Are we just stingy Republicans?

By Bill Jackson

We just released our November 2022 voter guide and you may have noticed that we didn’t support any of the funding measures for SFUSD, City College, MUNI, or the library system (Propositions F, G, L, and O).

So, are we just cranky Republicans that hate any and all government spending?

No.

Let’s look at Proposition G (allocating City funds to K-12 schools) first. And let’s start with the argument in favor of the proposition: Our schools need more money to support the thousands of children in our city who have suffered during pandemic school closures. The mental health challenges are enormous and so is the need to catch up academically. More money will help!

That’s a pretty good argument, and I used to buy it. (I served as treasurer of the campaign to pass Proposition H in 2004, which still allocates City funds for early childhood education and K-12 schools.)

The problem, though, is that all the investment we make in our schools does not add up to results for our kids — especially not our low-income kids who most depend on us for high-quality schooling. Pre-pandemic test score results from the 2018-19 school year showed that only 39 percent of students from low-income families in the city were proficient in math, and only 11 percent of students from low-income African American families were proficient. (1)

Those are terrible results.

Meanwhile, at Mission Preparatory, one of the city’s highest-performing charter schools, 74 percent of students from low-income families were proficient in math. Mission Prep doesn’t have enough African American students to report data, but it did report that 74 percent of its students from low-income Latino families were proficient, trouncing the district’s 16 percent figure.

What’s going on here?

Creating and running great schools is hard. Success requires effective and consistent leadership, excellent teaching, a coherent curriculum, and trust among teachers, parents, and administrators. SFUSD has not been managed in a way that consistently promotes these factors for decades.

We at the Briones Society have had enough of this status quo. If we want to walk our progressive talk in San Francisco when it comes to K-12 education, it’s time to ask the tough question: What do we need to do differently so that our schools better serve the children and families of the city?

Perhaps the answer is to change something fundamental about how the school board operates and the district is managed. Perhaps we need a radically new governance system. Regardless, what’s clear to us is that throwing more money at the problem without addressing fundamental issues of governance and management is just a cheap way to feel better. It may let you check off the little box you have in your heart that says, “I’m a good progressive,” but it’s not actually what our children need most from us.

The same basic argument applies to City College. CCSF is a vital institution for San Francisco. We desperately need it to create pathways to upward mobility for tens of thousands of young people. But it has not been managed by people committed to maximizing its potential. It’s been living in la la land, run by people who don’t understand basic economics.

It’s time to demand more from our government, San Francisco.

Note: We’ll consider the case of Muni and libraries in a future post.

(1) All data from the California Department of Education. 2018-19 is the latest year for which reliable data is available.