>> are we ready? good afternoon. good afternoon and welcome to the april 26, 2012 meeting of the joint committee, select committee of the city and county of san francisco in the san francisco unified school district. my name is david campos. i represent the board of

supervisors on this committee. and i'm the chair of the committee. we will be joined shortly by christina olague who is en route. we also have been joined by board of supervisors president david chiu and we have been joined by commissioners sandra lee fewer, kim-shree maufas and hydra mendoza who are members of this committee. we also have been joined by supervisor jane kim. the clerk of the committee is gil johnson and ester casco. and we also would like to thank charles cremenak and john rios from the sfgtv staff who are helping to cover this meeting. we also want to thank the members of the audience who are here and watching this hearing. i know that this is something that is very important to so many families and so many parents in the city. madam clerk, if you can please >> thank you.

it's file number 110527 and a hearing on the a-g request requirements for high school as sponsored by supervisor chiu. >> thank you. madam secretary. this is an item that was introduced a while back by supervisor carmen chu. and it is my pleasure to now hold this hearing today. let me begin by noting that the issue of a-g requirements is something that i know the board of supervisors and board of education in particular have been paying attention to. and it's been a very important issue at the school district. the purpose of this hearing today is to have a better understanding of our progress. and specifically our progress when it comes to closing the achievement gap. i know from my own experience, having worked at the school district, that the achievement gap has been something that the

district has been tackling for many years. and even though we have a lot to be proud of, and we are the highest performing urban school district in the state of california and one of the top ones in the country, the fact is that our african-american kids are -- our latino kids, our english language learner kids, they're still not performing at the level that they need to. so we want to understand today how our kids are doing in terms of meeting the a-g graduation requirements. we know that the class of 2014 will be the first graduating class under these requirements. so i think it's important for us today in 2012 to understand the progress that we have made. it's also important for us to understand the challenges and some of the difficulties that the district has faced in dealing with this very important issue. and we also want to take this opportunity to discuss

strategies and solutions to address those challenges. i know that in district nine, my district, there are many families that are deeply concerned about this issue. and within district nine, you have about six of the 10 lowest performing schools in the district that are in san francisco unified school district that are in my district. so this is definitely a big priority and has been the impetus behind initiatives like the promised neighborhood initiative that the school district, the mayor's office, my office and other community members have been working on. so with that context, if i may call bill sanderson who is the executive director of curriculum and instruction at san francisco unified. mr. sanderson, the floor is yours. thank you for being here. >> thank you, commissioners. and members of the board of supervisors. i think that for the past five years, this has been an

integral part of my work as both member of the community of san francisco and a member of the work force in san francisco unified school district. so sometimes i believe i can say this stuff in my sleep. and i talk a-g all the time. and so it is really a pleasure to bring this to your attention today. at the heart of this is access, access for all students to a curriculum that would lead them to successful entrance into the u.c.c. issue system. the strategic plan of the school district specifically called out for all students to graduate not only ready for college but also ready for career in the work force. sfusd recognizes that many

students were graduating with an sfusd diploma, but they were not necessarily ready to matriculate into the c.s.u. or u.c. system. last year the unified school district board of education required all students that beginning with the class of 2014 to meet the u.c. a-g criteria. and i'm going to go over that in just one moment. data shows that there is a significant need for us to address the skill level for many of our students that are entering high school before they actually can be ready to meet these requirements. and i'm going to show you some of that data today. but first of all, let's look at what is a-g. because these are simply letters, and i want to bring a clear definition to what those letters are. and i'm talking about this from the perspective of the u.c.c.

issue system. the u.c.c. issue system requires a course sequence of courses in these areas. history, 30 credits, english, 40 credits, mathematics, 30 credits, laboratory science, 20, language other than english, 20, performing arts, 10, and 10 of an elective. these courses are submitted by schools across the state annually for approval by the u. c.c. issue system. with that said, last summer, after we had the first class of 2014 in ninth grade, we looked at what was happening with that group of students.

