As a veteran SFUSD parent and observer of school issues, I read the San Francisco Grand Jury’s report on San Francisco's public school assignment process, “San Francisco Kindergarten Admissions - Back to the Drawing Board,” and felt it called for a detailed critique. Despite an apparently exhaustive research process, the report indicates a dismaying lack of comprehension about many aspects of the situation.

I agree with the report’s finding that the Diversity Index aspect of the assignment process is “unnecessarily complex and confusing … (and) alienating to … families,” and that it fails to deliver a diversified school population. And yes, I agree that a good neighborhood school is the ideal situation for a family.

However, I disagree with the implicit conclusions that scrapping the Diversity Index would significantly change the situation. The frustrations families experience due to more applicants than openings at popular schools are not caused by the Diversity Index and will still exist under any process.

I also strongly disagree with the implication that returning to neighborhood assignment would miraculously improve the assignment process and the schools. SFUSD is a far more successful school district in many ways – including achievement and school diversity – than many other diverse urban school districts with neighborhood-based assignment processes. That fact alone belies the magical-thinking notion that neighborhood schools are a panacea. A diverse urban school district with many high-need students cannot be compared to a homogenous, high-income suburban school district where neighborhood school assignment is a smooth and simple process.

In one baffling comment, the report states: “For 20% of the parents to have made Attendance Area Schools their first choice seems to the Jury to be a strong endorsement for the idea of neighborhood schools.” The 20% figure refers to the number of kindergarten applicants who list their local school as their first choice (actually 18%, according to SFUSD). Yet that figure is astoundingly low, meaning that a huge majority – 82% -- of parents do NOT rank their neighborhood school as their first choice. It’s incomprehensible that the Grand Jurors interpreted that figure as an endorsement of neighborhood assignment over a choice system.

The many areas in which the Grand Jury report reveals lack of comprehension of and poor-quality research into aspects of SFUSD operations motivated me to produce a detailed critique. It's for serious wonks and is way too long to post here, so I've posted it on the www.sfschools.org blog.