information regarding the OER process and alternative schools in general...often through visits to local school sites, private networks, or private publications that may be sold in bookstores. These realities raise issues of equal access that cannot and should not be ignored.

In the tables that include the last round of enrollment figures under the old Paragraph 13 guidelines, we found a drift away from the pattern of substantial compliance with the numerical guidelines of this paragraph that the district has demonstrated in recent years. For example, thirty-eight regular schools were out of compliance at some point during the 1998-1999 academic year. This is a 25% increase in the number of regular schools out of compliance at some point during the year. In addition, six schools enrolled more than 50% of one race/ethnicity in 1998-1999 -- a significant increase over 1997-1998, when only one school was in this category. Finally, in 1998-1999, twelve alternative schools were out of compliance at some point during the year -- double the number that were out of compliance at some point during 1997-1998, and 50% higher than 1996-1997.

In general, these figures may serve as an appropriate starting point in assessing the impact of any future enrollment shifts under the Ho Settlement Agreement.

D. New Paragraph 13 Guidelines for Student Assignment

Under the requirements of the modified Consent Decree (and consistent with Option 1 of Attachment A to the Report filed by SFUSD with the Court on February 1, 1999), there will in fact be two new student assignment plans:

1. An interim plan for 1999-2000 (set forth by the district on February 1, 1999) which is in actuality the same as the 1998-1999 student assignment plan with one major change: all preferences on the basic of race or ethnicity have been deleted;[9]

2. A long-range plan which would take effect in the Fall of 2000 and which would be consistent with the terms and conditions of the settlement agreement.

Under the settlement agreement...

· SFUSD officials have the duty and authority to determine lawful criteria for admission to all schools in the SFUSD.

· In setting those criteria, state and federal law provide that district officials may consider many factors, including the desire to promote residential, geographic, economic, racial and ethnic diversity in all SFUSD schools.

· However, race or ethnicity may not be the primary or predominant consideration in determining such admission criteria.

· Further, the SFUSD shall not assign or admit any student to a particular school, class or program on the basis of the race or ethnicity of that student, except as related to the language needs of the student or otherwise to assure compliance with controlling federal or state law.

As everyone expected, the immediate removal of priorities for students on the basis of race or ethnicity has resulted in the resegregation of certain incoming classes at certain elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools in SFUSD for 1999-2000. For example -- according to district enrollment figures released on May 25, 1999 -- at the elementary level, resegregated kindergarten classes include Garfield (81% Chinese American), Flynn (81% Latino), Carver (75% African American), Edison (73% Latino), Drew (71% African American), Sanchez (70% Latino), Chavez (68% Latino), Lau (68% Chinese American), 21st Century (64% African American), and New Traditions (63% White).

At the middle school level, resegregated sixth grade classes include Mann (64% Latino) and Marina (61% Chinese American). At the basic high school level, only the ninth grade class at O'Connell (53% Latino) topped the 50% mark.

It is important to note that -- thus far -- these changes have typically been confined to selected kindergarten, sixth grade, and ninth grade classes. On a school-by-school level, the district remains desegregated. Even the schools with the worst resegregation of incoming classes remain substantially desegregated when one looks at school-wide enrollment figures across the board. Yet it must also be noted that these numbers represent a snapshot in time, and that enrollment figures change in August, right before the beginning of the new semester. Thus we will continue to closely monitor the enrollment shifts for 1999-2000 over the next month...and indeed over the next year.

In the Ho Settlement Agreement, the parties intended that the changes in enrollment for the 1999-2000 academic year would come to be viewed as an aberration.[10] The goal of the parties is that the district and the Superintendent of Public Instruction develop and implement a new plan for 2000-2001 and beyond that would not use race as a primary or predominant consideration, but would avoid resegregation of the district after the Consent Decree ends. Such a plan would necessarily reflect a new long-range vision of desegregation for SFUSD, and would address both the attendance boundary area schools and the alternative schools.

