Blog: The school leaders we lost this season…

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“When you question a system”

We talked about Shara Watkins last week when talking about rare sightings of great leadership. In 2024, she stepped down from her position on the San Mateo-Foster City Elementary School District (SMFCSD) school board and wrote an essay criticizing her elected colleagues in this county. She said they are only pretending to do the right things while continuing to do the wrong things. The story goes back a few years. In 2020 school board trustees Shara Watkins and Noelia Corzo wrote a guest perspective, published in a local newspaper. The essay was called ‘When you question a system’, and the system they were questioning was their school district and its part in San Mateo’s school-to-prison pipeline.

“Our board has heard from students who had negative experiences with SROs in our schools and believe the program is what led them to enter the justice system. We heard from teachers about wanting to hire more counselors and social workers, and to provide more funding for unconscious bias training. We have also heard from community members who … do not believe the school-to-prison pipeline exists.” [Shara Watkins, Noelia Corzo, Julie MacArthur]

The school-to-prison pipeline most certainly does exist; in fact, various San Mateo school districts have participated in the pipeline, and rumor has it that RCSD is leading the charge. Since it is even hard for school board members to get statistics about the San Mateo Juvenile Justice System, we might not get access to the full picture. In previous presentations, however, I did hear that Redwood City School District might be the leader in this. More kids from RCSD’s area end up in the juvenile system than from South San Francisco, Daly City, and even East Palo Alto. If this was just an observation of one point in time or if this is a reasonably constant occurrence, it would require more input from Noelia Corzo – now part of the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors.

Either way, the district leadership is calling on police far too often. Police are called in to do a job, and the district administration, the principals and vice principals, and counselors should be equipped to handle themselves. When filing a public record request about said data, Superintendent John Baker claimed that RCSD does not keep records of police visits. If Redwood City trustees wanted to change – that would be a red flag to erase quickly.

“Too often when those targeted or left behind by a powerful system speak out, they are met with indifference, a denial of their experiences or accusations that they have a hidden agenda. This is what happens when you question a powerful system.” [Shara Watkins, Noelia Corzo, Julie MacArthur]

So, what is this powerful system?

“Undoing systemic racism in our schools”

In 2023, Shara Watkins followed up with another guest’s perspective on the school-to-prison pipeline in San Mateo.

“More than five years into my tenure on the Board of Trustees and we continue to peel back the layers of systemic racism. Every. Single. Day.”
“These systems are doing exactly what they were intended to do — producing the inequities we see across our schools and across our data.”
“None of us created these systems, but we are all responsible for dismantling them.” [Shara Watkins]

This leads to the question, who did create these systems and why?

Science brought us one plan

In America, you basically see two kinds of systems. One works very quietly, and the other is always negatively rated in the news. Did you know some of the wealthiest school districts in America are also its loudest? Just look at districts in New York, Los Angeles, Oakland, San Francisco, San Jose, San Mateo or Redwood City.

To understand how education works best, we could look around the country or the globe for best practices. What we would find, however, would most likely align with what sociologist James S. Coleman found out and published in 1966 already. Sociologist and researcher James Coleman and his team determined that success in education has little to do with money, school buildings, teacher quality, or race. Still, it essentially comes down to socioeconomic status and family situation. By 1968, Robert Rosenthal had researched the effect of self-fulfilling prophecies. If you tell a student they will succeed, the probability of success will increase. If you tell a student that he will fail, the likelihood of that happening also increases.

A successful school district would build around philosophies like those.

But there was still the other plan

Eugenicists like David Starr Jordan and Lewis Terman formed the other side of the coin, both closely connected to Palo Alto and Stanford University. David Starr Jordan might be best known now for the suspicious poisoning of Jane Stanford at a time when she wanted him replaced. And Lewis Terman is known for creating the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale, basically using the French Binet-Simon IQ testing in a way the inventors clearly stated it cannot be used. Lewis Terman’s test was focused on dividing students/people into “gifted” and “feebleminded” and then promoting only the gifted once. Using the same picture, the French idea behind testing was more focused on helping and supporting the “feebleminded” to move towards the standard, as the “gifted” are clearly doing fine without much help.

