You know, we're kind of getting into the week-long series that the Chron's doing on the San Francisco school system. It's a comprehensive look at all the various factors affecting the perception of our local schools: segregation controversies; why people flee to the East Bay once their kids hit school age; how the school system is actually doing much better than everyone thinks it is; and how the lottery actually works. Tomorrow they're discussing private schools in the area, and then funding, and then (what we're definitely looking forward to), "the politics." Switchblades out, school board! (hey, whatever happened to Heather Hiles, anyways?)
The articles are chock-full of anecdotes, which we always like, and it's always a good exercise for us in the morning over our first cup of joe for the day to practice not judging people. We were particularly proud of ourselves today for not being too harsh to the woman who said "no one loves San Francisco more than us" from San Diego because she thought Alvarado McKinley Elementary (with a 771 score; 800 being excellent) wasn't good enough for her child. Also, she wanted a bigger house. Her child is now at a school in San Diego that scored 948/1000.
We get that, sure, we're not judging. Well, maybe we're judging a little bit: we think maybe we love San Francisco more than she does (but we don't have kids). Anyways, it's been some good reading this week, and we're enjoying it.
Picture of Lowell High, the jewel of the SF public school system.
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It was Mckinley that was beneath Ms. Child-Pusher, not Alvarado.
I can say my kid had a problem transferring from Mckinley to one of those API strato-schools: She was too far ahead, and had read all the reading books already.
The "problem" was that Mckinley lets kids have individual learning programs, which means that some kids can lag behind, while others can read ahead as far as they want. The kid likes to read, and they let her.
For various reasons (such as size) the program at the new school didn't allow that, so now my offspring will be mentally scarred for life (not really, but she was complaining the first few months -- she also has well-developed complaining skills).
thanks for the clarification, Kwillets! Corrected in the text.
And that's cool that your kid liked Mckinley, Kwillets -- it really does seem to me that the SF public schools get an unfair rap and it's great to hear people who are having positive experiences with them. (Aren't these over-API-fixated parents the same people in high school who were like, "the SAT is just a number, man"?)
Ask me this question again in however many years when I'm outside the SFUSD building protesting my child's lottery number and school assignment, though! The whole school thing seems very tough.
I'm not from the area but I wonder how will children pass the californian final test equal for everyone if they have individual learning programms?