we were looking at students that failed a la and why we looked at those, newcomer students who needed additional english language development to advance to english classes that actually met the a-g requirements. and eighth grade students who were most in danger of transitioning to the ninth grade. this was a group of students in eighth grade. they may not have transitioned to ninth grade for one reason or another. and we focused on that group of students. you may ask why we focused on that group of students. a leading national indicator actually tells us that in high school, failure of two or more classes in english, math, social studies, and science in the ninth grade actually tells us something about whether or not that student will graduate from high school and be successful.

over the past three years, sfusd, we've had an average of approximately 17% of our entire ninth grade failing two or more courses. so this is why we are concerned about these particular areas. last summer, we were able to not only take a look at these students but to actually present a way for us helping these students continue to -- continue on in high school and be successful and actually beat the odds. because we did not want students to continue on in 10th grade behind courses as the research said that tells us something about their success. so we looked at students specifically in the ninth grade and how they had done in the fall semester of their ninth grade year. approximately, we have 4,200 students per grade level or per

ninth grade class in san francisco unified at this time. when we looked at the ninth grade first semester grades for last academic year, 481 students in english had an f. and those students i have divided them out by the subgroups that you see below. 5% of those students, of those 481 were chinese, 29% of those students were african-american, 23 latino, 19% english language learners, and 26% special education. in algebra, and you may ask, why is the n lower significantly in algebra? the reason that 2000 is lower in algebra is because when we pass the policy, the new

graduation requirements policy, we paved the way for students that had taken algebra one in the eighth grade, actually gain high school credits. and we can do that. and the board of education really -- was moving us forward in that area. and so that is why the number of students that are enrolled in algebra is significantly less. these are students who did not get credit for algebra in high school -- in middle school. and they moved object to high school to take algebra in their ninth grade year. of those 2,000 students, 411 of them had an f. 8% of those were chinese. 39% of those f's were african-american. 30% were latino. 26% english language learners. and 28% special education. so it is really -- this is the

reason why the funding that we received from the city last year that we focused on these areas for students that had just completed their first semester of ninth grade. it was very clear to us that we needed to address that. so the pattern that you will see the presentation today is that we will take a look at what the problem is, how we address the problem last summer, and then what were the results from that action that we took. >> mr. sanderson, before you continue, i think that supervisor kim had a question for you. >> actually, i just had a quick clarifying question. so when you say 8% of chinese students, i mean, 8%, 39% of african-american, you mean 8% of the entire chinese american student population? >> no. i mean 8% of those 411 f's. this takes -- this is just

looking at the f's. >> ok. so then looking -- if i just go to the english column, where it says that 86 chinese american students got f's and then 94 african-american students got f's, it says that -- the chinese americans make up 5% and then africans make up 29%. but the difference is only eight students. am i misreading that? why is the percentage so dramatically different? >> because of the total number of students in that ethnic group enrolled -- >> that was my question. so 5% of chinese american students failed, not 5% of all f's in english? >> right. that -- >> that was my question. >> thank you. >> a quick question related to that. and maybe that's something you address down the road. but how surprising where -- were these numbers? because this is a pretty stark contrast that you're looking at. english, african-american,

students are three times more likely to be failing in in english thans the rest of the population -- english than the rest of the population. and compared to other ethnic groups, like the chinese community, six times more likely. so using that example, so with this in -- was this in the range you were expecting? or is this -- >> so we had looked at some data from the past. and so it is not hugely different from the data. but i think that this was a huge wake-up call for us. and really drove us to the point that we have got to do something rather than much like traditional ways. but to look at the past performance, it's not significantly different. supervisor campos: supervisor olague. supervisor olague: this is like

beyond acceptable. i mean, i'm shocked. i mean, this is significantly -- you have -- i'm not even going to -- 29% of african-american students, i mean, that's just -- i'll be really -- you know -- anyway, part of what i would like to know is where do these students live? where do they actually live? if we can get that kind of information. i would like to know what schools they attend. what their age groups are. this is shocking to me and we're at crisis. >> yes. we do not disagree.