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Reading, Writing and Race in San Diego Schools

(page 3 of 4)

Culturally competent teachers are another access issue. After the Carlin decision, city schools required teachers to have human-relations training. Teachers went “kicking and screaming,” one school official says. “It’s not because they didn’t want to know about their students but because they found it boring. It was one more damn thing they had to do.” The training is still available to city school teachers on a voluntary basis.

Superintendent Bersin recognizes that the district has “a lot of work to do” in this area. “We ask doctors and lawyers to deal with one case at a time,” he says, “and we ask professional teachers to deal with 20 or 30 or more cases. And we ask them to have insight, and have sensitivity to each student so they can reach across to all of the students in their classrooms. That’s an extraordinarily difficult challenge. But that’s what the profession [requires] and is moving toward.”

He does not point fingers at the current teaching corps. “On a scale of 1 to 10 on cultural sensitivity, however deficient teachers may be, they’re a 7—way ahead compared to the rest of American society,” Bersin says, “simply because there is sustained contact and at least attempted communication across racial and socioeconomic barriers.”

Nick Aguilar, director of student policies and judicial affairs at UCSD, is a member of the County Board of Education representing the South Bay. Sweetwater Union High School District, he says, is an example of an area where he sees economics—as much as race—affecting quality of education. Citing Bonita Vista and Hilltop high schools, he says, “They used to be so-called white schools. They’re still high-income schools, but they’re no longer—quote—‘white.’

“And I’ve heard teachers complain at Bonita Vista High School that the [well-to-do Latino] parents are very demanding and are intolerant,” Aguilar says. “In some cases, the teachers refer to them as ‘those uppity Mexicans.’ So the issue is not entirely racial, it’s economic, too, and I think we need to inject that as a factor in terms of what does or doesn’t promote [racial] understanding or interaction.”

Supporting and sustaining parental involvement in a child’s education are two of the most challenging facets of the equal-access equation. Any teacher or administrator can recite a litany of examples where a parent’s help is needed but never furnished.

“Our parents are silent partners sometimes,” says Alma Pirazzini, director of the Sweetwater District’s program for gifted students. “Their voices are not heard. They’re intimidated by the structure of the schooling or by teachers, and they have this incredible respect—but they don’t verbalize what they want. We try to make our parents more active, more vocal, but they have to build a confidence and comfort level to feel like they’re equal partners with us.”

With more than a third of the county’s students speaking little or no English, the language barrier can seem almost insurmountable with parents. Ray Lozada, a teacher in the San Ysidro District, gives the example of a school open house, where there is the customary sign-in sheet for parents.

“I’ve met parents who are very embarrassed and uncomfortable because they can’t sign that sheet,” he says. “One experience like that is enough to scare a parent off from ever participating.”

Stephen Weber, president of SDSU, the region’s leading institution for teacher training, says part of the problem is what he calls a “first-generation issue—for language, yes, but also for society. We have such a dynamic society that the parents who obviously care about their kids are in a very difficult position to advise them, particularly on how to get on career paths in an increasingly technological society. And if they don’t even speak the language, it is their sons and daughters who are interpreting the culture to them. Not vice versa.”

Schools are experimenting with a broad range of programs to increase parental involvement in education. Some are more successful than others. The city school district has a grant program, for example, that awards money to implement programs individual schools deem appropriate to assist in communication and involvement with parents. The total amount available last year, says the district’s Trost, was $250,000—of which only $100,000 was claimed through 54 grants. The remainder was put into San Diego Parent University, a program to teach parents to become advocates for their kids, she says. (See the accompanying article on page 95 for more about this program.)

Superintendent Bersin calls parent involvement “perhaps the most difficult challenge for a district,” and an area “where the past has given us the fewest helpful guides, because we have this schism between the school and the home, and the parent and the teacher.” This, he says, is particularly problematic in “communities of color.”

While the San Diego Unified District, like many others, traditionally has relied on volunteers or parental coordinators for assistance, a pilot program is now in place to assign a certified teacher as “a parent academic liaison.” The program is being tested in eight schools where standardized test scores are among the lowest. Bersin says the liaison’s job is to create interaction between parents and teachers and to show parents what they can do at home to support what the teacher in the classroom is doing. He says the program is especially promising and one that is “providing some link that is organic and not just a program layer.”

Again, the private sector has weighed in with substantial help to increase parental involvement in schools. Businesses, unions, philanthropic groups—there are scores of organizations and agencies that donate money, materials and time to work with parents and schools.

One homegrown product is the Parent Institute for Quality Education, which began at Sherman Elementary (a southeastern San Diego school) and is now nationwide. The institute holds classes in 12 languages, including English, to empower parents to work effectively not only with teachers but with the whole school system. Classes last up to nine weeks, and there is no fee for parents. Costs are paid by the school or the institute, which receives donations.