SELECTED SCHOOL ENROLLMENT CONTROLS

Paragraph 14

For certain designated schools and racial/ethnic groups, the maximum percentage of specific racial/ethnic groups shall be reduced to specified percents.

This paragraph was deleted by court order filed April 30, 1993, Docket #753.

APRIL REPORT TO THE COURT

Paragraph 15

To report annually on the extent to which special desegregation provisions or modifications are needed for other particular schools, and to obtain agreement among the parties on any such modifications.

The district has complied.

COMMUNICATION AMONG THE PARTIES

Paragraph 16

. . . the parties will submit a joint report to the Court setting forth the extent to which additional educational resources or programs will facilitate implementation of the goals of this Consent Decree at any particular school(s).

The parties have complied.

SPECIAL PLAN FOR BAYVIEW/HUNTERS POINT SCHOOLS

Paragraphs 17-31

Includes general development and implementation of the plan by the end of the 1985-1986 school year, reconstitution of staffs in designated schools, focus of the desegregation plan, development of Malcolm X Academy, the establishment of an academic high school in Bayview-Hunters Point, guidelines for selecting personnel, and a coordinated public information effort.

The language of Paragraphs 17-31 sets forth requirements for performance by SFUSD in years gone by (i.e. the 1980's and the early 1990's). Thus the monitoring team has not independently addressed these requirements, since previous independent reviews have already addressed these issues. While documents reviewed by the team do indeed indicate compliance with the provisions of these paragraphs focusing on requirements for performance in the 1980's and early 1990's, we have not gathered any information to independently verify this compliance.

To the extent that staffing obligations may continue for Phase One schools, we are of the view that the guidelines set forth in Paragraphs 34-35 would embrace these obligations…and therefore we address staffing requirements district-wide in those Paragraphs below.

To the extent that the parties' Second Joint Report, the 1992 Committee of Experts Report, and the district's own updated Special Plan for Bayview-Hunters Point (1995) require replication of this plan in all targeted schools, this report examines these requirements under other relevant Paragraphs.

SUBURBAN SCHOOL DISTRICTS

Paragraph 32

Requires the CDE to formally notify suburban districts that acceptance of students who reside in the SFUSD, and whose transfer adversely affects desegregation in the school they would otherwise be attending, will disqualify the suburban district for state aid.

As of Tuesday, July 27, 1999, the most recent letter from the California Department of Education was sent out on June 5, 1998, and a new letter for 1999 is currently being prepared.

MILITARY TRANSPORTATION TO PRIVATE SCHOOLS

Paragraph 33

To submit a joint request to the appropriate military authorities for the termination of Defense Department transportation of children from military bases to private schools.

This Paragraph is no longer applicable, since all military bases that once utilized the services of SFUSD have been closed.

DESEGREGATION OF FACULTY,

ADMINISTRATORS AND OTHER STAFF

Paragraphs 34-35

The SFUSD shall continue to implement a staffing policy . . . the goal of which is to achieve a staff at each school site and district location that will reflect the student population of the district.

The SFUSD certificated staff is composed of 3,493 "permanent" employees (64.9%), 682 long term substitutes (12.6%), and 1,122 day-to-day substitutes (20.8 %, up from 16.1% last year). Of the permanent certificated employees, 2,590 are classroom teachers. Other permanent certificated employees include members of the administrative staff, resource teachers, counselors, and librarians. [65]

These permanent certificated employees have been with SFUSD an average of 13.6 years (down from 15.3 years last year). 30.7% have advanced degrees. 41.1% of this group is between 45 and 55 years old, and the average age is 45.7. The average salary paid to permanent certificated staff is $46,595 (up from $44,801 last year).[66]

The district employees are divided into the same nine racial classifications as the students, and as of May 1999 the four most represented racial groups for certificated employees were Other White (55.1%), Chinese American (12.9%), African American (11.0%), and Latino (10.3%).[67]

Findings and Statistical Analysis:

The following table includes data obtained from the district on July 26, 1999. Preliminary comparisons by district statisticians are included as well.