On May 12, 1999, Superintendent Rojas appointed a 22-person committee -- comprised of SFUSD officials -- to develop a timetable and generate this new student assignment plan. The committee is co-chaired by Dr. Anthony Anderson (Assistant Superintendent for Integration) and Davida Desmond (former principal of Charles Drew Elementary, a Phase One school in Bayview-Hunters Point). We look forward to continuing progress reports from this committee as it moves forward to meet the deadlines spelled out in the Settlement Agreement.[11]

E. Lowell High School

One of the best known high schools in the state, and consistently rated in the top ten of all high schools nationally, Lowell is the one alternative school in SFUSD that requires its applicants to submit grades and test scores. Lowell delivers an academically advanced curriculum, and its admissions process is highly competitive.

While the monitoring team has visited Lowell High School on numerous occasions over the past three years, we have avoided any in-depth discussion of this well-known institution because of the ongoing Brian Ho litigation. Now that the Ho case has been settled, however, we have expanded our coverage of Lowell in the Paragraph 13 section of this report.

As this Court noted in its May 1997 decision, the district changed its Lowell admissions policy in 1996 in an attempt to "ameliorate the problem, a result of the constraints of paragraph 13 of the Consent Decree, of turning away Chinese-American applicants with higher scores than members of other ethnic groups...[T]he school board 'established a single cutoff score for all races, but set aside 20 percent of the freshman class for those with lower scores.' Criteria for selection in the [value-added] group includes a mix of socioeconomic factors, but admission still requires achievement of a specified minimum test score."[12]

In the main section of this report, we include a table that provides an overview of admissions to the incoming class at Lowell by race/ethnicity.[13] As this table indicates, the incoming ninth grade class at Lowell showed a drop in the African American enrollment from 5.57% to 1.97%, and a drop in the Latino enrollment from 11.41% to 5.4%. At the same time, the number of Chinese American students in the ninth grade class at Lowell increased from 39.5% to 45.6%, and the number of White students increased from 23.5% to 26.9%.

Two recent reports -- one by UC Berkeley Professor Pedro Noguera and the other by Stanford student Racy Ming -- have analyzed issues relating to diversity at Lowell. We discuss their findings at some length in the main section of this report. In addition, we include relevant information obtained through a series of on-site interviews with Lowell students and teachers.

Interim Superintendent Linda Davis is very concerned about the diversity issue at Lowell, and indicated to us earlier this summer that she believes many eighth grade African American students did not even bother applying to Lowell this past year once they heard that the Ho case had been settled. She believes they may have felt that "if you do not want us, we will not bother." Davis hopes to increase district efforts to attract African American and Latino students to Lowell.[14]

And Lowell Principal Paul Cheng echoed Davis' determination. In a recent interview, he indicated that Lowell aggressively recruits students by sending representatives to high school fairs as well as sending out Assistant Principals to speak at middle schools. In general, even beyond these examples, there appears to be concerted effort to encourage or assist African American and Latino students to apply to Lowell in greater numbers next year.[15]

The monitoring team will continue to examine developments at Lowell over the next few years, particularly in light of the recent changes in Paragraph 13.

F. School Discipline within the Context of Desegregation

While the district has reduced the overall number of suspensions by over 20% since 1991-1992, there has been no similar progress in reducing the great disparity in suspensions and expulsions on the basis of race and ethnicity. Indeed, the percentage of African American students suspended in 1998-1999 has actually increased. 51.8 percent of all the SFUSD students suspended in 1998-1999 were African American, even though African Americans make up only 16% of the district enrollment.

In Report #15, we analyzed this issue at great length, and noted the interrelationship between the expectations of educators and the suspension rates, particularly in the areas of suspension for such nebulous infractions as "defiance" and "willful disobedience." We explained that extensive research on this topic has documented the disparate treatment of students in this context nationwide, and noted that too often the actions of African American male students are characterized as "defiance" and "willful disobedience" when similar behavior by students of other races and ethnicities is not viewed in the same light.

We also reported that the district continues to focus on this troubling form of disparate treatment in its staff development sessions, and we urge SFUSD educators to continue building on these efforts. Reduction of suspensions across the board has not succeeded in reducing this ongoing disparity, and in fact has occasionally been viewed as tying the hands of school site administrators who have sometimes indicated to us that they feel limited in their ability to discipline students because of the district's emphasis on lowering suspension and expulsion rates.

We look forward to documenting the progress of district administrators as they seek to limit any real or perceived disparate treatment of students on the basis of race and ethnicity.

