Don't let the city deprive our kids and schools with political maneuvering

A proposal that could deprive San Francisco public schools of badly needed support has resurfaced this month, after similar efforts were thwarted in spring 2007.

In 2004, San Francisco voters approved Prop. H, the Public Education Enrichment Fund, committing money from our wealthy city to support our chronically underfunded schools. The Prop. H funding level is designed to increase each year, with the amount for 2008-09 at $45 million. Prop. H allows some of the support to come through "in-kind services" provided by the city to the schools, rather than cash.
 
City supervisors are once again proposing that in-kind services the city was already providing to schools before Prop. H count against the total, a notion that school and children’s advocates say is counter to the will of the voters. This comes up for discussion this morning at 11 a.m. at the Board of Supervisors' Budget & Finance Committee meeting. And there’s more controversy about several proposed new purported in-kind services that were plopped into proposed budgets with no prior public input, and in other instances, the definition of just what constitutes an “in-kind service to the schools.” A $375,000 proposal to provide every SFUSD sixth-grader with a $75 “culture voucher” has already hit the news, for example.

There’s more debate about the definition of services to the schools. In my opinion, health services are not educational services to schools, for example. Those are community services provided to the community’s young people, which are often delivered at school sites because that’s where the children are. Yet city officials continue to try to define health services as "in-kind services to schools."

In spring 2007, parents mobilized to persuade city leaders to stop the maneuvering and support schools as the voters intended. Parents Advocating School Accountability, a volunteer research and information project I helped found, devoted a section of its website to that crusade.

But this year the controversy hit the fan days after the end of the school year – a time when many families are on vacation, and school PTAs and other parent networks are taking a summer break. It’ll be much tougher at this time of year to mobilize and speak up for schools and children. But that doesn’t mean it’s not just as essential. Watch this space for further details. And to have your say, please contact your district supervisor. Contact information is here.