A small victory for sanity

[Puppycow]

San Francisco recalls 3 members of city’s school board

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — San Francisco residents recalled three members of the city’s school board Tuesday for what critics called misplaced priorities and putting progressive politics over the needs of children during the pandemic.

Voters overwhelmingly approved the recall in a special election, according to tallies by the San Francisco Department of Elections.

Opponents called the recall a waste of time and money as the district challenges that include a $125 million budget deficit and the need to replace retiring Superintendent Vincent Matthews.

Remember that argument about the $125 million budget deficit; it will be relevant later.

Parents in the politically liberal city launched the recall effort in January 2021 out of frustration over the slow reopening of district schools, while the board pursued the renaming of 44 school sites and the elimination of competitive admissions at the elite Lowell High School.

“The city of San Francisco has risen up and said this is not acceptable to put our kids last,” said Siva Raj, a father of two who helped launch the recall effort. “Talk is not going to educate our children, it’s action. It’s not about symbolic action, it’s not about changing the name on a school, it is about helping kids inside the school building read and learn math.”

Collins, Lopez and Moliga had defended their records, saying they prioritized racial equity because that was what they were elected to do.

The recall effort was apparently led by Asian-American parents. Getting rid of competitive admissions for elite high schools in the name of "racial equity" hurts them the most. Also, the schools still haven't gone back to in-person classes yet, which has also been a big problem for working parents who have to stay home to babysit their kids during school hours. And of course, it has been terrible for the kids themselves in many ways, including increases childhood obesity and mental health problems. And I'll wager it's been especially bad for disadvantaged kids and single-parent households. (Evidences; more evidences)

One of the first issues to grab national attention was the board’s January 2021 decision to rename 44 schools they said honored public figures linked to racism, sexism and other injustices. On the list were Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and trailblazing U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.

The effort drew swift criticism for historical mistakes. Critics said it made a mockery of the country’s racial reckoning. Angry parents asked why the board would waste time renaming schools when the priority needed to be reopening classrooms.

After an uproar, the school board scrapped the plan.

Collins came under fire again for tweets she wrote in 2016 that were widely criticized as racist. In them Collins, who is Black, said Asian Americans used “white supremacist” thinking to get ahead and were racist toward Black students.

Racism against Asian Americans has come under a renewed focus since reports of attacks and discrimination escalated with the spread of the coronavirus, which first appeared in late 2019 in Wuhan, China.

Collins said the tweets were taken out of context and posted before she held her school board position. She refused to take them down or apologize for the wording and ignored calls to resign from parents, Breed and other public officials.

Collins turned around and sued the district and her colleagues for $87 million, fueling yet another pandemic sideshow. The lawsuit was later dismissed.

That sure shows who she puts first. If the $125 million budget deficit is a reason why the recall effort is a waste of time and money, demanding $87 million from the district for your hurt feeling seems unlikely to remedy that situation. That's money that would have to be taken out of school budgets.

Many Asian parents were already angered by the board’s efforts to end merit-based admissions at the elite Lowell High School, where Asian students are the majority.

As a result, many Asian American residents were motivated to vote for the first time in a municipal election. The grassroots Chinese/API Voter Outreach Task Force group, which formed in mid-December, said it registered 560 new Asian American voters.

Ann Hsu, a mother of two who helped found the task force, said many Chinese voters saw the effort to change the Lowell admissions system as a direct attack.

“It is so blatantly discriminatory against Asians,” she said.

In the city’s Chinese community, Lowell is viewed as a path children can take to success.

So, a small victory for sanity, but a victory nonetheless.

 

[Planigale]

San Francisco recalls 3 members of city’s school board


Remember that argument about the $125 million budget deficit; it will be relevant later.

The recall effort was apparently led by Asian-American parents. Getting rid of competitive admissions for elite high schools in the name of "racial equity" hurts them the most. Also, the schools still haven't gone back to in-person classes yet, which has also been a big problem for working parents who have to stay home to babysit their kids during school hours. And of course, it has been terrible for the kids themselves in many ways, including increases childhood obesity and mental health problems. And I'll wager it's been especially bad for disadvantaged kids and single-parent households. (Evidences; more evidences)



That sure shows who she puts first. If the $125 million budget deficit is a reason why the recall effort is a waste of time and money, demanding $87 million from the district for your hurt feeling seems unlikely to remedy that situation. That's money that would have to be taken out of school budgets.



So, a small victory for sanity, but a victory nonetheless.

I think the idea that if you did not re-name* schools you could re-open them seems silly. Are people really suggesting the board is deferring re-opening schools until they are re-named? My guess is these two issues are entirely separate.

I do think that addressing inequity in education is important, there is a tendency for any selective system to discriminate against those from a more deprived (in a broad sense) background.

My guess is that successful awards from court cases of this magnitude are going to be paid by liability insurance and not from the current educational budget.

This does have the aura of a rather right wing retrogressive campaign and not something to be celebrated.

*This not to say I support re-naming, but I think naming schools after individuals is always inherently risky and giving a hostage to fortune; far better just to go for something neutral like the locality, or street name. If you do name after people then you do need to ensure there are a range of sexes, genders, races and religions represented.

 

[Darat]

...snip...


That sure shows who she puts first. If the $125 million budget deficit is a reason why the recall effort is a waste of time and money, demanding $87 million from the district for your hurt feeling seems unlikely to remedy that situation. That's money that would have to be taken out of school budgets.