G. The Interface between Desegregation and Language Acquisition Programs

Efforts to desegregate schools, classrooms, and programs and efforts to meet the needs of the district's LEP students are inextricably interrelated. Student assignment plans in general determine the composition of the LEP cohorts at individual schools, whether there will be enough native speakers of a particular language to justify maintaining or implementing a bilingual program, and/or whether it might be more appropriate to maintain or implement a general English Language Development (ELD) program with specially designed academic instruction in English (SDAIE).

In addition, as we reported at great length in Report #15, the designs of individual language acquisition programs at local school sites may themselves impact the ability of the district to comply with the terms and conditions of Paragraphs 12 & 13. Not only do some forms of bilingual education have a segregative effect on the LEP students themselves, but sometimes they also serve to segregate students of other races or ethnicities. Finally, the duration of individual language acquisition programs is itself an issue in this context. We continue to find that the interface between desegregation and language acquisition is a central issue which must be addressed at the district level.

To this end, the Consent Decree Advisory Committee -- in its January 1999 report -- urged the district to consider integrating the operations of the program offices addressing desegregation issues and the program offices addressing language acquisition issues.[16] We have also found a similar disconnect in this regard. We note that both Superintendent Rojas and Interim Superintendent Davis have expressed similar concerns, and that the Extended Cabinet established over the past two years is certainly an appropriate first step in this context. However, Davis believes that much greater progress is indeed possible on this front over the next year. We look forward to the results of these efforts.

IV. The Academic Achievement Component Generally

A. Assessment and Evaluation in General

The monitoring team continues to discern a positive trend from both district and statewide data with regard to the academic achievement of students in SFUSD. However, having said that, we must emphasize that both the test scores available through the district and the test scores available from the state have provided us with limited and often incomplete information. In the main section of the report, we explore at great length both the inherent limitations of standardized test scores in general and the particular details relating to assessment and evaluation in San Francisco.

We must continue to emphasize that the district continues to be completely open and forthcoming with the monitoring team regarding this data. There are no hidden results here. A range of factors at both the procedural and substantive levels typically combine to limit the scope of any standardized testing program.

In the main sections of this report, we provide detailed information and extensive data in comparative tables which serve to document the nature and extent of student progress in basic skills. We also focus on other objective and subjective indicators of academic achievement and educational quality. We note in particular the great disparities in attendance at the middle and high school levels, and urge the district to focus on closing this attendance gap in the future.[17]

B. Access to Computer Technology

In Report #14, we focused at length on computer technology, which has emerged as a central feature of the Special Plan for Bayview-Hunters Point. As promised, we have continued to monitor the progress of SFUSD's computer technology efforts under Consent Decree guidelines. We have found that certain schools continue to move forward in a stellar fashion to integrate computer technology and the Internet into their daily activities, while other schools are still literally drifting. Sometimes the level of progress is a function of poor wiring or outdated equipment, while at other times shiny new equipment sits unused as a result of inconsistent staff development at the individual school site level.

Overall, it must be noted that compared to most of the large urban school districts nationwide, the computer technology program in SFUSD is still quite impressive. San Francisco began integrating computer-related activities into its educational activities at a relatively early stage, brought new equipment and highly trained personnel into targeted Consent Decree schools, and bolstered its programs by establishing a variety of partnerships with the local high tech business community. But two central issues raised by the monitoring team in 1997 remain unresolved: (1) the role of the technology coordinator at the local school site, and (2) the direction that might be provided to individual schools by district officials downtown.

This transition to the information age continues to be the cause of much anxiety at the school site level, but -- as we noted in 1997 -- San Francisco is not alone in this regard…since the nation as a whole is undergoing a similar transition. But it must be noted that while SFUSD did an admirable job of installing modern equipment and setting up impressive programs in Phase One schools and other targeted Consent Decree schools, demographic shifts and student assignment plans have resulted in the increased enrollment of low income students and students of color at other schools that may still have meager equipment and a teaching staff with little or no expertise in this area. Given the increasing importance of information technology in the 21st Century, these schools all need to be brought up to the next level.

C. Addressing the Needs of Language Minority Students

We continue to find, as we did last year -- that while district-level Language Academy[18] documents reveal an exciting vision for language acquisition instruction district-wide -- the district in practice has not adopted one preferred model of instruction for language minority students and English Language Learners.

