February 9, 2010
"It didn't take long to recognize [Nate] Geller's teaching talent and see that his Teach for America training had prepared him well for the challenges of working at Francisco [Middle School]."
Get to Know San Francisco
San Francisco is world-renowned for its booming technological innovations and its progressive civil rights history. It has consistently been listed as the highest performing urban school district in California. Even so, it also has one of the starkest achievement gaps in the state.
The Academic Performance Index (API) scores for Latino and black students in San Francisco are 682 and 615 respecitvely, compared to a score of 879 for white students. Roughly just 30% of black and Latino students graduate high school with the required coursework to apply to a University of California school.
In response, the San Francisco Unified School District created a strategic five-year plan, entitled “Beyond the Talk: Taking Action to Educate Every Child Now” in 2008. The plan articulated a key focus on equity—ensuring that all students are provided equal access to opportunities and a quality education. The plan has launched a series of initiatives, including the creation of the Bayview and Mission neighborhood zones within the district, which are aimed at providing a more specific focus and funds to support the historically lowest performing schools in the city. Despite these moves towards positive change, there is still long way to go to elevate education to the level of excellence that the city is known for.
Teach For America corps members and alumni are a part of these efforts. Nearly 600 alumni live in the city, many of whom continue to teach and work in education and partner with diverse organizations aimed at ending the status quo for low-income children of color in San Francisco. The city is ripe for corps members to pull up their sleeves and work in tandem with leaders in the community to answer the question, “What does a quality education look like for all students in San Francisco?”
Region Leadership
Rob Strain, Senior Managing Director, San Francisco
Rob has been involved in the San Francisco educational conversation for the past four years – initially as a corps member teaching first grade in the Bayview and then as a member of the teacher leadership development team on Teach For America staff. He graduated with a degree in political science with a focus on health and human rights from the University of Pennsylvania, and his experiences since have helped him understand what equity looks like in the classroom as well as the bold and innovative thinking that will bring about change. Now, Rob leads the efforts in the city that he calls home and in the communities where his former students continue to live and learn.
Region Timeline
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San Francisco becomes part of the United States with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
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The next two decades see San Francisco becoming a magnet for America’s counterculture, specially the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement.
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The San Francisco Unified School District tackles racial desegregation at Lowell High and other schools by implementing a race-based admissions policy as a result of SF NAACP v. SFUSD and the Consent Decree settlement.
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A group of community activists organizes the lawsuit Ho v. San Francisco to challenge the race-based admissions policies of the Consent Decree.
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Ho v. San Francisco results in a settlement that modifies the Consent Decree to create a new "diversity index" system, substituting race as a factor for admissions with a variety of factors.
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Arlene Ackerman becomes superintendent of the San Francisco Unified School District and enacts Excellence For All, a five-year, standards-based accountability plan.
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Voters pass Prop H Public Education Enrichment Fund. Of its annual allocation, one-third is earmarked for free preschool programs, another one-third for sports, arts, libraries and music in district schools, and the remaining one-third for "general uses."
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The US District Court for the Northern District of California denies a request to extend the Consent Decree.
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Superintendent Carlos Garcia enacts Beyond the Talk: Taking Action to Educate Every Child Now, an initiative to close the city’s achievement gap.
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Board of Education President Norman Yee and other partners implement the PreK-3rd Grade Building Community-Public School Collaboration project to strengthen SFUSD's prekindergarten-to-third-grade track by connecting parents, community-based organizations, and the District.
Overheard
We talk about the achievement gap as the modern day apartheid. It’s all of our responsibilities, because this is a civil rights issue, and not just an education issue.
Superintendent,
San Francisco Unified School District
