The number of schools in San Francisco with students of predominantly one race is on the rise

Bonnie Eslinger:

Although a federal court order to integrate San Francisco’s public schools ended this week, the number of schools with students of predominantly one race is on the rise, according to an independent evaluator’s report.

UCLA education professor Stuart Biegel, assigned to monitor desegregation efforts, said the data in his final report proves that unless race — or even a student’s geographical location — is reintroduced into the district’s student assignment system, San Francisco’s public schools will continue to resegregate.

In a November ruling that ended the court’s role in overseeing the 22-year-old desegregation effort, a federal judge said the original court order to diversify schools had been rendered ineffective in subsequent years due to a 1999 settlement that removed race from the equation when the district assigned students to schools. That settlement had been reached with parents of Chinese-American students who had filed a lawsuit charging that the district’s race-based caps lessened the chance that their children could attend the district’s well-regarded schools.

According to Biegel’s report, filed last week, more than one-quarter of the district’s schools, approximately 50, are severely resegregated at one or more grade levels — the worst it has been since the 1999 settlement.

In addition to diversifying schools, the federal order — called a consent decree — was also created to ensure the district worked to increase the academic achievement for the district’s minority students. While the San Francisco Unified School District has higher percentages of students succeeding on state standardized tests than other urban school districts in California, Biegel’s report noted that San Francisco’s African-American students score the lowest compared to their peers in other cities.

San Francisco’s school board has been consulting in closed session with district counsel in recent months to determine what, if anything, it will do to reverse these trends. While veteran board member Dan Kelly has authored a resolution that would bring race back into consideration when assigning students — which would likely face a legal challenge — the board is also waiting on recommendations by hired consultants before making any decisions on a new student-placement system.

Last year, in Louisville, Ky., a federal judge upheld the limited use of race in making student assignments to achieve racial integration in the public schools.

But lawyers for the plaintiffs in the 1999 lawsuit said the Kentucky ruling wouldn’t apply in California, since voters passed Proposition 209 in 1996, which eliminates the use of racial preferences for public education and other state agencies and programs.

Biegel said that as long as race was not the only factor used in assigning schools, he believed its use could survive a court challenge.

S.F. schools are resegregating, monitor charges