Examiner Editorial: No more delays for school assignment fix

Student assignment process: Kindergarteners pack up their backpacks at Rosa Parks Elementary School. (Cindy Chew/The Examiner)

By now, most San Franciscans ought to understand it will not be easy to change our school district’s controversial student assignment process so that it stops being so frustrating for city families. The courts and the San Francisco Unified School District have been struggling to get it right since the first lawsuit in 1978.

On one side, many parents demand that their children should automatically be enrolled in a school near home instead of possibly being assigned to a school across town. But in opposition, many other parents in neighborhoods with lower-ranking schools are just as insistent that their children should be able to attend better schools, even if it requires more travel.

So it is disappointing, but hardly surprising that the special committee formed by the Board of Education in December to gather public input and deliver a plan for improving the school assignments by April missed the deadline. A better system was supposed to be ready for the 2010-11 school year, but now it will be postponed for at least one more year.

Devising a plan the SFUSD could actually afford and that satisfies the contradictory priorities of all opposing sides — at least well enough to stop more lawsuits — is hardly something that could realistically be accomplished in five months. It is better to be careful than to be quick when dealing with something as significant as student assignments.

But school choice is a major issue for most San Francisco families. There should absolutely be no more excuses for delaying completion of a rational assignment plan any later than 2011-12. Currently, the number of students of one race at each school is supposed to be capped at 45 percent — without using race to decide school assignments. Diversification must be achieved via socioeconomic factors such as household income and first language.

The SFUSD presently requires families to apply for as many as seven schools and be chosen by lottery. However, last year 22 percent of families did not receive any of their choices when the district announced its first round of assignments. They were left in a limbo of waiting lists, hardship appeals or an optional second-round lottery — which might not be clarified until just before classes start.

Surely San Francisco families are entitled to relief from this stressful trap. True, it seems a foregone conclusion that no matter what changes are made, some San Franciscans will be loudly unhappy. But what should reasonably be expected is a plan that helps reconcile contradictory family priorities by providing parents with as many fair options as possible.