In San Francisco, Only the Elite Will Get an Elite Education
The San Francisco Board of Education, hard on the heels of stripping dozens of names from public schools (some for sound reasons, others for idiotic ones), has now terminated the merit-based admission system at Lowell High School, one of the most respected public schools in the nation. From now on, only the city’s prohibitively expensive and racially segregated private schools will be feeders to the best universities in America. For decades, Lowell has collected the “best and brightest” from throughout the city’s diverse population and produced such distinguished alumni as Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, California Governor Edmund “Pat” Brown, sculptor Alexander Calder, primatologist Dian Fossey, Gap clothing entrepreneur Donald Fisher, comedian Margaret Cho and actor Benjamin Bratt. But now the San Francisco public education system will no longer have an academically distinguished school. This is another blow at quality in American public life, rather than a step toward racial equality — as San Francisco board members, who voted 5-2 to academically downgrade Lowell, advertised their decision.
Concerned Lowell parents have every reason to complain about this latest politically-correct, harebrained decision by the San Francisco public school czars, who fast-tracked the controversial move so they could stifle public outrage. “I don’t agree a merit-based system is inherently racist,” Lowell parent Mihir Mehta told the San Francisco Chronicle. “There are lots of ways diversity can be improved or enhanced at Lowell without blowing up the admission process the way it’s being done.”
I was a San Francisco public school parent too. I’m proud that my two sons, Joe and Nat, are products of public education. Most of the friends they made in school were from African American families who lived in other neighborhoods, and their close relationships with these kids and their parents and grandparents helped shape the young men my sons became — and changed the lives of my wife Camille and me. Camille was active as a school parent and I proudly served on the parents-teachers board at the San Francisco School of the Arts, where my son Joe, now a critically-acclaimed director, got his only film education. Will SOTA, a public school whose admissions are based on creative evaluations of young applicants, now also be canceled?
My family knew about the racist attitudes embedded in SF public schools, among some administrators, students and their parents. I heard from African American kids who felt singled out for punishment and mistreatment by teachers and school officials. Every institution in America is rife with racism, to one extent or the other. So I sympathized with the members of the Lowell High School Black Students Union who recently demonstrated for racial justice.
“Why is the idea of diversifying so terrifying? People want to protect Lowell from what? Black people?” asked freshman Hannah Chikere, one of some 45 African American students at the Lowell protest. “Sometimes I wonder what would happen to me if I went to this school in person. Every student is judged down to the detail of their being. It’s insensitive to call our cries for help exaggerations or stories.”
The racial composition of the Lowell student body — over 50 percent Asian, with 29 percent districtwide, compared to less than 2 percent Black students, with 8 percent districtwide — is simply long overdue for correction. This racial imbalance between Asian and white students on one side, and Black and Latino students on the other, also creates citywide tensions — some of which turn up in the recent rise in Black on Asian street crimes.
So, yes, we must seriously address the racial injustices in the public school system — which will take years of sustained, districtwide effort. But “blowing up” Lowell High School without any public debate and stripping names from schools without engaging in nuanced historical research is a stupid, counterproductive way to begin this process.