Indeed, at the school site level, there is tremendous variety from school-to-school in this context. Interviews with principals, classroom teachers, and members of the community reveal a range of very strong and often-contradictory views on the proper approaches for educating SFUSD's LEP students. And during school site visits we noted significant differences between language acquisition programs for Chinese American students and language acquisition programs for Latino students. These differences are apparent not only from school to school, but also within specific schools.

In light of the requirements of the Lau Consent Decree, the district continues to offer traditional bilingual education in the aftermath of Proposition 227. These programs are now typically labeled "English Plus," but we have found that in most cases they are substantially similar to the programs offered before the passage of Proposition 227. We note, however, that the district has made English Only instruction available to parents as per the terms and conditions of Proposition 227. Thus the district continues to make every effort to comply with both Proposition 227 and the Lau Consent Decree.

It has been very difficult for the monitoring team to ascertain the academic achievement of the district's language minority students, who comprise approximately 1/3 of the entire student population. While some objective data is available for all students in SFUSD, there is no apparent systematic program currently in place to objectively measure the skill attainment and language acquisition progress of all the LEP students in the district. Some students take the SABE (a skills test in Spanish), and others take the STAR test, but -- as indicated above -- a large number of the LEP students are not formally assessed.

The assessment of LEP students has been an issue of great controversy throughout the country for a long period of time. In California, this issue has come to the forefront over the past year with the passage of Proposition 227 in 1998 and with the implementation of the new statewide STAR test in 1998 & 1999. The question of how the LEP students are doing is one of the most central questions facing California educators today, given the fact that approximately 25% of all public school students in the state know little or no English, and that this number is often much higher in major urban centers.

To its credit, the SFUSD Language Academy has begun to develop a framework for the assessment of LEP students at the district level, and has created the Language and Literacy Assessment Rubric (LALAR). The rubric is now presented as a one-page scantron sheet that is designed to enable teachers to easily document student achievement in two languages. It is in essence a skills checklist which will serve to complement student portfolios. But because the LALAR is a skills checklist, it is by its very nature a subjective document. Along with another, more objective instrument, it can provide important and useful information. But as the only instrument employed to assess the academic achievement of LEP students, it necessarily provides incomplete information. In addition, we have found that the checklist is used differently at different schools, which may very well lead to inconsistent results. Finally, since the rubric has been reproduced in scantron form this year for the first time -- a complete collating of these checklists and any accompanying preparation of district-wide tables reflecting student progress has not taken place.

As noted above -- and as we reported in 1997 and again in 1998 -- it is against district policy to test LEP students in English if they have been in the district less than 30 months, unless such a test is requested by the child's teacher or parent. And, as discussed above, while the efficacy of such a policy decision may be the subject of legitimate inquiry, this decision has been upheld in a court of law. Yet there are many conceivable approaches to assessment and evaluation -- including the development of test instruments in other languages for the largest groups -- that would enable the district to determine the academic achievement of its LEP students without simply relying on one standardized test that the students may not understand.

We raised this issue for the first time in Report #14. We noted that district officials were sensitive to these issues, but we asked at the same time "what additional measures of assessment and evaluation might be employed to identify strengths and weaknesses in current educational programs that have been designed to meet the needs of English Language Learners."[19] Since then, we have found that district efforts to assess LEP students in their primary language appear to have bogged down. SFUSD officials have explored the possibility of developing a test in Chinese, for example, for the large number of Chinese-speaking LEP students, but the project appears to have been abandoned. Individual schools have sometimes developed their own assessment and evaluation instruments, but these efforts vary from school site to school site. Thus decisions regarding placement and redesignation are often based on informal determinations. They may even be based on other inconsistent factors such as the space available in particular classrooms at individual school sites. And no comparative district-wide data of any sort is available to document the academic achievement of this large and diverse group of students.

In a recent meeting with top district officials focusing on this topic, we found that SFUSD is indeed hoping to move forward in this area. We will continue to monitor this area closely, and we look forward to the results of district efforts over the next year.

