Tags
San Diego Unified Board of Education, San Diego Unified School District, San Diego Unified School District Superintendent Cindy Marten, SDUSD Trustee Richard Barrera
Here are some interesting articles we received and discovered this past week…
ENJOY!
It Was Never About Busing
Court-ordered desegregation worked. But white racism made it hard to accept.
Quote from Article:
When Senator Kamala Harris confronted former Vice President Joe Biden at the second Democratic presidential debate about his support of bills to ban busing for school desegregation during the 1970s and early ’80s, he gave a sort of denial. “I did not oppose busing in America,” he said. “What I opposed is busing ordered by the Department of Education. That’s what I opposed.”
This quickly became one of the most talked-about moments of the debate. Many pundits suggested it was unwise for Ms. Harris to dredge up the racial hurts of a decades-old “failed” policy at a time when the Trump administration is caging children along the border and when Democrats are seeking to retake the White House.
But tellingly, there was little discussion about busing’s efficacy, at least not with facts, or about whether or not busing served its purpose of breaking apart the educational caste system.
And…
The term “busing” is a race-neutral euphemism that allows people to pretend white opposition was not about integration but simply about a desire for their children to attend neighborhood schools. But the fact is that American children have ridden buses to schools since the 1920s. There is a reason the cheery yellow school bus is the most ubiquitous symbol of American education. Buses eased the burden of transportation on families and allowed larger comprehensive schools to replace one-room schoolhouses. Millions of kids still ride school buses every day, and rarely do so for integration.
And…
Further, while it is true that close-by schools may be convenient, white Americans’ veneration of neighborhood schools has never outweighed their desire to maintain racially homogeneous environments for their children. Few remember that Oliver Brown, a petitioner in Brown v. Board of Education, sued for the right of his daughter, Linda, to attend her neighborhood school. Kansas’ state law allowed school systems to segregate at the behest of white parents, and so the Topeka school board bused Linda and other black children past white schools to preserve segregation. Across the South and in parts of the North, black children were regularly bused long distances across district and county lines, because as late as the 1950s, some local governments valued the education of black children so little and segregation so much that they did not offer a single high school that black students could attend.
And…
Many white Northerners initially applaudedthe Brown ruling, believing it was about time the South behaved when it came to its black citizens. But that support hinged largely on the belief that Brown v. Board of Education did not apply to them and their communities. When black activists in cities such as Chicago, Detroit and Dayton, Ohio, pushed to dismantle the de jure segregation that existed in their cities, white support for the integration mandate of Brown faded.
In New York, after activists had spent years pushing the public schools to adopt a comprehensive desegregation plan, about 460,000 black and Puerto Rican students staged a walkout in protest in February 1964. With the city’s white population declining, school officials had maintained segregation through racial assignment policies, keeping white schools half empty while black schools in some areas grew so overcrowded that children attended in shifts, half for four hours in the morning, half for four hours in the afternoon, while white children got a full day of instruction.
And…
I have spent most of my career chronicling the devastating effects of school segregation on black children. I have spent days in all-black schools with no heat and no textbooks. Where mold runs dark beneath the walls and rodents leave droppings on desks for students to clear in the mornings before they sit down. Where children spend an entire school year without an algebra teacher and graduate never having been assigned a single essay. And then I have driven a few miles down the road to a predominately white school, sometimes within the same district, sometimes in an adjacent one, and witnessed the best of American education. This is not to say that no white children attend substandard schools. But if there is a black school nearby, it is almost always worse.
And…
The same people who claim they are not against integration, just busing as the means, cannot tell you what tactic they wouldsupport that would actually lead to wide-scale desegregation. So, it is an incredible sleight of hand to argue that mandatory school desegregation failed, while ignoring that the past three decades of reforms promising to make separate schools equal have produced dismal results for black children, and I would argue, for our democracy.
District Deeds Synopsis:
A great article providing the history of busing and what affects it has had on black children and families.
As we have writtten about busing numerous times on District Deeds, the position of the San Diego Unified School District is clear.
Jam the “Quality School In Every Neighborhood” motto down the throats of every economically disadvantaged family by eliminating bus routes and dramaticaly reducing the busing budget to force them to go to local poor performing neighborhood schools.