...snip..

In the UK that would be an insured risk, is that not so in the USA? So yes, it might slightly put-up premiums but doubt the school district would have to pay out the $87 million. (And why are they always such ridiculous amounts - my feelings are the most important in the world and even I wouldn't think hurting them was worth more than 50p.)

 

[Puppycow]

I think the idea that if you did not re-name* schools you could re-open them seems silly. Are people really suggesting the board is deferring re-opening schools until they are re-named? My guess is these two issues are entirely separate.

Perhaps they are separate issues, but one could criticize the school board on either ground separately, without reference to the other. But you could frame it as a matter of misplaced priorities. I don't live there, but the mayor of San Francisco (London Breed) framed it that way:
San Francisco mayor: recalled school board members were distracted by politics

“My take is that it was really about the frustration of the board of education [not] doing their fundamental job,” she said. “And that is to make sure that our children are getting educated, that they get back into the classroom. And that did not occur. They were focusing on other things that were clearly a distraction.

My guess is that successful awards from court cases of this magnitude are going to be paid by liability insurance and not from the current educational budget.

Maybe so. I don't know whether liability insurance would have paid for that sort of thing or not, but in that case there would be insurance premiums to pay, and the money spent on insurance is money that cannot be spent on school budgets, so in the long run I think it's a loss anyway. Most insurance companies are for-profit companies, although I suppose that there are also non-profit cooperative schemes. Either method would cost the district money to participate in though. And maybe there's an upper limit to how much the policy will pay (the higher that limit, the more it will cost to carry the insurance). The school district's money comes from taxpayers, so by suing the school district or any government body for that matter, you are ultimately suing the taxpayers.

Regardless, the case was dismissed. She sued them, by the way, on free speech grounds, arguing that her constitutional rights under the First Amendment had been violated because other members of the school board passed a resolution to remove her from her position.

Here is the complaint
I'll just quote a small excerpt:

1. On March 24, 2021, DEFENDANTS drafted a “Resolution” to remove Commissioner PLAINTIFF ALISON COLLINS (“MS. COLLINS) from her position as Vice-President of the San Francisco School Board, and upon giving 24 hours’ notice, on March 25, 2021, voted 5-2 passing that “Resolution”, stripping PLAINTIFF ALISON COLLINS of her vice-president position and membership on all committees.
2. DEFENDANTS’ illegal actions, in violation of MS. COLLINS’ First Amendment Rights of free speech, were premised on a series of tweets published on December 4, 2016, nearly four and one-half years ago when MS. COLLINS was a private, non-governmental employee.

When this was taken before a judge, the judge said that it had no merit:
Judge Tosses Alison Collins's Bizarre $87 Million Lawsuit Against SF School Board

At least a couple of legal experts dismissed the whole thing as a PR stunt — one told Mission Local that it was "an op-ed pretending to be a lawsuit."

And now a judge has dismissed it as well. As the Chronicle reports, Judge Haywood Gilliam, Jr. of the Federal District Court of Northern District of California tossed the suit today, days ahead of a scheduled hearing, saying no further arguments needed to be heard in it, and that the claims had no merit.

Ultimately, the voters decided that this is not the person they want in charge of their school district.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

This does have the aura of a rather right wing retrogressive campaign and not something to be celebrated.

*This not to say I support re-naming, but I think naming schools after individuals is always inherently risky and giving a hostage to fortune; far better just to go for something neutral like the locality, or street name. If you do name after people then you do need to ensure there are a range of sexes, genders, races and religions represented.

I'm not so sure of that. It's still San Francisco after all, the people replacing them are not likely to be right wing psychos.

I would assume that the driving issue for the most number of parents would have been the continued school closure more than anything else. Material interests trump everything else.

 

[Brainster]

This does have the aura of a rather right wing retrogressive campaign and not something to be celebrated.

Right-wingers like London Breed, the mayor of San Francisco?

 

[Planigale]

Right-wingers like London Breed, the mayor of San Francisco?

I do not follow SF politics, but in general the left of US politics would be centre right in Europe, so I guess it is a matter of definitions.

 

[Brainster]

I do not follow SF politics, but in general the left of US politics would be centre right in Europe, so I guess it is a matter of definitions.

San Francisco's politics is generally to the left of Labour in Great Britain. Seriously, this was blue on deep blue (leftists against further leftists).

 

[AlaskaBushPilot]

So, a small victory for sanity, but a victory nonetheless.

My cousin lives in San Francisco. His house is about half the size of ours, with just a tiny lot and is worth $1.5 million dollars. Like us, his family is bi-racial and despite being an uber-liberal they voted for the recall. So they were labelled white supremacists by the outgoing president.

Both the teachers union and the board took a maximum shut-down approach to schooling the last couple of years. That was the main issue for them.

The problem for parents is the amount of effort and personal risks involved in fighting the boards and unions are so much higher than just bailing on a failed system and educating them yourselves.

Despite $33K per year in funding per student in our locality, the entire K-8 school is now down to just over 30 students. It had 400% more students 15 years ago when the population was a lot lower.

The district just announced closure of three schools. It is an unprecedented flight from government schools. Homeschool is exploding.

That's the big fix. You have the wife in the home where she belongs, teaching the kids libertarian principles and obeying her husband. Cooking, cleaning, and all the other woman's work while the man brings home the bacon.