D. Staff Development

It is clear that not only are traditional staff development topics mandated under the Consent Decree, but also a distinct focus on multicultural issues. As discussed above, we have found that one of the most significant and unresolved multicultural issues in San Francisco relates to the area of low expectations on the part of educators for certain students.[20]

To a certain extent, the district has made impressive gains in addressing the problem of low expectations, as well as other equity issues, through professional development. Indeed, district efforts dovetail nicely with the CLAD/BCLAD training[21] that new teachers have been receiving in this regard at major teacher education institutions throughout California. For those teachers who have already received such training, the district efforts serve to reinforce what they already know.

But not every teacher in SFUSD has received CLAD or BCLAD certification, which has only been provided in California since the early and mid-1990's. Veteran teachers, teachers with emergency certification, and applicants from other states may not have received this type of training in multicultural issues and approaches, and therefore may have a much greater need for more programs focusing on such issues as lower expectations. Thus the current philosophy of only addressing equity issues through specific content areas may need to be reexamined. The district might establish more focused programs on the issue of low expectations, much as they have established other focused programs on issues of multicultural education.

Last year, in Report #15, we also raised the issue of staff development for principals. We noted that while staff development is typically viewed as a program targeting classroom teachers, issues have been raised district-wide regarding the nature and extent of staff development for school site administrators. We found last year that there is indeed staff development for principals, but that most of the programs for them are voluntary. In addition, we found -- based on a preliminary examination of this topic -- that very little in the way of professional development has been set up for brand-new administrators in SFUSD.

We discussed this issue with Interim Superintendent Linda Davis on July 12th. Ms. Davis shares the concerns of the monitoring team in this regard, particularly at the middle and high school levels. Indeed, she confirmed our observations regarding the lack of in-depth dialogue at many of the secondary level sessions. She believes that the district has made much greater strides with elementary administrators in this context...both in terms of content and in terms of actively involving the elementary principals in structured inquiry. She pointed with pride, for example, to a recent elementary level session on diversity-related issues that included presentations by Dr. Robert L. Green and Dr. Pedro Noguera. Ms. Davis hopes that such sessions can be replicated during the upcoming year, at both the elementary and the secondary level.

In addition to replicating programs such as these, the district may wish to consider employing its wealth of resources in the area of technology to create a resource network for its school site administrators in cyberspace. Advanced "distance learning" techniques can then be applied to develop and implement supplementary staff development in this manner.

We have been very impressed over the past three years with the background knowledge, perspective, and experience that many of the district school site administrators have brought to their schools, and we look forward to district efforts to organize programs that would enable these administrators to disseminate this valuable information to others.

E. Reconstitution & the CSIP Process

In light of the recommendations included in the January 1999 report of the Consent Decree Advisory Committee,[22] we present an extensive, 30-page overview of recent SFUSD CSIP/Reconstitution developments[23] in the main section of this report.

As we noted in Report #15, after Golden Gate Elementary School and Mission High School were reconstituted in the Spring of 1997, all the remaining schools "graduated" from CSIP. No new schools have been added to the CSIP list since then.

During the past year, the district has continued to negotiate with the United Educators of San Francisco (UESF), the United Administrators of San Francisco (UASF), and representatives of the district's classified workers regarding possible modifications to the CSIP/Reconstitution process. The proposed SFUSD "School Accountability Process," stemming from collaboration between and among the stakeholders, would establish a common framework and criteria to guide schools.

Interim Superintendent Linda Davis has indicated that negotiators have been meeting regularly this summer and have made great progress.

Although a goal of this collaborative process is to avoid any need for renewing a school through reconstitution per se, this School Accountability Process expects that each school will engage in a process of "organizational renewal." Indeed, a primary goal of the School Accountability Process is to improve the quality of instruction and learning for the students.

At each individual school, the principal and a site council would develop an annual site plan through an open planning process that includes representatives from the entire school community. This site plan would clarify -- among other things -- the specific, measurable priorities for program improvement over the next school year, and would select the measures that will be used to gauge successful achievement of the plan's goals.[24]

On July 23, 1999, Interim Superintendent Davis reported that progress continues on all fronts in this regard. Indeed, the negotiating teams are hoping to complete the process of identifying targeted schools before the beginning of the new 1999-2000 academic year. In the end, the goal would be to "strengthen the schools from within." Davis is very optimistic regarding the results of these deliberations, and in fact described the discussions as mutually beneficial and collaborative. And she explained that the teacher's union is helping to take the lead on the all important issue of peer review, which would ultimately be a key component of this process.

