How We Choose the Board of Education: The Case for Reform March 2021

• The election process for choosing the Board of Education is not meeting the needs of

• The school renaming debacle illustrates why the election process of choosing the Board of Education isn’t allowing San Francisco to get the right people with the right priorities

• Many large cities successfully use an appointment process to choose a Board of Education that focuses on education outcomes

• The election process we use today was put in place in 1971 as an effort to stop school desegregation

• San Francisco successfully used an appointment process to choose the Board of Education for over seventy years from 1900-1971

• It is time for a citywide discussion to develop a new appointment process to choose the Board of Education

Is the election system of choosing the Board of Education meeting the needs of San Francisco?

We believe the answer is no. The fundamental problem is how difficult it is for voters to be sufficiently informed.

Nearly every voter today opens the voter guide, looks at the candidates for the Board of Education, and wonders how to decide. You read the brief statement, then look at the qualifications. This one is a teacher, that one is a parent. How to choose? Unlike the election of mayor or supervisor, where there are usually no more than three or four candidates and voters have some understanding about who they are and what they would do, the Board of Education may have ten or more candidates about whom voters have almost no information.

To make matters worse, San Francisco ballots are notoriously long and filled with complex decisions. In addition to all the normal races, the November 2020 ballot featured 12 state ballot measures and 13 local ballot measures. The San Francisco voter guide was 233 pages long. As a result, voters choosing Board of Education commissioners tend to default to incumbents, who nearly always win reelection1. For the candidates who are running for open seats, voters lean on

1 By our review, since 1998 only two incumbents have ever lost reelection, and one of those was Jill Wynns in 2016, who had served for 24 years.

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third-party endorsements over first-hand knowledge of candidate qualifications and policy preferences. These endorsements are generally determined by a small number of insiders whom most voters do not know. And since virtually all candidates and voters are Democrats, the political party system provides little useful information for voters to use.

Smaller cities generally have less complex elections, allowing citizens to learn more about candidates running for their local school board; they also have less complex school systems. The San Francisco Unified School District has over fifty thousand students and ten thousand employees, yet we have less information to choose the Board of Education than the residents of a smaller city have to choose their local school board.

San Francisco has a school board election system where incumbents nearly always win and candidates for open seats only need to win the endorsement of a small number of insiders. This makes it hard for voters to make informed choices and hold incumbents accountable. The school renaming debacle illustrates these problems.

School Renaming Debacle Illustrates Deficiencies of Citywide Election

The project to rename schools was an epic fiasco. There was substantial criticism of the effort when the recommendations were published, including a blistering critique by Mayor Breed. Then in January, a comprehensive analysis was produced that explained in detail the deep flaws of the process and output of the School Names Advisory Committee. Resistance intensified via numerous local opinion pieces and public protest.

Undeterred, on January 26 the Board of Education completely ignored all the feedback and adopted the recommendations of the School Names Advisory Committee in full: not a single school name was removed from the recommendation list, and no errors were acknowledged. The Board of Education did not even care to correct a single one of the numerous factual mistakes that had been identified.

The result was condemnation both locally and from around the world. No school board in living memory has ever become a laughingstock to this degree on such a national and international scale. It has been a humiliation for all who care about the reputation of San Francisco.

On February 21, in an op-ed published in the San Francisco Chronicle, Board of Education President Gabriela López finally acknowledged that “mistakes were made in the renaming process,” they need to “slow down,” to “provide more opportunities for community input,” and develop “a more deliberative process moving forward, which includes engaging historians at nearby universities to help.” Less than three weeks earlier, in a February 4 op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle, López had said the “prevalent narrative” that all the focus by the Board of Education on renaming had caused delays in reopening school buildings was untrue. But in the February 21 op-ed, she reversed

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course. Claiming that school renaming was “a process begun in 2018 with a timeline that didn’t anticipate a pandemic,” she said that process would now be paused, and “reopening will be [the Board of Education’s] only focus” until the schools are reopened.

Apparently, to hold this Board accountable and force them to change course it requires the combination of worldwide denunciation, multiple lawsuits, and the launch of a recall campaign.

And accountability is the key issue here, because all the details about the flaws of the renaming project were publicly available before the election, and the renaming project’s champion was running for reelection.

Here are the facts:

• Mark Sanchez co-sponsored the original 2018 resolution for the school renaming process, and was the only one of the three co-sponsors up for reelection in 20202.