Students Certificated Staff Classified Staff

	# - 7/99	%	% chg.	# -7/99	%	% chg.	# -7/99	%	% chg.
Total *	61,054	100.0	-0.2	4,734	100.0	9.6	3,909	100.0	-2.9
Female	29,739	48.7	0.2	3,305	69.8	5.6	2,783	71.2	-0.6
Male	31,315	51.3	-0.6	1,429	30.2	20.1	1,126	28.8	-8.0
Non-Minority	7,381	12.1	-4.9	2,487	52.5	10.3	906	23.2	-8.9
Minority	53,673	87.9	0.4	2,238	47.3	8.5	3,002	76.8	-0.9
African-American	9,765	16.0	-5.0	510	10.8	-3.0	842	21.5	-6.2
Chinese	17,367	28.4	4.1	678	14.3	5.4	780	20.0	2.0
Latino	12,977	21.3	1.4	537	11.3	20.4	761	19.5	5.1
Filipino	4,380	7.2	-5.3	180	3.8	7.8	346	8.9	3.9
Japanese	607	1.0	-2.7	88	1.9	7.3	37	0.9	-9.8
Korean	634	1.0	-8.1	26	0.5	52.9	7	0.2	16.7
Native American	414	0.7	-5.5	34	0.7	6.3	16	0.4	-23.8
Other Non-White	7,529	12.3	3.1	185	3.9	24.2	213	5.4	-12.0

Examining the preliminary statistical data released by the district in the Summer of 1999, we found that between July 1998 and July 1999 there was a 9.6% increase in certificated staff and a 2.9% decrease in classified staff. The student population stayed virtually the same (decreasing by 0.2%) during the same time. The vast majority of the district's students (87.9%) are classified as belonging to an ethnic/racial minority, essentially unchanged from 1998. Minority certificated staff members are now 47.3% of the District, up from 1998 but still significantly below the 57% reported in 1997. Minority classified staff numbers, however, are virtually unchanged from last summer. [SB1]

The data continues to show significant disparities between the student population and the staff population. For example, while the student population is 12.1% "non-minority," the certificated staff is 52.5% "non-minority." Other disparities include the Chinese American population, where the students are 28.4% of the district but the certificated staff is only 14.3% of the district. The Latino student population is 21.3% of the district, but the Latino certificated staff is only 11.3%. The African American representation is closer, but still the student population is 16.0% while the certificated staff population is 10.8%.

Once again, we find that while individual school sites and district sites may have achieved a staff that reflects the SFUSD student population as a whole, the district overall is no closer to meeting the goal set forth in Paragraph 34 of the Consent Decree than it was when we first examined this topic in the 1996-1997 academic year.

STAFF DEVELOPMENT

Paragraphs 36-36a

SFUSD, after consultation with the state defendants, shall develop and submit to the Court and parties no later than April 1, 1983, a comprehensive staff development plan and budget necessary to implement the provisions of this Decree…

Additional culturally diverse staff development activities in the targeted schools and throughout the…district are needed…

As we noted last year in Report #15, while portions of Paragraph 36 and 36a set forth only an immediate obligation for 1983, other portions clearly set forth an ongoing obligation to provide "culturally diverse staff development activities." We believe it is appropriate to identify the contours of this requirement by referring to the language of Paragraph 36, which specifies that the original 1983 district plan should "address areas identified as essential for staff in school districts undergoing desegregation…such as…(1) student discipline procedures and goals, (2) academic achievement and performance goals, (3) teaching in a diverse racial/ethnic environment, (4) parental involvement, and (5) the desegregation goals and provisions of this decree" (emphasis added). Thus it is clear that not only are traditional staff development topics mandated, but also a distinct focus on multicultural issues.

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. As documented above in the Paragraph 12 section of this report, the ongoing prevalence of low expectations may impact the district's ability to address within-school segregation issues, language acquisition issues, and academic achievement issues in general.

