Fogbound Schools

San Francisco Educator Edward Kloster estimates that more than half the students in his institution need help with their reading. He is particularly concerned about the 250 or 300 who cannot even decipher words. Kloster is not, as one might suppose, a teacher in an elementary school. He is chairman of the reading department at City College of San Francisco, and his nonreading students are graduates of San Francisco's public high schools. They are just one reason why many San Franciscans agree with the county grand jury, which last month declared: "The most serious problem facing the city is the deterioration of its public school system."

In the past, the grand jury--selected annually to investigate the city government--has praised the schools. This year's blistering indictment is just one of many attacks on a school system that is becoming increasingly beset by troubles as pervasive as the city's fogs. Since 1969, reading and math scores for San Francisco students have been dropping steadily; they are now well below national norms. School board meetings are repeatedly disrupted by noisy, contentious community factions attacking each other, the board and Board President Eugene S. Hopp. At a recent meeting, police had to quell a minor riot that erupted when spectators attacked 13 uniformed American Nazi Party members, who were present to protest school integration plans. The board has already missed an HEW-imposed January deadline for approving an integration plan for secondary schools.

The Supreme Court has added to the board's difficulties by requiring it to set up special English courses for the sizable minority of students who speak only Chinese (TIME, Feb. 4). On another front, attorneys are preparing to defend the city against a $500,000 suit filed on behalf of a boy who claims that he was allowed to graduate from Galileo High School with only fifth-grade reading skills. As a result, he is unqualified for any job "other than the most demeaning, unskilled, low-paid labor."

One of the major problems for the board has been the accelerating flight of white children from the public schools --aggravated by the fear of further integration and accounting for most of the drop in total enrollment from 90,600 in 1968 to 77,000 last fall. Although San Francisco's population is 57% white, only 27% of public school pupils are white (v. 40% in 1968); some 28,000 white children now attend private and parochial schools in the city. The remaining public school pupils are a polyglot collection who speak 33 different native tongues. The 73% from nonwhite minority groups include blacks (30%), Chinese (16%), Mexican and Latin Americans (14%) and Filipinos (7%).

Many San Franciscans feel that too much of their tax money is being used to support the entrenched bureaucracy in the school system's central office, which the grand jury report labeled a "tight oligarchy" surrounded by "walls of indifference"; 84% of the current annual school budget of $154 million goes to salaries and other personnel expenses. While salaries for the system's 4,433 teachers average $14,320 (with a top of $17,115), the 98 administrators in the superintendent's office earn from $21,650 to $37,520. The grand jury report also criticized the central office for its poor performance in managing the system's budget. For example, a letter went out last month to school principals reminding them that all money not spent by Feb. 5 would have to be returned and hinting that such a move would adversely affect next year's budget. Urged the letter: "Spend before it is too late!"

Although widely accused of an ostrich-like refusal to admit that anything is wrong and "plain incompetence right down the line" (as one principal puts it), the administrators are protected from dismissal by tenure agreements or ironclad contracts. How to get rid of inept administrators is one of his greatest problems, says Board President Hopp. "They are impossible to move," he explains. "You have to catch them committing rape on the steps of city hall."

Shrill Opponents. A mild-mannered ear, nose and throat specialist, Hopp, along with his board, was accused by the grand jury of amateurism and weakness in the face of attack by "small, shrill groups of opponents." The report pointedly suggested that "more than mere citizenship be considered as qualification for election to this board."

The fact is that any board president would find the San Francisco schools a formidable challenge. As in other big-city public school systems, violence, truancy and class cutting are widespread. Science Teacher Nathan Weinstein gave failing grades to 19 of his 28 biology students at Woodrow Wilson High School last semester, mainly because they never showed up for class. Many of the students who do appear are stymied by their inability to read. Math Instructor David Friedman says the reading ability of Woodrow Wilson students is so low that teachers cannot use standard math texts, but instead must devise their own simplified versions.

There are a few bright spots in the otherwise beleaguered school system. In fact, the grand jury acknowledged that there are schools in San Francisco "where learning is going on and where there is an obvious feeling of pride and accomplishment." One institution that seems to work is Opportunity II, an alternative school for 170 high school students, some of whom were reading at first-and second-grade levels when they entered. The teachers make special efforts to compensate for parental indifference (which Principal Hal Abercrombie attributes largely to the problem of poverty) and often find themselves acting as surrogate parents. "They cling to you," says Abercrombie of the students. "They wait at the door for you to come to school in the morning. They are so anxious to be around you, they'll do anything you say." Abercrombie would like to see as many as 15 such schools set up in the district. That, he feels, would at least be a start toward penetrating San Francisco's educational fog.

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