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This information is provided by the candidate
I believe in focusing on children and building consensus. I don't represent an interest group, a socioeconomic or ethnic group, business, or labor. I don't represent the administration or the individual advocates who come before us. I simply try to represent children and their families, to unite people with divergent views rather than drive them apart as winners or losers.
Board of Education meetings can be very tense, even raucous, as competing interest groups and ideas vie for support, yet we have been able to make innovative and important advances in school quality during my years on the board. None of these reforms were put in place easily. Yet they are now policy and non-controversial because consensus was forged, and because they are good for children and schools. Here are some of the things that we have done together:
- Strenghthened our Early Childhood Education program
- Established small class size in the crucial early grades
- Adopted stronger curriculum design and teaching methodology
- Restored Arts and Music instruction
- Expanded immersion language and other model bilingual programs
- Funded of schools based upon individual student needs
- Implemented site-based budgeting flexibility
- Implemented a system for school accountability and improvement
- Secured direct City funding for counselors, arts, preschool
- Required green building standards for all school construction
- Secured City support for afterschool Beacon Centers
- Improved pedestrian safety near schools
- Established School Gardens program and funding for green schoolyards
- Eliminated junk foods and fatty cafeteria meals
- Implemented Indoor air quality standards and Asthma Action Plans
- Protected students' privacy from intrusive military recruiters
- Expanded the PEER Resources counseling program
- Improved Sexual Harrassment prevention and detection
- Adopted Diversity curriculum including LGBT youth and families
In each of the last three years, SFUSD has been recognized as the top urban district in California, and in 2005 it was a finalist for the national Broad Prize in Urban Education. Our students take more AP courses and SAT/ACT tests than students in comparable districts; they matriculate in The UC and Cal State systems at a much higher rate than the state's average.
These successes are the result of teamwork among teachers, parents, business leaders, city government, and local universities. We have forged a common vision on behalf of children, and we can be proud of the progress we are making. But we still have many challenges ahead, and must look at our shortfalls candidly. These are our most pressing tasks that should be addressed immediately
- Reverse the re-segregation occurring in some of our schools
- Eliminate the associated opportunity and achievement gaps
- Improve parent communication in underserved communities
- Replicate our most popular and successful model schools
- Modernize facilities throughout the District
California's standards and suport for education have been woefully inadequate for decades, but we in San Francisco have the resources, talent and vision to create a model public school system that will lead the state, and ultimately the nation. If we include all our uniquely diverse communities in the improvement of schools, and if we extend the benefits of educational opportunity to all their children, then we will be fulfilling the promise of equality and diversity that we espouse so frequently.
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