In its January 1999 report, the Consent Decree Advisory Committee addressed the relationship between staff development and low expectations.[68] It is indeed apparent that strong, focused staff development programs for teachers and principals may be the single most important vehicle available to the district if it is to continue making progress in this context. There are many priorities for staff development, and these priorities compete for scarce resources. Staff development (often referred to as "Professional Development") in San Francisco is aimed at a wide variety of academic and curricular subjects. It is organized primarily around the academic content areas of the curricula of SFUSD schools. Within this structure, the idea of implementing a formal program dealing with lowered teacher expectations has yet to be considered.

A. Staff Development for Teachers[69]

SFUSD professional development is content oriented. Its philosophy is that teachers can incorporate training into their classroom if the training is focused on core content areas, rather than on general process or method. For example, if the district wants to train teachers in a particular method of cooperative learning through group projects, the district will show how that method works by using it within core subject areas such as math or English.

As a result, teachers in each content area are grouped accordingly and are trained in workshops focusing on teaching the method within that content area. Professional development is conducted on a year-round ongoing basis. The workshops are scheduled periodically throughout the year, as well as concentrated during specific district and site days. It is within this content-area workshop approach that the problem of teacher expectations has been addressed in recent years.

1. Central Focus of SFUSD Professional Development

At its most basic level, professional development in San Francisco is centrally administered. A team of 40-45 Central Administrators work in the Curriculum Improvement and Professional Development (CIPD) department, led by Associate Superintendent Maria Santos. CIPD works on researching, implementing, and evaluating SFUSD professional development. Actual development, through the content area workshops, is implemented by teacher-leaders. District teachers apply to become teacher-leaders, and after the requisite training from the district. They train other faculty through professional development workshops. These two components, the CIPD and the teacher-leaders, are the center of professional development.

Professional development occurs in three stages, analyzed fully below. The development starts with the enactment of new academic achievement standards for a specific subject area. These standards are created by conforming to national and state achievement standards for the area. The goal is to maintain SFUSD student performance above the national performance standards.

The first stage is awareness. At this stage, the central administration studies the newly created academic achievement standards and examines how to refine classroom teaching to meet those standards. The second stage is implementation. Implementation encompasses several stages itself, where teacher-leaders train teachers through workshops. The final stage is refinement. Workshops are evaluated, and student achievement is measured for improvement. The training process is refined accordingly. Focused examination of teacher classroom teaching styles takes place at this stage.

Every year, the CIPD staff meets with the teacher-leaders for each content area to determine at which stage professional development should advance. For example, language education has just begun to incorporate new standards into the curriculum, and is in the awareness stage. The math department is well into the implementation process of workshop training and is beginning to examine refinement of the workshops. Finally, the science department is fully implemented, and is well into the refinement stage of examining individual classroom teaching styles.

2. Three Stages of Professional Development

a. Awareness. CIPD central staff is the primary actor at the awareness stage. The superintendent establishes the broad priorities for the district. Using those priorities, the central administration staff examines the current national and state academic standards, and develops SFUSD standards accordingly.

The central administration conducts its research on an ongoing basis. It studies the current research on core learning areas and in improving teacher training. It also focuses on adopting new ideas and innovative techniques for each of the core curriculum areas. The researchers use data from student performance tests to look at achievement results for the whole district, determine which areas the district should prioritize, and set realistic standards for students.

CIPD incorporates input from other components of the district. Teachers are encouraged to volunteer their time, and teacher-leaders are continually consulted. The district sets up seminars and conferences for parents, updating them on district progress. These seminars also give CIPD the opportunity to solicit parental input concerning where the district should advance. Finally, students are periodically surveyed to evaluate the effectiveness of classroom techniques. The district has recently established a student committee to work on social studies and history, in order that they might better incorporate student ideas into the teaching process.