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V. Additional Unresolved Issues

A. Allocation of Consent Decree Funds to Local School Sites

A great deal of money from the Consent Decree budget is allocated to certain local school sites, and principals are apparently given a significant amount of discretion to spend the money as they see fit. Some elementary schools and middle schools actually receive over $500,000 per year, while some high schools receive over $1,000,000 per year from Consent Decree funds. Schools receiving this money typically fall into one of two broad general categories: (1) targeted schools or targeted program schools, and (2) CSIP or reconstituted schools.[25]

We continue to find two interrelated problems in this context. Firstly, the amount of money allocated to each "targeted" or "targeted program" school has essentially remained the same since the 1980's. A second and even more controversial concern that continues to be raised by school site educators in this regard is the suggestion that -- because realities in San Francisco have changed -- the methods used to allocate Consent Decree money should change. Some have suggested, for example, that perhaps most of this money should "follow the students," and that schools serving student populations targeted by the Consent Decree should begin receiving money (perhaps for the first time)…or should now get additional allocations.

We have found no perceptible change in this context during the 1998-1999 academic year, and we urge the parties to reexamine what may very well be an anachronistic formula for the allocation of Consent Decree funds to local school sites, given the demographic changes in The City over the past 10-15 years.

B. Failure of the State to Reimburse the District for Expenditures Approved by the State Controller in Audits Mandated by the California Education Code

Based on information received from district officials with personal knowledge of SFUSD finances, the monitoring team has found that the State has failed to reimburse the district for large sums of money that the district has already spent in furtherance of Consent Decree goals and objectives. As a result of this failure, SFUSD's ability to pursue the direction set forth by the parties and approved by this Court has been compromised, and the students of the district have been precluded from obtaining the benefits that are rightfully theirs under this decree.

Pursuant to California Education Code Section 42243.6, the district is required to submit a claim to the State Controller -- after the money has been spent -- in order to obtain reimbursement for any Consent Decree-mandated desegregation costs. Before such a claim is submitted, however, it must first be subjected to an audit. In furtherance of these requirements, SFUSD contracted with the Division of Audits of the State Controller to perform an audit for each of the district's annual claims.

Beginning with money spent during fiscal year 1994-1995, however, the State has not fully reimbursed the district for money owed.[26] In the main section of this report, we present a chronology of relevant events in this regard.

With no resolution in sight, expenditures incurred in subsequent years will soon become due. At this point in time, three additional years have passed since 1995-96...years for which the district will also need to be reimbursed for desegregation costs. Indeed, the State Controller has recently established by audit that an additional $5,359,756 is owed SFUSD for 1996-97. Added to the amounts mentioned above, the amount that the State has failed to reimburse is now at $18,075,497. Partial reimbursement according to the pattern established for 1994-95 and 1995-96 will further erode the district's ability to maintain Consent Decree programs and pursue Consent Decree goals.

It must be emphasized that before these events unfolded with regard to 1994-95 and 1995-96, the State had always reimbursed the district in full for its desegregation expenditures.[27] Now, though, full reimbursement has been precluded by the events described above. We find that this failure on the part of the State is particularly troubling during an era of great prosperity, when the state treasury is literally overflowing with billions of dollars of surplus money.

VI. Remedies Discussed District-Wide

The problem areas addressed in this report are complex, and most are certainly not unique to San Francisco. But San Francisco is making great progress in this context, and the monitoring team believes that district educators are in the process of creating a solid foundation that will enable them to continue building on the current momentum in a substantially desegregated setting even after the Consent Decree ends.

In addition to the range of innovative programs -- documented in these pages as well as in previous reports -- that the district is pursuing in this context, other remedies for current problem areas that have been discussed in the SFUSD community include (a) eliminating grouping practices which result in students of certain races and ethnicities being separated out for their entire elementary school careers; (b) improving and expanding integrated English Language Development (ELD) programs by providing special support for LEP students through a combination of primary language instruction and state-of-the-art specially designed academic instruction in English (SDAIE) techniques...while raising the curriculum for both LEP and fluent English proficient (FEP) students to the highest possible level; (c) expanding methods of identifying "giftedness" for purposes of assignment to GATE programs and other academically enriched settings; (d) de-emphasizing tracking and ability grouping, while still retaining the option of selective grouping by language skills or academic achievement when it becomes appropriate to meet the needs of individual students and student groups; (e) continuing to work toward establishing/building/ expanding the "academic high school" concept, so that there can be more Lowell High Schools in San Francisco; (f) expanding the list of objective indicators of academic achievement beyond simply the traditional standardized test scores, both for reporting purposes and for purposes of establishing concrete goals that individual schools can work toward; (g) developing new focused and wide-ranging staff development programs for teachers and school site administrators in all these areas; and (h) addressing issues relating to the equalization of resources from school-to-school and neighborhood-to-neighborhood.

