The Resegregation of San Francisco’s Public Schools

Tables representing each of San Francisco’s public schools stretched throughout John O’Connell High School in the Mission one morning last fall. Thousands of parents quizzed principals and teachers to determine where their children should go to school.

This was the school district’s annual Public School Enrollment Fair. Despite the heaving crowds, Mark Sanchez was downright lonely.

Every year, the tables for the city’s 106 public schools are arranged alphabetically. And every year Sanchez, principal of the mostly Latino Cleveland Elementary, sits for hours with hardly anybody approaching him. To his left, white and Asian parents swarm the table for the coveted Clarendon Elementary, a school that is harder to get into than Harvard.

“Every year, it’s the same thing. Every year,” Sanchez said. “Our teachers are just as good as Clarendon’s. … I call it the un-fair.”


http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/05/18/is-desegregation-dead