At the research stage, the central administration staff begins working with teacher-leaders. All SFUSD teachers can apply to become teacher-leaders, and are encouraged to do so to take an active part in the process. The teacher-leaders must apply every year, even if they have been previously admitted. This process allows the leaders to continually evaluate their goals and to inform the district of their plans. During the application process, the teacher-leaders explain whether they are going to focus on research or implementation, and whether they will work on site-based or district training. The district's goal is to have at least one teacher-leader per content area per school. SFUSD has focused on three main content areas: math, science and English. The district is most successful in meeting its goal of one leader per content area per school in these content areas. There are about 100-150 teacher-leaders for each of these content areas in the entire district. There are lesser numbers of teacher-leaders in the other content areas, which include history/social studies, language acquisition, and physical education.

The teacher-leaders are trained on an ongoing basis. The training is most focused during the summer institutes. These institutes are in session for 1-3 weeks during the summer. CIPD brings in education and teacher training experts to work with teacher-leaders in setting up their workshops. The summer institutes aim to enrich the content expertise, leadership capacity, and pedagogical practice of the teacher-leaders. The leaders continue to work with the district and with each other throughout the year after the summer institutes have finished.

b. Implementation. Implementation occurs in several stages. After the teacher-leaders incorporate the new standards and the teaching techniques geared toward reaching them, the Leaders develop workshops to train teachers in these techniques. The workshops are administered in two different ways: site-based training at individual schools, and district training available to all teachers in SFUSD.

Site based training occurs year-round, as well as in concentrated site days. This training is specific to the individual school. Each school's teacher-leaders work with the school's faculty and administration to survey the school's priorities. The site's teachers usually look at the achievement scores for the school and focus on their weakest areas. The teacher-leaders then design an array of activities for the school, and submit their plans to CIPD.

CIPD critically evaluates the school's plans and distributes resources accordingly. According to Associate Superintendent Santos, the most typical problem is that schools plan too many activities for their professional development site days. CIPD believes that schools should focus on a discrete set of activities to achieve the maximum benefits. Working with CIPD, teacher-leaders finalize the workshops and administer them during the site days.

District training furnishes the district the opportunity to educate the entire faculty on the district's priorities, standards, and training techniques. The district training operates on an ongoing basis, with several "district days" serving as the foundation for the training. During district days, students receive a day off and all teachers are required to attend a series of workshops for their content areas. The workshops are taught to teachers from all over the district, and take place in two or three schools.

Members of the monitoring team had an opportunity to attend district day training on February 5 and February 25, 1999. There were 27 workshops on February 5, and more on February 25. Workshops varied according to the quality, enthusiasm and style of the teacher-leaders.

We found that the most effective workshops were the ones that were interactive. These workshops actively engaged teachers, with an effective give-and-take between the teacher-leaders and the faculty as well as among the teachers themselves. For example, the monitoring team attended a workshop focused on teaching students social studies questions for the SAT9. The workshop included a frank discussion about some of the problems that students have when facing the test, including the ambiguity of some of the questions. Special note was paid to how students from different cultural backgrounds would perceive a question differently. For example, a question about when the Vietnam War began would be viewed differently from a student born in Vietnam than one born in the United States. Teachers in the audience contributed examples, problems, and suggestions from their own classroom experience.

Another member of the monitoring team visited a staff development session at Mission High School on March 26th. He observed a lively and interactive presentation by the nurse & counseling department regarding strategies of dealing with "hateful language" exchanged between students. Teachers were presented with a situation, then asked to choose a response and justify it. The exercise engaged the teachers in a discussion of how to define hateful language and even hate in general.

The district's professional development program has also focused on the needs of sexual minority youth. Teachers and administrators have worked together to form workshops and seminars to help teachers deal with the needs of students of minority sexual orientations. One such workshop took place on the February 5 district day. The leader presented strategies to teachers to incorporate the Gay and Lesbian Movement as a way of teaching American history, particularly the history of protest movements. This workshop echoed the underlying philosophy of professional development.

c. Refinement. The final stage of Professional Development is the refinement stage. After the curricular standards and new pedagogical practices and techniques have been fully incorporated into the workshops, the district begins to examine student achievement through standardized test scores and other indicia. CIPD and teacher-leaders modify the workshop formats accordingly, to ensure that teachers are trained to maximize student achievement.