The results of that strategy is to force those economically disadvantaged families, mostly families of color, to flee to neighborhood Charter Schools.
The response by Elemetary School Superintendent (ESS) Cindy Marten and Board of Education Trustee Richard “Tricky Dick” Barrera to the flight of poor families to Charter Schools is to support the restriction of opening new Charter Schools.
According to a recent Voice of San Diego article, Tricky Dick Barrera was quoted as saying:
“But Barrera insists there has been some movement. San Diego Unified allows parents to submit school choice applications for their child to attend any school in the district. Fewer parents are submitting choice applications than in previous years, which shows more people are satisfied with their neighborhood school, Barrera said.”
Really Tricky Dick?!? Lincoln Parents are satisfied with their neighborhood school?!?
Tricky Dick…you have been drinking too much of your own kool aid…and serving it by the gallon to naive local media!!!
What was missing from the article were the following 2 questions apparently not posed to Tricky Dick by the VOSD reporter:
How many parents have not submitted a school choice application because busing routes and the busing budget have been drastically reduced?
and
How many parents have not submitted a school choice application because they are sending their kids to Charter Schools?
We all know the answer to both questions…
Thousands of SDUSD families have made, and continue to make, the choice to move away from the SDUSD school district because of bullying and sexual abuse of their children and the financial, operational and educational incompetence of inept ESS Cindy Marten and power hungry Tricky Dick Barrera.
No lies and propaganda statements by Tricky Dick to the media can cover up that disgusting fact.
California May Create 5th Year High School Graduation Rate
Quote from Article:
The State Board of Education is expected to adopt the rate at its meeting on Wednesday; it would go into effect in time for the next release of the California School Dashboard, the color-coded system for rating district and school performance on a number of measures, including high school graduation rates.
The new rate would not replace the 4-year graduation rate, which follows a cohort of students from 9th through 12th grades. The state would continue to report that to the U.S. Department of Education and on state databases. However, a combined 4th- and 5th-year rate would become the key measure for the state’s own school accountability system; the new federal Every Student Succeeds Act permits this option, according to state officials. As proposed, the new rate would likely raise the graduation rate, though only slightly.
And…
To help decide how to calculate and report a 5th-year graduation rate, the state education department staff surveyed what other states have done:
- 19 states, including California, use only a 4-year rate, although many also calculate a 5th year, broken down by student groups.
- 16 states combine 4-year, 5-year and, for some states, 6-year and 7-year cohort rates using weighted averages that give the 4-year rate the most weight, up to 90 percent in the case of Utah.
- Eight states use simple averages of the rates.
- Three states report the highest of the rates.
- Two states report the 4-year and 5-year rates separately.
- The rest use the 4-year-rate plus bonus points for increases in diplomas earned subsequently.
And…
Based on recommendations of groups of technical and educator advisers, the department is recommending a methodology that combines the 4th- and 5th-year rates. In 2018, 5,692 students from the Class of 2017 completed their coursework to get a diploma. Under this proposal, those students would have been added to the Class of 2018 rate, raising the statewide graduation rate 0.2 percentage points to 83.7 percent.
Student groups with lower graduation rates would have seen a bigger impact. The rate for English learners would have risen 0.8 percentage points to 71.7 percent and 0.8 percentage points for low-income children, to 72.2 percent in 2018.
And…
Rumberger, who analyzed the state’s graduation rate in a study published last year by the nonprofit PACE, said he favors 5-year grad rates and understands the rationale for a combined rate, but criticized it for mixing cohort numbers. Raising the 2018 cohort graduation rate with diplomas earned by 2017 seniors “muddies the water,” he said.
District Deeds Synopsis:
We are sure that the SDUSD will strongly support the adding of a fifth year to the graduation rate. It is basically already an unofficial strategy in how they treat underperforming students.
At the end of 11th grade, the SDUSD boots underperforming Students that are at risk to graduate on time to local charter schools. This allows ESS Marten and Tricky Dick to remove flunking students from their student totals and artificially inflate the FAKE SDUSD Graduations rates at the cost of only one year of student funding. Since those flunking Students typically take a large degree of intervention cost to graduate, they are considered “Loss Leaders” by the SDUSD and dumped on Charters to flunk out.