We look forward to continued progress toward these and other interrelated goals.

VII. Conclusion

Beyond the tables and the data and the analysis of compliance with Consent Decree paragraphs, there are a wealth of day-to-day events that together reflect the positive developments we continue to see in SFUSD. Among these events in 1998-1999, we would like to highlight the following:

· The ongoing efforts of the African American Community Partnership of SFUSD to follow up on the November 1997 summit (discussed in last year's report). In November 1998, the partnership published its "First-Year Progress Report," co-authored by Superintendent Rojas and Dr. Robert L. Green.

· The first SFUSD Latino Education Summit, held in the Spring of 1999. Nationwide experts were among the 600 participants who worked to develop strategies to help Latino students succeed in school.

· The 25-day staff development program held for Edison teachers prior to the opening of school last fall. The main focus was on learning environment, behavior management, and the Success for All (SFA) reading program. Certain faculty members also traveled out-of-state to receive training.

· The highly organized and upbeat educational program we observed at Clarendon Elementary, a program that is bolstered by an active group of parent volunteers. We were particularly impressed with the strong and positive school culture -- which includes a very supportive environment for a multi-racial student population that makes up 25-30% of the entire school enrollment. One third of the teachers on the Clarendon faculty were new this past year, and yet this historically supportive culture has continued unabated.

· The ongoing strengthening of the curriculum that we have observed at Galileo High, which included participation in the AVID program by juniors and seniors, and the involvement of 40 students who attended eight different articulated programs with San Francisco City College.

· The within-school integration we observed at Grattan Elementary, accomplished within the context of a friendly and creative school culture. We were struck by the highly informed and positive perspectives of Principal Ken Gallegos and his veteran faculty. We also note that Gallegos continues to contribute thoughtful and perceptive pieces on education-related issues to the local media.

· The establishment of Leadership Academy in Downtown San Francisco, and the creative relationship with Golden Gate Law School that enables the students to take advantage of the community-based resources available in both the school and the neighborhood. The City is used by the two-year-old charter academy as both a laboratory and as a setting for service learning.

· The growing use of top quality technology resources at Moscone Elementary. Oracle will be giving up to 100 computers to the school, and this will result in 3-4 computers in each class, plus additional computers in the library, the resource room (for reading readiness and special ed) and a computer lab. All Moscone classrooms now have access to the Internet, and the school will have three servers: one for administration, one for students, and a new Oracle server. Staff development in technology is a key component of the school's work in this regard. Victor Lee, technology coordinator, has been with the school 15 years, and began his work in this area with the original Apple 2E program.

· The emergence of two high quality elementary schools in the Tenderloin District. Redding Elementary is currently the functional equivalent of a newcomer center, but operates as a regular elementary school. Students at Redding speak 27 different languages, and there is a community public health "center" on site. The school's art focus contributes to a vibrant learning environment. In addition to Redding, the new Tenderloin School opened its doors in November 1998, with 80% of its students from the Tenderloin District itself. The small class sizes at this new school enable the faculty to provide a tremendous amount of supportive personal attention for each student.

· The staff development session conducted by District Administrator Susan Wong and her staff on March 25th for middle school deans and school counselors. The session focused on school discipline, and reviewed procedures for referrals and transfers. But the program emphasized the goal of trying to do a better job "providing stability for the students at the site level instead of moving them from school to school." The family mosaic program was presented as a viable model in this regard. The session relied on an inquiry format, and all participants were actively involved.

· The new booklet published by the district this past spring, entitled "Benefits of the SFUSD Consent Decree." It contains a wealth of information regarding the concrete achievements of the district under the terms and conditions of the Consent Decree over the past 16 years.

