http://www.sfgate.com/education/article/S-F-district-bans-out-of-towners-at-art-high-6288171.php
For San Francisco, this is amusingly hypocritical. A shoe-in for the hypocrite hall of fame.
Odd that they accept illegals but not their neighbors, but hey, it’s a progressive city.
It’s because rich people derive ideological satisfaction from helping the unwashed masses, just so long as they don’t have to actually mingle with them.
Umm, they are banning suburban kids (half white) from leeching off of the city’s public school teat. Not exactly an exclusivity thing, it’s a free public magnet school. Just focusing taxpayer money on the actual taxpayers - imagine that…
Don’t really see the hypocrisy unless it was some couched SF-slam (maybe someone from KC??)…
I don’t find this hypocritical at all. Many school districts allow ‘outsiders’ to apply to attend in their districts if there is room, and some have a fee for this or the money from the state/feds follows the kids. When there is no longer room, the district shuts off outside applications.
When it was time for my kids to go to school, the closest school to our house and by far the best school in the area was in another district. No way to get in except to move to that district, which ironically could have meant moving farther from the school and thus being eligible for busing so a higher cost to the school. I actually graduated from that high school, and I’m pretty sure when I attended there were more ‘outsiders’. Priority goes to those in the school’s zone, then to others in the district, then to siblings, then to outside the district. This school never gets to the lower groups. Other high schools in the district may take applications from outside the district, but not many, and they are farther from the boundary lines, so not as much interest.
Why to the school districts admit ‘illegals’ who live within the district? Because federal law says they have to.
San Francisco has just decided that the school is not meeting the needs of the citizens of the district. SF wants their schools to be more diverse, to better represent the make up of the city. If another district wants a school of the Arts, it needs to form one or come to an agreement with the SF school board. Here, 5 districts have a joint agreement for a school of the arts and for an expeditionary learning school. Each school takes a certain number of students from each district.
I have to say that those who are criticizing here are pretty ignorant about San Francisco high schools. The public high schools are not great, and by most CC parent standards there is maybe one that is acceptable. SOTA runs second for most, except for some kids whose interests center on arts it is sometimes the only school they want. For my family, since the math and foreign language programs at SOTA are pretty challenged, it wouldn’t have been a choice regardless of the arts offerings.
In addition, the SF public schools serve a high percentage disadvantaged population, with many families in poverty and many, many English language learners. In this case, the kids coming from out of the district are better off and more advantaged than the San Franciscans they’ve been displacing. Really, you’re criticizing SF for trying to serve its underprivileged public school population (which incidentally no one else will serve)? I do not see the hypocrisy.
As the parent of a SOTA grad, I’m sorry to see that news. I think it will diminish the quality of the school and program, by shutting the door on many very talented students who would have no other public alternative.
How is it hypocritical? Public schools have districts that they serve. They’re funded by taxes on residents in the district and they serve their residents first. This is a public high school, not a university that charges tuition.
Is it somehow different in the rest of the country and anybody can enroll their kids at any public high school regardless of whether or not they’re in the district?
This is a red herring. Per the U.S. Supreme Court, school districts are required to enroll students in public school regardless of their immigration status.
I don’t see this as hypocritical at all. I’m assuming that the school is funded by SF taxes so why shouldn’t it first serve SF kids? A local, nationally ranked magnet school here will accept applications from outside the district, but those accepted have to show proof that they’ve moved into the district before they can attend in the fall. Why should a school district subsidize others’ educations? For me, the talk of the ethnic makeup is a totally different conversation.
If I’m reading OP’s post correctly, I see it as a slam on progressive immigration ideas espoused in the progressive city that is SF. Unless you want to start a debate about immigration, I suggest you avoid this thread 
It seems the real issue at SOTA is finding enough talented students.
And what’s up with this?
Do they have the funding to support adding Vietnamese language classes? Seems fairly random. The funding for these programs could be used to support more classical arts classes, etc. Most be a story behind this…
Me, too, calmom. I share your pain. One of SOTA’s graduates went on to achieve continued success in dance, including at an event we attended --where she performed-- in 2013. She probably would not have been able to do that were it not for SOTA.
GMT, regarding your post 11, the “story” is merely political.
This has never been an issue. Entry is extremely competitive and many talented kids living within SF boundaries are turned away every year.
I’m sure there are many students who didn’t get into SF SOTA in the past who would have benefited from it, just like there are talented sports kids who didn’t get to go to the best football school or the chemistry genius who didn’t go to the magnet STEM program because they lived in the wrong zone or wrong city. Would the SOTA Orchestra be better if it accepted only students who could afford private lessons for the past 8 years, those who had very expensive instruments, who didn’t have to have a part time job while in high school, regardless of where they lived or their race? Sure, but is that serving the citizens of SF in the best way? The district has a duty to its citizens and SF school district is footing the bill.
If the neighboring district has a pool of talented students who aren’t being served, that district needs to address the need by forming its own school or making an agreement with the SF school to either pay SF or to take some of the SF district students and serve them in a way SF can’t - language programs, magnet programs, AP programs.
Absolutely true.
I don’t know how it works in CA but I imagine it’s more complicated than the article leads us to believe. Here in PA, public schools are legally charged to provide education for everyone. Ironically, you can choose to send your child to a charter school, and the district’s per student cost is paid by taxpayers to that charter school even if the charter school’s per student cost is substantially less. The charter school has no legal mandate to accept every child who applies. If the charter doesn’t offer something you want, say, orchestra or lacrosse, the district also has to pay to bus your child back and forth to attend those things at the public school.
I think fragmenting education into subsets of interests, demographics, etc. is ultimately a bad idea, but with so little stable public funding there will always be unpleasant choices to make. Not sure what the best solution is.
Not sure its the responsibility of SF taxpayers to educate those kids who live in Marin, or San Mateo or Contra Costa or Alameda. (It should be the responsibility of the taxpayers of those counties to start their own ver of SOTA.)
SF schools operate differently than most are used to, a lasting effect of Prop 13. If all the light bulbs burned out in the boys’ bathroom, a parent (my brother, often) would go to the store, buy bulbs, bring in a ladder and change them. Funding may be have gotten better recently with the rise in real estate prices.
Every SF city kid is eligible for every HS, so lots of neighborhood mixing. Busing is done by city bus pass.