Not so long ago, the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) was experiencing major pain that many felt would have been ameliorated by a guiding vision and accompanying plan to achieve that vision. In 2006, hard decisions about closures were made in a relative vacuum, prompting the call for a revised plan for the SFUSD that would take into account changing demographics, financial realities, and shared goals regarding eliminating the achievement gap, desegregating schools and programs, and offering families the widest array of choices possible.

That was back in 2006, but because real plans take real time to be crafted, the community has been patient. Visible, meaningful work has been undertaken to better understand the hopes and fears parents, students and community members have regarding educational possibilities in our school system. For example, a little over a year ago, an extensive community engagement process was undertaken, known as the CACSERR, in which numerous small discussions were held in every neighborhood of the City. Related to the CACSERR process was a proposed plan developed by the district’s senior staff at the beginning of the school year, just when Superintendent Garcia began his tenure.

These efforts and others, such as the secondary schools redesign work, along with a Board of Education (BOE) that has been ready to work with each other and staff in a new way, have set a rich context in which a new vision and plan could be developed. Add to that the appointment by Superintendent Carols Garcia of a new senior staff member Tony Smith, with the auspicious and weighty title of Deputy Superintendent for Instruction, Innovation and Social Justice, and it’s easy to have high hopes for a guiding document that will not only help us deal with hard decisions, but better serve our children’s educational needs at the same time.

This past Monday, a working draft of the new district plan was introduced at a BOE meeting. A copy of the plan can be found on the website of Parents for Public Schools of San Francisco. Entitled “Beyond the Talk: Taking Action to Education Every Child Now,” the plan is a marked contrast in tone from what we’ve seen before. The first page sums the change quite clearly with a focus squarely on addressing the achievement gap:

“…we are committed to helping every student maximize her or his potential while increasing the achievement of already high performing students and dramatically accelerating the achievement of those who are currently less academically successful.”

Some might argue that recognizing the presence of the achievement gap and its challenges marks nothing new and that every school district faces such issues. Such a position is true, but the distinction with this plan is how the issue of the achievement gap is being approached—are we hiding from it or are we facing it head on? The concluding sentence from the paragraph quoted above indicates that we are now going to try to openly acknowledge this weakness and do something about it:

“In San Francisco, a progressive city that holds itself in high regard as a political and intellectual leader, we exhibit some of the deepest racial, socio-economic and linguistic inequities in the United States.”

These are hard words to read, yet we should all be thankful to see them in the opening statement of this plan. The only way forward is to acknowledge where we are failing. Without such an honest assessment from the start, success at improving opportunities for all children—those who are behind and those who are ahead—will be harder to achieve.

But the above assessment is just a starting point. Acknowledging where we’re at is the beginning, but it’s still only a beginning and our students need some change. Creating change is the theme of this entire draft plan, which goes on to identify three key areas to focus on to make this happen: access and equity, achievement and accountability. These three areas will be addressed at every level of the district, from the BOE, to the district administrators, to school sites, using the “Balanced Scorecard,” technique. The “Balanced Scorecard” is a planning and strategic management process/tool originally developed for businesses, but now used by all types of organizations. The overall goal is to help organizations focus on their desired outcomes, all of the steps that are required to generate those outcomes, and specific ways to evaluate and measure progress.

A quick look at resources about the “Balanced Scorecard” approach does indicate widespread use among a variety of organizations. Some aspects of the tool seems familiar, some seem commonsensical. Realistically all that matters is that it can be useful to all of us, from our various vantage points, as we work to provide better educational opportunities for all of our kids. The weakest point in the new plan is that there is much left yet to be defined. Essential pieces remain to be developed, specifically the work plan and milestones for each of the “Scorecards” and what kinds of things will be measured. And then there are other questions, such as how this data will be shared and used by different stakeholders.

The tone of the District’s draft plan is one of frankness and a desire to empower, which hopefully will be embodied in the fully-formed plan itself. This is a very welcome start that has the potential to increase our expectations of what’s possible. We will all be anxiously waiting to see the rest unfold.

Lisa Schiff is the parent of two children who attend McKinley Elementary School in the San Francisco Unified School District and is a member of Parents for Public Schools of San Francisco and the PTA and is a board member at the national level of Parents for Public Schools.