• Mark Sanchez was President of the Board of Education throughout 2020, the period during which all the work of the School Names Advisory Committee was done.

• The chair of the School Names Advisory Committee was Jeremiah Jeffries, who is a longstanding supporter of Mark Sanchez and was his campaign manager in 2020.

• All the relevant meetings of the School Names Advisory Committee took place during the spring, summer and fall of 2020; every single meeting was posted online in its entirety for all to see.

• Mark Sanchez appeared in person at the September 23 meeting of the School Names Advisory Committee to offer his enthusiastic support for their work

• All the recommendations of the School Names Advisory Committee were made public in mid- October.

• Mark Sanchez was quoted on October 16 dismissing criticism by saying, “Predictably people are going to be upset no matter when we do this.” He also appeared in a video interview made by fellow commissioner Allison Collins lauding the school renaming process on October 19, three days after the Mayor’s critique.

Given the extraordinary unpopularity of school renaming, one would think Sanchez might have paid some political price for his intimate role in championing the school renaming.

2 Matt Haney had become a Supervisor by 2020, while Stevon Cook did not stand for reelection in 2020.

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But in fact, Mark Sanchez easily won reelection. He and Jenny Lam were the two incumbents, and as usual for incumbent Board of Education commissioners they garnered the most votes in the field.

The President of the School Board was so confident of reelection he felt free to pursue a wildly unpopular pet project in full public view during a public health emergency, even with all the relevant facts in the public domain.

Clearly, our election system is having problems attracting the right people to serve on the Board of Education and holding them accountable to focus on the right priorities. Is there a better system?

Appointment System Used by Many Large Cities Successfully

San Francisco’s public schools are not adequately serving its residents. Our city has one of the highest opt-out rates among all major US cities, and our schools suffer from a persistent achievement gap for its low income students of color3.

Many large urban school districts over the last several decades have shifted from an elected school board to an appointed school board. These include such prominent cities as Boston, New York and Washington D.C. They are doing so in an effort to address similar issues of school performance that bedevil San Francisco’s public school system. And it appears to be having a positive effect.

A 2013 analysis conducted by two leading academics who have studied this subject in depth provides promising evidence that shifting to an appointment system can improve student outcomes and improve the way resources are managed. Some of the key benefits listed are:

• Higher investment in teaching staff

• More spending on instruction

• Smaller student-teacher ratios

• Improvement in academic performance relative to average school district performance statewide

• Narrowing of the achievement gap

Additionally, cities with an appointment system such as Chicago, New York and Washington D.C. have managed better through the difficult issues raised by the pandemic, as noted by the Washington Post Editorial Board on February 18. Chicago’s mayor, Lori Lightfoot, specifically

3 For the high opt-out rate, see this 2017 story by the New York Times, which states, “Around 30 percent of San Francisco children attend private school, the highest rate among large American cities.” The achievement gap has been repeatedly documented; underlying data can be found at the Assessment of Student Performance and Progress website.

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credited the oversight role her office has in facilitating the reopening of schools. Here in San Francisco, by contrast, Mayor has been forced to sue the school district in an effort to get them to focus on reopening the schools.

A key fact to keep in mind is that the design of an appointment system is not an “off-the-shelf” policy by any stretch. Local context is crucial. Adopting an appointment system is a framework; the details must be developed to meet the needs of the specific city.

The following table, copied from the above-mentioned report, shows some of the options just for the basic question of how much authority the mayor has in appointing candidates for a school board.

Opposition to School Desegregation in 1971 is Why We Elect the Board of Education Today

Through a series of reforms in the early 20th century, San Francisco developed an appointment system where the mayor nominated candidates that the electorate then confirmed. This system was working well for San Francisco until it was changed by a charter amendment in 1971. Why was it changed?

The reason for changing to the election system used today was opposition to school desegregation.

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In February 1969, the Board of Education took up Education Equality/Quality, a school desegregation plan submitted by the San Francisco Citizens Advisory Committee. Although the plan affected only one fifth of the elementary school population it provoked intense opposition, and it required another year for the plan to be finalized. The Board of Education conditionally accepted the plan in June 1969 subject to further revisions and submissions, and then adopted it in January 1970.

Civil rights proponents viewed this as an overly modest pace of desegregation. The SF NAACP filed a lawsuit, Johnson v. San Francisco Unified School District, to force citywide elementary school desegregation. The lawsuit succeeded, and replaced the modest Education Equality/Quality plan with more sweeping court supervision4.

