San Francisco's school board in name only
sfchronicle.com
sfchronicle.com
> The term was coined as a metaphor to illuminate Parkinson’s Law of Triviality. Parkinson observed that a committee whose job is to approve plans for a nuclear power plant may spend the majority of its time on relatively unimportant but easy-to-grasp issues, such as what materials to use for the staff bikeshed, while neglecting the design of the power plant itself, which is far more important but also far more difficult to criticize constructively. It was popularized in the Berkeley Software Distribution community by Poul-Henning Kamp[1] and has spread from there to the software industry at large.
So anecdotal for my area, yours may be different.
1) Body bags demonstrations on administrator buildings and in case the lawn of a few board members
2) One county where the union stated that it was optional for members to take untested and possibly dangerous vaccines
3) Two demanding extra money for virtual teaching because the contract did not specify, another wanting to ban it in the future contract
4) More than one local union has demanded no more vouchers and ending even magnet/charter type schools before returning to class.
5) Nearly all of those not doing any in person have demanded no testing be permitted with some wanting a three year moratorium
All this with some local counties doing just fine with no one dropping dead. Yes there were two deaths in a neighboring county but tracking it back to school is near impossible but heavily suggested as proof.
Two neighbors in different districts basically tell the same story, you are required to be on the FB group and do what you are told. Which mostly is agree with the FUD, do not talk to administrators without permission and follow the script.
Just like the police unions which have effectively isolated the police members from real oversight by the public so have the teachers unions done the same but those at risk are our children. Public sector unions are dangerous as they answer to no one. They pretty much walk the local politicians around on strings like puppets and whoa to any in office or campaigning person who dares talk "reform".
We had the perfect opportunity to right education. In the US the DOE has been around since Carter and spent hundreds of billions of dollars for no improvement. Teachers Unions stamp out school choice whenever they can. Basically their number one job is to prevent people from having a choice to get their children educated and they have the power of government and control over politicians to force it.
It’s even more ridiculous than it sounds. As documented in the Families for San Francisco report https://familiesforsanfrancisco.com/Updates/ https://familiesforsanfrancisco.com/gallery/School%20Renamin... Revere was fighting the British in the Penobscot Expedition, not colonizing the Penobscot tribe of Native Americans as claimed by the School Names Advisory Committee.
> Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s role in a controversy over a Civic Center Plaza flag display that included the Confederate banner
This is ironic because in the resolution that the School Board adopted in 2018 that started this renaming business (https://go.boarddocs.com/ca/sfusd/Board.nsf/files/AYV7FN7557...), Feinstein is listed as one of the schools that they “proudly, confidently and with the advocacy and support of the community” renamed schools to! But now, the School Board has decided that it is time to rename the school away from her name.
> One school was found to be named after a street that was named after a South Carolina county that was named after an English politician who was impeached by the House of Commons in the 17th century.
They’re talking about Clarendon Elementary School, which is named after Clarendon Ave. The committee member claimed/speculated that this street is named after Clarendon County, South Carolina, but I haven’t found documentation proving this (it started showed up in maps of San Francsico around 1890). Clarendon County is named after Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, who owned the Carolinas and who oppressed people by violating habeas corpus in the 1660s.
Given the manifest stupidity at the school board, I wonder whether there will be increasing interest in creating new charter schools or interest in converting existing schools to charter schools (which must be approved by a majority of teachers).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhas_of_Bamiyan#2001,_destr...
If one thinks that it is awful that the Uyghurs are subject to "[The Chinese government] wants to erase Uighur culture and identity by remaking its women"[1] and "By targeting women, China is attempting to dilute the Uighur population and destroy its culture."[1], then one really needs to look around and ask oneself some hard questions about what is going on in all of the west, but especially in the USA as this article illustrates.
Are western/European women not being targeted "to erase western culture and identity by remaking its women"? Or "by targeting women, [someone] is attempting to dilute the Amerian/European population and destroy its culture."??? I don't know. Maybe I am wrong and someone can make an argument for why I am wrong. It sure seems like it though when you are not biased against the west and look at things objectively without hate.
I can't see how any of what is happening in the west would be acceptable if, e.g,. the labels of the actors were simply anonymized, i.e., "Actor A has moved to remove all cultural reference of Actor B's ancestors, heroes, and historical figures as a matter of systemic policy and against the will of Actor B"
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/10/21/chinas-at...
