Bayard Rustin: A Remembrance | Diane Ravitch's blog

Bayard Rustin: A Remembrance | Diane Ravitch's blog

Bayard Rustin: A Remembrance

My youngest grandson is in second grade. His class was studying Black History, and each student was asked to make a project. He chose to create a poster about civil rights leader Bayard Rustin. I was thrilled to see his finished project, because it was not only well done, but because I knew Bayard Rustin and I started thinking about him. He was a good friend of my then-husband and me.

We got to know him in the mid-1960s. He was the bravest man I ever met. He was arrested many times for his pacifism and his civil rights activities. He was beaten many times by counter-demonstrators. He dedicated his life to standing up for others. He served prison time as a conscientious objector during World War II because he refused to fight. He told us that he realized later that he was wrong because he did not know then what a monster Hitler was.

He was very close to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and was the chief organizer for the March on Washington in 1963. Bayard was a strategist and a thinker, in addition to being a fearless activist. He was a brilliant speaker and writer.

Soon after we became friendly with him, in the late CONTINUE READING: Bayard Rustin: A Remembrance | Diane Ravitch's blog

School assignment system set for major overhaul – The San Francisco Examiner

School assignment system set for major overhaul – The San Francisco Examiner

School assignment system set for major overhaul

SFUSD board weighing proposal that would limit choices, offer increased predictability

School board members on Tuesday will discuss a long-awaited proposal to overhaul the notoriously complicated student assignment system.

The San Francisco Unified School District has been working since 2018 to develop an alternative system that increases diversity in elementary schools while offering families predictability on which school they will attend within a reasonable distance from their homes.

The proposal set to be presented to the board Tuesday would end a decade-old lottery system that lets families choose from more than 100 schools across The City and instead limit their choices to eight to 10 sites.

Elementary school students would be assigned to sites within a certain zone, which have yet to be determined, which will provide access to language and special education programs.

Assignments would first prioritize students who have older siblings at the same school or live in federal public housing or historically underserved areas, or attended a pre-kindergarten program at the same school. The student’s attendance and test score areas, which are currently factored into the assignment process, would no longer be priority considerations.

“Ultimately we hope this policy will lead to integrated schools and classrooms, offer families of elementary school students greater predictability in where their CONTINUE READING: School assignment system set for major overhaul – The San Francisco Examiner