The SDUSD propaganda department can then point to low Charter School graduation rates and claim that the SDUSD provides a better education.
The perfect lie deployed by prolific liars ESS Marten, Tricky Dick Barrera and the rest of their senior staff and Board of Education cronies.
What an educational disgrace and betrayal of public trust.
For Us, By Us: 3 Reasons Why Teachers of Color Need Their Own Professional Development Spaces
Quote from Article:
Throughout my years of teaching, I have attended many professional development sessions — some good, some not so good, and some great. This week’s Hidden Heroes: Building a Diverse Education Workforce Summit far exceeded my expectations, mostly because it was the exact opposite of my previous experiences. Not only was it a great professional development, but it was one where educators of color created it, specifically for other educators of color.
And…
1. We need to feel connected — seen, not invisible. Since only 18% of the nation’s teaching force is composed of teachers of color, it is highly likely that most professional development spaces mirror this statistic. Too often, I have found myself sitting in professional development sessions where I was either 1) the only person of color in the room or 2) one of few people of color in the room. Unfortunately, in situations like this, I am guilty of putting up a guard and proceeding in caution, as I know, this is not a “safe” space. Navigating in those spaces is tricky as I’m overly mindful of my demeanor, how my voice is both received and heard (if at all) and aware of how easily a person of color can become invisible in white spaces even though we very much stand out. And because of all of this, very little connections are made because of the simple fact, I don’t look like most of the people in the room.
And…
2. We need to be able to be our unapologetic selves…period. While attending the Hidden Heroes Summit, there wasn’t a single time where myself or the people I traveled with felt like we couldn’t be ourselves. This was obvious not only with my group but with the different groups in the room. The 70 educators and representatives from The Education Trust quickly became family, mostly because we knew that each person in that room shared our same experiences. I cannot tell you the power that lies in that — to be able to be in the same space with people and know, even feel that they too know what it feels like to feel threatened in white spaces.
And…
3. We need to see people who look like us in advanced roles, especially those related to education policy. At the Summit, each participant was provided with a roster of those present. The main detail that stood out the most to me was that the majority of the room held a doctoral degree AND had already made a space for themselves in education policy. And by making this space — they, in turn, had made/are making an impact.
District Deeds Synopsis:
A very introspective article that mirrors a large number of statements District Deeds has received from SDUSD Principals, Vice-Principals and Area Supertintendents of color.
The ESS Cindy Marten “White Woman Mafia” promotes white women and men above all and then only adds women and men of color who are willing to prove allegiance to Marten by betraying co-workers and swearing fealty to the corrupt, incompetent ESS Marten and her cronies.
Is it any wonder that thousands of teachers and administrators have fled the SDUSD?
Over the last 5 years:
- Experienced, skilled Teachers who might be candidates for promotion took early retirement.
- New Teachers and staff got laid off and found other jobs
- Highly skilled, experienced senior SDUSD administrators, who recognzed ESS Marten as a management disaster when she was assigned, RAN to other less dysfunctional school districts with much more skilled Boards of Education…and their careers skyrocketed!
All that is left in the SDUSD are TRAPPED Administators, Teachers and staff who have over 8-10 years of service and are forced to gut out the miserably toxic ESS Marten work environment to make it to their full pension.
If you are a TRAPPED Administrator of color, you are expected by Marten to betray your community and endure White Woman Mafia Professional Development.
A horribly oppressive “Hobson’s Choice” for dedicated Administrators, Teachers and Staff of color.
Now for our Quote of the Week:
“Between my potential and the deep blue sea, There’s a rock and a diamond either side of me. Between our potential and the break of day, There is nothing at all in our way.” -John Gorka
Have a great week!!!
__________________________________________________________
IF
- Your family has been injured by the San Diego Unified School District, go to the District Deeds Complaint Forms page to find instructions to fight for your Civil Rights!
- YOU ARE TIRED OF THE COVER UPS AND LIES BY SUPT. CINDY MARTEN…
Please Click the Link Below and sign the Petition Today and READ the COMMENTS to Support the REMOVAL of Marten by SDUSD Stakeholders!
District Deeds 
What is equity? Does it exist anywhere in SDUSD?
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