In addition, CIPD begins employing the "case-study" approach for examining teacher classroom practices. For each content area and education level, CIPD has created a videotape presentation of pedagogical practices that best exemplify district teaching philosophy and technique. These videotapes are distributed to principals and teachers across the district. Using the videotape presentation for comparison, principals begin actually videotaping teachers during their classes and analyzing their classroom teaching style and practice. The principals often prepare a battery of questions to be answered by examining the teachers on tape. In addition, teachers can use the CIPD presentations to examine each other, allowing teachers to critique each other and improve their pedagogical skills without the pressure of the evaluative process.

2. Teacher Expectations and Professional Development

District administrators responsible for professional development believe that their programs incorporate the philosophical tenets of the Consent Decree -- in particular, that all students can learn.[70] The district establishes high standards that apply to all students. Teachers with students that lag behind, particularly students of one particular ethnicity, are accountable for their performance.

In keeping with the philosophy of CIPD, teacher expectations are not addressed directly through professional development. Rather, Associate Superintendent Santos and the CIPD staff believe that such issues are incorporated into the workshops and research that underlie the training. In addition, they believe that teacher expectations and other equity issues are addressed at the Refinement stage through the case-study approach. When teachers are examined on tape, principals and other teachers can see if their curriculum and classroom is indeed "dumbed down," with respect to the entire classroom or to particular students. If teachers are not asking "thinking" questions, and are not expecting high performance from their students, the problem can be corrected during this process.

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[71] 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...such as the "hateful language" seminar described above.

The case-study approach may be a particularly promising avenue in this regard. To the extent that this approach examines low teacher expectations, it could be an effective instrument to counter the damaging consequences of such expectations.

3. Union-Management Issues and Related Concerns regarding Lack of Collaboration in Professional Development

As discussed above, professional development in San Francisco is organized by the Central Administration. CIPD sets the priorities, working with the superintendent of the school district. It then decides what professional development resources each school gets and what kinds of workshops are administered during site-days. District development days are similarly centrally organized. Teacher-leaders develop workshops by working mostly with CIPD.

This structure has engendered criticism from some teachers, including the UESF. An interview with Kent Mitchell, the Union President, revealed the depth of these criticisms. Mr. Mitchell believes that while the district should set priorities, actual implementation strategies should be developed in conjunction with teachers and the union.[72]

An evaluation of labor-management issues in SFUSD is beyond the scope of this report. However, we note that some of these concerns are apparently being addressed within the context of the negotiations described below in the CSIP/Reconstitution analysis under Paragraphs 39-41. We also note that --with respect to teacher expectations -- a collaborative effort to develop programs addressing this area may help ward off problems that might arise in staff development sessions focusing on these issues. For example, there is evidence that attempts to deal with low teacher expectations of African Americans and Latinos traverses very sensitive territory. It also risks creating division and antagonism among other segments of the student and teacher population. Incorporating more teacher input and decision-making may alleviate some of these potential barriers.

4. Administrative Directives -- Communication between the SFUSD Administration and the Schools

SFUSD's formal professional development activities are only part of the program. To further our investigation of SFUSD policies pertaining to professional development, teacher expectations, and the academic achievement of minority students, we have reviewed the district administrative directives from September 1998 through March 1999. Administrative directives are circulated to each school on a weekly basis throughout the school year as a formal mechanism by which the SFUSD administration communicates with local school sites.

Below, we have extracted relevant information from over 500 1998-1999 administrative directives and divided the information into two categories: (a) Administrative Directives Addressing Professional Development and (b) Administrative Directives Addressing the Academic Achievement of Minority Students.

a. Administrative Directives Addressing Professional Development