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We started this series with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and we still have to circle back to him.
“Education is a Battleground” [Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.]
His statement was correct in the 1950s when talking about the American South. It remains true in today’s America – especially in coastal blue states.
When researchers, reporters, districts, or schools talk about “diversity,” only context can tell whether they see it as positive or negative. Some use “equity” or “diversity” primarily in connection with “Black and brown” children.
“A small number of districts that were diverse in 1995 no longer were in 2017. These districts disproportionately serve students of color. Many, such as Los Angeles, have become almost uniformly Hispanic.” [Washington Post 2019]
The Washington Post seems to include “white” and “Asian” students as well – yet those groups often appear missing or underrepresented in analyses like this. Let’s see how they do it.
“Integration evaluates how evenly a district’s diversity is spread across its schools. District diversity is less meaningful if children are not encountering that diversity at school.” [Washington Post 2019]
Got it. According to the Post, a district should reflect the diversity of its general population, and a school should reflect the diversity of its neighborhood. Anything too far outside the norm should raise suspicion.
“The Post used the variance ratio to calculate an integration score for each district. Districts were grouped based on their score into highly, somewhat, and not integrated.”
In short, this is about school segregation. The greater the gap between the diversity of an attendance zone and its schools, the more segregated the district.
WaPo’s research in detail
It seems like the Washington Post did not look too deeply at the population diversity of neighborhoods, attendance zones, and cities. That would have added complexity, but also more insight. Instead, it compared district-wide diversity with that of each of the district’s schools. They focused on districts that prominently promote their “diversity” commitments.
“In 2017, nearly 11 million children — the most ever — were in districts with highly integrated schools. That is nearly double the 5.8 million students in districts with schools that are not integrated. The remaining 10.3 million students were in districts with somewhat integrated schools.“
The Post compiled all this data into an impressive, interactive map. Unsurprisingly, the Bay Area shows up as very diverse.
District Data Diversity Snapshot
| District | “White” / “Asian” * | “Hispanic” / “Latino” ** | Poverty Level Community |
| Burlingame | ~83% | ~13% | 3% |
| SMFCSD | ~77% | ~20% | 5% |
| BRSSD | ~85% | ~11% | 5% |
| SCSD | ~81% | ~10% | 8% |
| RCSD | ~55% | ~42% | 8% |
| MPSD | ~89% | ~9% | 1% |
* (In Silicon Valley, these two are standing for “more likely to be affluent”)
** (In Silicon Valley, these two are standing for “diversity” and also “more likely to be socioeconomically disadvantaged”)
According to US research done by James Coleman (1966), real integration requires a solid mix of affluent and socioeconomically advantaged students, while “race” doesn’t matter. Race, however, does seem really important to those districts always talking about “equity” without ever achieving it.
Welcome to the Battleground
If “Education is a Battlefield,” who are the two teams playing against each other? Switching to the integration map shows where today’s education battle is happening.
No reporter in California seems to understand Education financials better than Dan Walters of CalMatters. According to him and the data, all these Bay Area Districts are very well funded; all have achieved “Excess ERAF” status.
“ERAF stands for the Educational Revenue Augmentation Fund, and ‘excess ERAF’ occurs when local property taxes are sufficient to support local schools without major state aid, a condition that occurs in counties with high property values and relatively few school children.” [Dan Walters, CalMatters]
There are no dramatic population differences between these districts. Each district has pockets of poverty and pockets of immense wealth. And yet districts like Burlingame SD or Belmont-Redwood Shores are highly integrated, while San Mateo (SMFCSD) and Redwood City (RCSD) are not. These “school choice” districts often have leadership that shows little moral concern about segregation.
The Post map identifies five Bay Area districts that have serious “not integrated” problems. We can recognize three large ones with San Francisco (SFUSD), Oakland (OUSD), and San Jose (SJOSD).
The battle for “worst-run school district in San Mateo County” seems to lie between Redwood City (RCSD) and San Mateo-Foster City (SMFCSD). In the “not integrated” category, both look equally bad.
Team Integrators vs Team Segregators
We have seen little inclination of what Dr. Christian Rubalcaba truly brings to the table. He wasn’t exactly trained by the best, nor mentored by models of excellence. None of his past employers stood out for academic success, financial stability, or commitment to equity. Instead, each has carried its share of scandals and community distrust.
Looking at the Post map, one thing becomes hard to ignore: Dr. Christian Rubalcaba has always played for Team Segregators. All four of his former districts show up as not integrated. That’s not a coincidence – that’s a record; that looks like a man on the wrong mission.
“The festering sore of segregation debilitates the segregated as well as the segregator.” [Martin Luther King Jr. 1956]
The TIDE Pod Challenge
One of Redwood City’s other wealthy school districts, the Sequoia Union High School District (SUHSD), used to appear as “not integrated” on the Post map as well. Since then, they have improved to “no integration score”.
Currently, SUHSD has an interesting case of anti-magnetism. In 2019, they created a small pod of students at TIDE Academy in Menlo Park. Now, just a few years later, the district is considering closing it
The math is striking: SUHSD reported that TIDE costs about $8 million a year to operate, or roughly $40,000 per student — double the cost of a student at a regular campus. For a magnet-style “academy,” that’s an expensive experiment.
Final Thoughts
One small “choice school” in SUHSD costs $8 million annually. Redwood City School District, by comparison, runs five to six magnet schools – larger than TIDE. Using SUHSD’s numbers as a benchmark, RCSD easily spends $40–50 million a year on its “schools of choice.” At roughly $40,000-$50,000 per student, those 1,500–2,000 students represent $60–80 million in total cost.
And yet – none of that money appears to improve student outcomes. It doesn’t go toward instruction but instead fuels layers of structure and administration. RCSD spends only about 26% of its per-student funding where it matters most: on education itself. The rest of 74% sustains structures and bureaucracy. That’s the real playbook of Team Segregator: moving money from low-income neighborhoods and community schools to expensive “choice schools” models that benefit the affluent.
The Washington Post data, the TIDE case, and Rubalcaba’s hire all point in one direction: RCSD’s trustees are playing for the wrong side in the education battle.
“The richest nation on Earth has never allocated enough resources to build sufficient schools, to compensate adequately its teachers, and to surround them with the prestige our work justifies. We squander funds on highways … but we pauperize education.” [Martin Luther King Jr., 1964]
More Information
- Above The Noise: Why are schools still so segregated?
- John Oliver: School Segregation
- Civil Rights Project: A 21st Century Challenge
- Civil Rights Data: RCSD
- WaPo: How the nation’s growing racial diversity is changing our schools
- AP: Gifted and talented, or racist and elitist?
- Integrated Schools: Gifted, Talented and Segregated
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.
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