For quite a while, Jordan and Terman were revered around Palo Alto, so much so that elementary school buildings had their names on them. Even though they helped …

“… create an erroneous intelligence hierarchy of ethnic groups. The intersection of eugenics and IQ testing influenced not only science but policy as well.” [Stefan Dombrowski, The dark history of IQ tests]

In 1899, Jordan delivered an essay at Stanford on behalf of racial segregation and racial purity. In the essay, Jordan claimed that “For a race of men or a herd of cattle are governed by the same laws of selection.” Jordan expressed great fears and phobias for “race degeneration” that would result unless great endeavors were put forward to maintain “racial unity”. [Wikipedia]

“Terman, however, held a more simplistic view of intelligence. For him, intelligence was an innate trait which could be quantified and acted according to Mendelian theories of inheritance.” [ Eugenics on the Farm ]

While the rest of the scientific community recognizes that Intelligence is something that can be fostered and grown, the Eugenicists want it to be a genetic trait, measurable by IQ testing. So school districts following this plan will have “choice schools,” lackluster SPED, school segregation, GATE and IQ testing, lots of money and still constant budgeting issues, “failing schools,” and “underserved students.”
Nobody said it’s a great plan.

Which Science is right?

“It takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently.” [Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment]

So, which of the two educational systems is the correct one:

A) The one featuring integration in small classrooms with nurturing environments, even including special education students, as much as possible. And tell everybody how successful they are going to be.

B) The one that caters mainly to the “gifted” students with “Choice School” systems. By definition, those must always lead to school segregation, failing schools, underserved students, teacher shortages, low enrollments, financial ruin, and eventual school closures.

The answer isn’t hard. Just rattle down the names of a few of these eugenics-infused districts in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, San Mateo-Foster City, and, of course, not be forgotten here: Redwood City School District (RCSD). None would be regarded as a “good school district”; none is known for outstanding performances.

The big philosophical question both models are leaning on is Nature vs Nurture.
Nowadays, it’s proven that IQ and knowledge are environmental traits that can be improved by better healthcare, earlier education, and better nutrition. But the old philosophy lives on.

If intelligence is merely a factor of environmental influences, then a district must focus on nurturing all its students. They would focus on integration and set up each classroom and each school with a majority of students who will succeed, thereby lifting up every student in the process. If intelligence is purely a hereditary genetic trait, then there is little to be done for these poor kids. In that case,’ failing students’ and ‘underserved schools’ are just the price of doing business. With that attitude towards low-income children, a district can create a second set of “choice schools” that predominantly cater to students coming from affluent backgrounds. Since there is always extra money for ‘failing schools’ and ‘failing students’, these aforementioned districts are also some of the richest in the country. So why would they stop, since model B) works very well for them?

The school leaders we lost this year

Several public figures who have been very influential to Redwood City school districts over the years have retired or will retire this 2024/25 season.

Ted Lempert retires as the County Office of Education Board member in charge of RCSD.
Former RCSD School Board Trustee Loreena Kastrop retires from the Redwood City Port Commission.
Former RCSD School Board Trustee Alicia Aguirre is terming out from the Redwood City Council.
RCSD School Board Trustee Alisa McAvoy Greene steps down from the Board.
RCSD School Board Trustee Janet Lawson steps down from the Board.
In 2025, former RCSD School Board Trustee Dennis McBride’s term might end at the County’s Committee on School District Organization
In 2025, former RCSD School Board Trustee Hillary Paulson’s term might end at the County’s Committee on School District Organization
SUHSD School Board Trustee Carrie Du Bois steps down
SUHSD School Board Trustee Shawneece Stevenson steps down

* San Mateo County’s Committee on School District Organization is there to protect and Education system with too much Local Control.

“The hardest part of learning something new is not embracing new ideas, but letting go of the old ones.” [Todd Rose, The End of Average]

Post.Scriptum.

“No one here created a racist system. But we all now have a responsibility to change it. As Ibram X. Kendi states in ‘How to Be an Antiracist,’ “One either allows racial inequities to persevere, as a racist, or confronts racial inequities, as an antiracist. There is no in-between safe space of “not racist”. [Shara Watkins]

A honorary mention here should go to SUHSD – also located in Redwood City – for their recent problems with the school-to-prison pipeline. Two of their Trustees are leaving in the middle of several lawsuits against the district. One lawsuit is against two former M-A Vice Principals for assault, battery, and negligence towards a black student with disabilities. That one also comes with a discrimination claim by former staff. The other lawsuit is claiming antisemitism.
In the end while the school district in Palo Alto eventually did cleanse their school names from famous eugenicists like David Starr Jordan and Lewis Terman, Redwood City’s school districts are still embracing their favorite Eugenicist and Anti-Semite Henry Ford to this very day.

More Information

Noelia Corzo, Shara Watkins: When You Question A System.
Shara Watkins: Undoing Racism in Our Schools
James Coleman Report
Stanford: Eugenics on the Farm
Youtube: The dark history of IQ tests

Editor’s Note: The views and opinions expressed in all blog posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Redwood City Pulse or its staff.