The San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) announced a new plan to focus on "student outcomes" on Monday and, buried within their update, is a link to a report from late June looking at the performance of the public school district's students during the 2021-22 school year — and the statistics are abysmal.
The percentages of students meeting key metrics for success and readiness are provided by SFUSD as a whole, as well as broken down to show how "White, Asian, African American, and Latinx" — because of course — students fared by comparison.
For the 2021-22 school year, just 47.2 percent of students finishing eighth grade were found to be "ready for high school." Broken down, Asian students were most likely to be prepared at 71 percent while 47.4 percent of white students, 23.7 percent of "Latinx" students, and 15 percent of African American students were ready for high school.
When it comes to students with performance deemed "ready for college/career" by SFUSD, 57.5 percent made the cut. Again, Asian students were more prepared (80.3 percent) than white (65.7 percent), "Latinx" (32 percent), or African American students (24.7 percent) to start college or in their career field.
Yet, according to SFUSD's data, 88.3 percent of students graduated from high school including 95.1 percent of Asian students, 90.4 percent of white students, 86 percent of African American students, and 76.7 percent of "Latinx" students.
Astounding numbers just dropped from the San Francisco Board of Education.
— Michelle Tandler (@michelletandler) July 19, 2022
See "ready for high school" vs "chronically absent" and graduation rate. pic.twitter.com/ezYn2aK9zU
Michelle Tandler, a self-described moderate liberal, highlighted the failing performance of San Francisco's public schools and excoriated the unions and the local government for their work that put student success behind their own power and special interests. She hits the nail on the head:
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As a reminder, our elected officials spent most of pandemic debating school names and whether or not to cover a mural while kids sat at home without proper laptops or wifi.
— Michelle Tandler (@michelletandler) July 19, 2022
Their other focus areas have been getting rid of advanced math in 8th grade (which was deemed racist) and keeping the schools shut long past vaccinations were available.
— Michelle Tandler (@michelletandler) July 19, 2022
This is the failure of government - full stop.
— Michelle Tandler (@michelletandler) July 19, 2022
Our teacher's union has protected itself at the expense of these children's education.
I used to tutor SF public middle schoolers. Their teachers were often inept.
Are there any Republican-led cities or towns with numbers like these?
— Michelle Tandler (@michelletandler) July 19, 2022
I am confused. I thought Democrats care about public education.
If they do, then what is going on with these results...?
Someone - please educate me.
P.S. The obvious solution here is that a *lot* of teachers need to get fired.
— Michelle Tandler (@michelletandler) July 19, 2022
But from what I understand the politicians are so beholden to the union it's impossible.
Shame on us. This is a crime against children.
As Tandler pointed out, the issue in SFUSD is not a lack of funding — not even remotely. The district adopted its 2022-23 funding plan that came out to $1.1 billion for its total operating budget.
The dire reality for students in SFUSD — and within other public school districts across the country — is being noticed by American families who have discerned where the blame lies, as Tandler noted in her thread. As Guy reported earlier this week, teacher union boss-slash-tyrant Randi Weingarten made the shortsighted decision to commission a poll looking at what sort of education parents want for their children. Things presumably didn't pan out the way Weingarten thought they would:
For many years, Democrats enjoyed a wide advantage on the issue of education, with Americans trusting their party over Republicans on related policies by substantial and consistent double-digit margins in a raft of public polling. But when you become the party of lengthy, needless, science-rejecting school closures, people are going to notice. Weingarten's outfit hired a prominent Democratic pollster to conduct a nationwide survey on education-related issues. The results are so damning, I'm fairly surprised they decided to publish the study at all... Terrible, anti-student COVID policies have played a massive role in this shift, obviously, but there are other relevant factors, too.
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