Dream Makers

The San Francisco Unified School District has some of the highest test scores in California when compared with cities of similar size, such as Oakland or Fresno. But its African-American and Latino students score at rock bottom. This is a decades-old trend that was supposed to have been reversed long ago.

In 1983, the district settled a lawsuit alleging its African-American students were segregated into poorer-performing schools than their white counterparts. Under the terms of the settlement, the district promised to fix the problem. Besides busing children to counter school segregation, the district also tried to revamp bad schools using a controversial then-new method of reform called reconstitution.

Detested by many teachers and the teachers' union, reconstitution swapped out the entire staff of a failing school for another staff, in order to give a new team a try. But reconstitution, as originally conceived, was never shown to be effective. Few of the reconstituted schools exhibited any lasting improvements.

Mostly, the educational performance of San Francisco's African-American and Latino kids got worse. At Davis, for instance, only three African-American students tested at the proficient level on the state's standardized language arts test in 2003. That same year, a single African-American scored as well on the standardized math test. Yes, one.

Besides having, as Superintendent Ackerman is fond of saying, "a moral imperative" to improve its failing schools, the district has other reasons to do so. Most compelling among those is the No Child Left Behind Act, which empowers the federal government to monitor low-performing schools, to punish them if they do not improve, and if they stay bad enough long enough, to intervene in the administration of the schools; the act requires states to do the same. One of the schools slated to become a Dream School next fall, Treasure Island Elementary, is already under state monitoring after failing to meet its test-score targets for several years in a row.

The inspiration for the Dream Schools as a method of reform is a wildly successful public sixth-through-12th-grade school in Harlem, the Frederick Douglass Academy. Founded in 1991 by charismatic former New York City Board of Education Chancellor Lorraine Monroe, the academy has been described as a "Catholic school without the crosses." Monroe imposed strict order and discipline via school uniforms and a set of "Twelve Non-Negotiable Rules and Regulations," any of which, if broken, could get students expelled. Parents have to sign off on the non-negotiables, which include getting to class on time and respecting others, and they are strongly encouraged to participate in their children's education. Classes are rigorous, and after-school tutoring is available to students who fall behind. Upon graduation, at least 90 percent of the academy's students are accepted into colleges and universities, many of them in the Ivy League.

The San Francisco Dream Schools differ from the Douglass Academy in several significant ways. Monroe created her academy from scratch in an abandoned school building and handpicked her staff and the promising but financially disadvantaged students who filled the school's ranks. The San Francisco school district decided to let students from the old schools stay, if they wanted. But when it came to staffing the Dream Schools, the district required all teachers and administrators to reapply for their jobs. Of the 36 teachers who chose to do so, 22 were rehired. Thirty-six came from outside the district.

As it had to past reconstitution efforts, the teachers' union responded with vitriol, condemning the process and saying it unfairly blamed teachers for the schools' poor performances.

Last fall, the district announced its plans to turn seven other schools, many in the Mission District, into Dream Schools. But an ensuing blitz of negative publicity generated, largely, by the union (which filed an unfair labor practices complaint against the district) had its intended effect. The announcement was met with intense opposition from some parents and advocacy groups in the Mission. The school district agreed to start from scratch, with input from the community, in developing models for these so-called "Phase II" Dream Schools.

Curiously, in the debate between the teachers' union and the district, there was little mention of the three original Dream Schools themselves, perhaps because the schools' early failures and victories were regarded as not yet dramatic enough to help either side's argument.

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Matthew Livingston roams the halls and schoolyard of Gloria R. Davis like a tall, pale ghost, his green eyes scanning for tardy scholars.

"Where ya going?" the principal calls, spotting one. It's a small African-American boy with a rumpled, untucked shirt and no tie.

"Class," the boy replies grumpily.

"Whose class? Ms. Hendricks?" asks Livingston, rapid-fire.

"Yeah," mumbles the boy.

"Well let's get movin'," says Livingston, personally escorting him up the stairs. "You're 10 minutes late." He eyes the boy's shirt and adds, "And tuck in your shirt."

With a few halfhearted swipes of the hand, the shirt goes in.