I am proud to live in a city with some of the best urban schools in the state. San Francisco has demonstrated what is possible with the outstanding results of many of our schools. But I'm outraged that in the very same city our African American students get even lower scores than special education students on standardized tests in elementary school. It doesn't matter whether you have kids in our school system or not + as a city that prides itself on being one of the most progressive places in the country, this is simply not acceptable. But changing these results will be difficult, and the work cannot be done by the schools alone. To create lasting change we must work both within the schools to improve curriculum and with parents and communities to help them nurture and support our students.
- Focusing our resources on teaching and learning. We must invest deeply in our schools and focus more resources on teaching and learning in the classroom. This includes more professional development for our teachers and good compensation for teachers and administrators so that we can attract and retain great staff. We need to build on models of teacher mentorship and support so that new teachers or struggling teachers have a chance to succeed. And we need to take the promise of Prop A and ensure we deliver so that we really can attract great teachers to our more challenging schools.
- Engaging families as part of the solution. Even the most heroic teacher will struggle to overcome the issues some students face outside of school that make it difficult for them to even attend, much less succeed in school. We must build stronger partnerships with the community, the city, and nonprofit organizations in the community to develop a holistic approach to helping parents become active participants in their children's education. For some this means working together to help address the issues those families face; for others it means providing more opportunities for engagement and ensuring that the school environment is welcoming to parents of all backgrounds. We must strive to get our parents as active and engaged as the students to foster a positive learning environment both inside and outside the school.
- Starting early, Pre-K as part of the system. Research shows that to succeed in school kids need to come in to elementary school prepared. San Francisco has recognized this need and developed Pre-School for All. For that to succeed, though, we will need to do more to connect the pre-school experience to the kindergarten experience, making sure what kids learn in pre-school is linked through curriculum and teacher partnerships to what they will need to know when they get to elementary school. And we need to find more creative ways to share facilities and build ties to the elementary schools so that students are familiar and comfortable with the environment they will enter. If we build vibrant partnerships between our pre-K providers and elementary schools, provide a real link between learning, and begin to build a community of parents early, we can make a big difference in the achievement of our students throughout their lives.
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