Short-sighted moves like this are just going to make it that much harder to stop memorializing actual bad people in places that are less "woke" than SF..
If we are to judge historical figures only by their failings, then even Martin Luther King, Jr. would fail to live up to the impossible standards being used.
Gandhi would also fall short, depending on one’s perspective.
Insanity. The irony is that the attempt to be “inclusive” is actually exclusive to some. For example, George Washington is a hero to many Americans, as is Paul Revere. Stripping their names, to be, makes me feel less included. While naming a school after Barack Obama seems to be on trend, but historically just as fraught with moral minefields as any other former president.
I'm all for number naming btw. They should do PS-${RANDOM} or assign them by random to district.
Randomising the numbers, if there's already numbers in place would most likely be confusing.
Plants native to the bay. Easy. Add a few to the landscaping and you're done!
Although our schools mostly don't have names tied to key American historical figures, we do have a major university named for George Washington (as is the state). BLM activists have repeatedly vandalized the George Washington statue in the middle of the University of Washington Seattle campus (typically pouring red paint all over it). Inspired by CHAZ (the "autonomous zone" later renamed to CHOP), the UW BLM group took over the statue and set up an 'art installation' (https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2020/08/14/44267722/uw-prot...) to push their skewed perspectives. The spineless university leadership largely looked the other way and remained silent through their occupation of this space, and as these statues and other buildings were repeatedly vandalized. It's also interesting seeing the alliances that build up to condone and encourage such political vandalism - for example, Real Change - a Seattle area homelessness advocacy group - came out in support of it (https://www.realchangenews.org/news/2020/09/02/deconstructin...).
The erasure of the names of key figures like Lincoln is a normalization of attacks on symbols of the country's foundations, which is just a stepping stone to attacking those principles directly. I find the role of schools (like SF schools) and universities in enabling a political "dirty war" to be grotesque. We need to return to normalcy, where these spaces should strive to be neutral and not act on the demands of fringe activists who have all the time in the world to push for such policies.
"San Francisco" is the name of the mission. Obvious conquistadores/colonizers reference.
Should only people with school-age children be allowed to vote on school board members? This inclines me towards yes, although I understand the arguments against.
This is an obvious no. Apart from the issue of taxation without representation, not having children does not disqualify your opinion on education. There are plenty of taxpayers who are interested in ensuring that children get a good education at a reasonable cost who don't have kids.
We also do not live in a democracy but a representative democracy. Very big difference. Having the elected legislature or mayor choose the school board is perfectly in line with a representative democracy.
I live in a jurisdiction with elected schoolboards as well, and I find the notion odd and somewhat anachronistic. It seems only natural to me that public schools should be handled by the municipality's government, or maybe the provincial one directly. (The provinces have, in practice, assumed much of the responsibility anyway. I understand it's the same in the USA with state laws, and state funding, being very involved in public education.)
Even municipal elections are marginal enough that many people don't take them seriously here. No one knows anything about the schoolboard elections. I have to actively research quite a bit just to find out anything about the candidates. I often abstain out of ignorance despite trying to inform myself!
At least in California, school districts are independent from cities, and while most are wholy within one county, some aren't. The school district is the municipality. California municipal districts for the most part have elected boards, although the elections don't have to be run if there aren't more candidates than seats.
Pay attention when a California mayoral candidate says they're going to fix the schools. That's a sign that they either don't understand how schools in California work, or they think you don't. School districts aren't subordinate to cities, so mayors have no power over them. With a slight caveat that because San Francisco is a unified city and county, the mayor of SF is also on the SF county board, and counties have some power over school districts, but not a whole lot.
I have had similar questions about my native state of Florida. Florida, like many retiree magnets, suffers from having retiree immigrants who vote against the interests of those who still need schools, roads, and other infrastructure. I half-joke that we should amend the state constitution to restrict the franchise to those with skin in the game.
Obviously there would be childless voters who would have the best interest of students in mind when choosing school board members. For example, couples planning on having children might want to be able to influence the election.
Of course, a board elected by those with children could also be allowed to appoint childless advocates as well.
Those numbers are all too low, because the last category has substantial overlap with the first two.
It seems like the democratic equivalent of micromanagement.