S.F. parents rekindle desegregation debate

[jamesinca]

S.F. parents rekindle desegregation debate
Issue of diversity vs. neighborhood schools

Heather Knight, Chronicle Staff Writer Tuesday, October 7, 2003

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Andy Chu, 15, grudgingly plans to begin class today after a six-week attendance strike failed to earn him a slot in one of San Francisco's top public high schools near his Sunset District home.

Across town in the Bayview, Terry Malone, 16, would like to attend a good high school close to home, too -- but there aren't any. Instead of going on strike, he joined a community drive to build a new Bayview high school.

Today, Chu and Malone are emblematic of a growing debate over how the San Francisco Unified School District balances twin goals of school desegregation and student choice in where -- and, by extension, with whom -- they go to school.

Playing the old role of whites during desegregation battles of the past, west side Chinese Americans, like Chu and his family, are fighting assignments to low-performing schools in heavily Latino and African American sections of town.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/10/07/MN234390.DTL