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This is an exciting time in San Francisco. It is a time of transition and great change in both the school district and The City as a whole, and a time of great opportunity. In particular, the new focus on the economically disadvantaged will inevitably shed more light on the problems and needs of SFUSD's entire student population. Many people do not realize the extent of the challenges faced by many district students in this context. According to district figures released in May 1999, 35% of the student population is classified under the heading "economically disadvantaged youth (EDY)," and 49% of all the students in SFUSD receive either free or reduced lunch.[28]

Yet there are a wealth of resources available -- both within the community and nationwide -- that can be accessed by district educators in a manner that might enable them to maximize the equal educational opportunities of all the students in SFUSD within the context of the Consent Decree. Particularly during this time of great economic prosperity, we look forward to documenting the use of these resources and the maximizing of these opportunities as the district moves forward confidently into a new century.

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[1] The SFNAACP v. SFUSD Consent Decree represents an agreement concluded in 1983 by the plaintiffs (SFNAACP), the defendant school district (SFUSD), and the "state defendants" (the California State Board of Education and its members, the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, and the State Department of Education) in response to an equal educational opportunity lawsuit filed by the SFNAACP in 1978.

It is clear from the language of the Consent Decree that the parties' goal has been to benefit all the students in SFUSD, no matter what their race, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status might be. While specific references in the Consent Decree and the parties' Second Joint Report reflect the parties' desire to provide additional efforts on behalf of African American and Latino students, references to the original lawsuit being brought "on behalf of…all children" and other specific references throughout the text indicate clearly and unambiguously the broad scope of this document.

The Consent Decree continues to be viewed as unique because it not only mandates the desegregation of all schools, programs, and classrooms, but also requires increased efforts to achieve academic excellence for all students in the district. In fact, many people believe that because of this Consent Decree SFUSD is currently more accountable to the people of California than any other district in the state.

[2] As we discussed in Report #15, certain schools were designated as "targeted" or "consent decree" schools in the 1980's. These schools -- along with others that were placed on the CSIP list and/or were reconstituted in the 1990's -- continue to receive a large percentage of Consent Decree money. The terms of the Consent Decree, however, generally apply to every school in the district.

[3] See Report #15, pages 94-99.

[4] See Report #15, page 84, note 72.

[5] See Special Plan for Bayview-Hunters Point Schools, Draft Update, SFUSD Division for Integration, April, 1995, at 3-14:

...2) All individuals are entitled to be treated with respect and dignity; 3) All individuals want to learn and should be recognized for their achievements; 4) All individuals can learn; 5) All individuals learn in many different ways and at varying rates; 6) Each individual learns best in a particular way; 7) All individuals are both potential learners and potential teachers; 8) If individuals do not learn, then those assigned to be their teachers will accept responsibility for this failure and will take appropriate remedial action to ensure success;...11) Parents want their children to attain their fullest potential as learners and to succeed academically.

[6] These nine categories included: Latino, Other White, African American, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Native American, Filipino, and Other Non-White

[7] As we discussed in Report #14, SFUSD has designed and implemented an innovative, multi-faceted school choice system for the community. In recent years, parents in San Francisco have had the option of either sending their school-age children to the school designated for their neighborhood, or to an alternative school anywhere in the district. In addition, parents may request admission at a school designated for a different neighborhood, on a space-available basis. Parents apply to an alternative school or seek admission to a school other than the one designated for their neighborhood by completing an OER form. Admission is based on a lottery formula at all schools except Lowell High (where grades and test scores must be submitted) and the School of the Arts (where the students must audition).

[8] Many believe that not all parents have had access to the same information in the same way, and that the district can do more to arrange information sessions for parents at individual school sites (for example) rather than simply expecting parents to act on information contained in memos.

[9] SFUSD Associate Superintendent Robert Harrington has characterized the interim student assignment plan in this way. Interview with Associate Superintendent Robert Harrington, March 26, 1999.

[10] Under Paragraph B of the Settlement Agreement: "the SFUSD and the State Superintendent of Public Instruction shall develop a new student assignment plan consistent with the criteria contained in this agreement. The SFUSD and the State Superintendent shall submit the proposed modifications to the San Francisco NAACP and the Ho Plaintiffs for review and comment."