On the point of closing the achievement gap, according to the deputy director at a recent SPUR forum, in fact, test scores for african american and latino kids showed a greater improvement in the past year than test scores for white and asian kids. School assignment is just a part of the ansewr, and perhaps only a small part.

“The current student assignment plan has not met SFUSD’s longtime desegregation goals of reducing racial isolation and improving educational opportunities and outcomes for all students. A quarter of our schools have more than 60% of a single racial/ethnic group.”

“Priorities require a multidimensional approach; student assignment is one part.”

Marin County estimates that 25% of peak traffic volume is parents driving their children to school.

I do appreciate the complexities. But I have volunteered at my local middle school and see no benefit in busing in high poverty African American and Hispanic kids into a white middle class neighborhood just so they can go to school with a student body that is 90% African American and Hispanic high poverty kids. Socially, what is the benefit? Academically, what is the benefit? You say existing policies have helped close the gap. I assert that this is untrue. The education these kids are getting is so below what they need that the charge of criminal negligence is not unfounded. And this is not because I believe the teachers to be odious or incompetent–they are not. The administrative leadership, however, is appalling. The only schools that seem to be addressing the needs of high poverty kids adequately in San Francisco are the KIPP schools and they have located themselves in the communities that need them–the Western Addition and Bayview.

I would say create neighborhood schools where 30% of the slots are open to out-of-walking distance kids. Then fund the schools in the high poverty areas at double the other areas. Make the other areas fund raise to close the gap. (They would do it.)

The real answer, of course, is diverse, integrated, functional, working neighborhoods and communities. All the gerrymandering we do with schools is just a band-aid. We use our children as pawns because we adults don’t want to do the real work of creating healthy communities.

It’s a shame that so many of them will develop health and economic problems as a direct result of their dependence on car culture. They won’t even have known that there was an other way.

In fact just this morning I was leaving on my bike and a parent came whipping around the corner and was upset at me for being on the street. They treat it like a private driveway. Usually one parent with one kid in the back in a huge SUV.

I’m all for SF looking at ways to make it easier for kids to get to school by walking and biking.

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Some claim a significant percentage of San Franciscan’s bike to work. Rob Anderson says a negligible percentage bikes to work. Significant is not a number.

The school assignment system is tough. “Significant” numbers of people go 0-7 and then go 0-7 on the next go around. If I can’t get one of the 7 closest elementary schools to my house – I have to leave SF, it certainly becomes a “Non-livable-city” at that point.

So far the problems associated with long distance school commutes have fallen on unsympathetic ears with the majority of the school board. Certainly the problems that the assignment system are supposed to solve cannot be ignored, but the current system takes a city and makes it a de-facto sprawlville.

Video of the dragstrip that is Eureka St before Alvarado opens up forthcoming.