Opponents of school desegregation pursued many strategies. One of these was to change the Board from an appointment system to an election system because, “It was believed that a board determined by the electorate would much more vigorously oppose the desegregation of San Francisco schools.” This effort intensified after the Board appointed a Superintendent more sympathetic to school desegregation in the fall of 19705.

In November 1971 Proposition S, a charter amendment to switch to citywide election of the Board of Education, was placed on the ballot. Among those who co-signed the opposition argument against the measure published on the ballot was the SF NAACP. Nevertheless, Proposition S passed, implementing the election system for choosing the Board of Education that San Francisco continues to use today.

Before 1971, San Francisco Developed a Successful Appointment Process for Choosing the Board of Education

San Francisco first adopted an appointment process to select the Board of Education in 1900, when a new City Charter took effect. Up to then, various election methods had been used to select the Board of Education. The appointment system adopted in the new City Charter was part of a broader attempt to reform the division of political election and professional management.

In the system originally adopted in 1900, the Board of Education had four professional directors appointed by the mayor serving as full-time, salaried technical experts, with the County Superintendent serving ex officially and on equal footing6. However, the superintendent was still elected, which did not solve the problem that, “There was little that could be done to assure that popularly elected boards and superintendents would meet any test of quality, qualification or

4 The source for the material in this paragraph and the one above is Class Action: Desegregation and Diversity in San Francisco Schools, by Rand Quinn; Introduction, pp. 1-2 5 The source for the material in this paragraph is Class Action, Chapter 2, p. 59, including the quote 6 The source for the material in this sentence and the previous paragraph is The Administration of the San Francisco Public Schools, 1847 to 1947, by Lee Stephen Dolson [hereafter “Thesis”]; Chapter V, in particular pp. 298-301

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dedication to educational service.” This led to building political pressure and a series of investigations and analyses, which eventually led to a second reform7.

The second reform was Charter Amendment #37 passed in 1920. The superintendent became an employee of the Board. The Board was expanded to seven members, appointed by the Mayor and subject to confirmation or rejection by the electorate. This system was refined but basically kept intact by a new City Charter effective in 1932. In this system, Board members were non-salaried and non-technical, but still generally of high quality8.

The source document for this history is a Ph.D. thesis submitted in 1964 to UC Berkeley by Lee Dolson, “The Administration of the San Francisco Public Schools, 1847 to 1947.” Near the end, he contrasted the effectiveness of appointed versus elected boards over the history of San Francisco.

Under the appointment system, Dolson noted that because the electorate would hold the mayor accountable for the performance of the Board of Education:

Mayors have [i.e. up to 1964], almost without exception since the 1900 Charter, shown enough political astuteness to make appropriate appointments. Consequently, Boards have been of relatively high caliber9.

In contrast, Dolson noted:

The worst boards and the most ineffective educational programs in City history have run concurrently with the elective board era10.

Crisis of Confidence Provides Opportunity to Develop a Better System for Selecting Board of Education

It is too easy simply to cast blame on the Board of Education. We must look ourselves in the mirror and acknowledge that we, the voters, elected a majority of these people just a few months ago.

The election system for selecting the Board of Education is not serving us well. And this makes sense, since the truth is the election system for selecting the Board of Education was not adopted to get the best possible people to oversee our public schools. It was adopted to resist desegregation fifty years ago.

We need a better system for choosing the Board of Education.

7 Thesis; Chapter VI, also recapitulated in Chapter IX, pp. 670-671 8 Thesis; Chapter VII, in particular pp. 437-439 and pp. 473-477; also see Appendix E 9 Thesis; Chapter IX, p. 675 10 Thesis; Chapter IX, p. 674. A very similarly worded version of this statement was the first listed reason to vote “no” in the opposition argument to Proposition S published on the ballot and co-signed by the SF NAACP.

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San Francisco fits the profile of the kind of large urban school district that makes it an ideal candidate for an appointment system. And we successfully used such a system once. Our crisis of confidence in the Board of Education is an opportunity to develop a new 21st century appointment system to choose the right people with the right priorities to oversee our public schools.

The Campaign for Better San Francisco Public Schools intends to lead a citywide discussion about how to develop a new appointment system for the Board of Education, with the goal of designing a ballot initiative for voters to decide in June, 2022.

Paid for by Campaign for Better San Francisco Public Schools. Financial disclosures are available at sfethics.org.

All content and research for this document was donated by volunteer San Francisco public school parents.

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