Letters to the Editor

June 27, 2003

School Assignment Daze

DEAR EDITOR: The San Francisco Unified School District’s (SFUSD) retaliatory attack in “S.F. Schools Respond to John Zhao and APA Parents” (June 12) just slanders the parent’s side of the fight. The two sides are not accomplishing anything, but rather playing a game of tug-of-war.

SFUSD needs to stop defending its position and start acting. SFUSD may react fast to solve problems on the elementary and middle school levels, but it fails to solve the high school problems.

As for the school bond in November, instead of preventing children from attending schools and pushing them into private schools, SFUSD should aim to fix its mismanagement of funds in the past. It has lost out on millions of dollars in truancy funding to curb tardiness and absences of children. The district should focus more on keeping attendance up and not misallocating funds. This is why the school district should act swiftly, not only to alleviate the parentsí and childrenís problems, but also to solve its own financial problems.

SFUSD shouldn’t communicate with parents through the media, but rather at the table. The parents are doing their part in this fight and the school district should do its part by not wasting time mounting media attacks, but actually getting something done.

Bailey Zhao

San Francisco

DEAR EDITOR: Racist Chinese American parents have ranted and raved in front of the SFUSD headquarters and recently assaulted Superintendent Arlene Ackerman. Why don’t they just admit that they don’t want their children to study alongside African American and Latino classmates?

Their insistence that they want the best education possible for their children is a smokescreen for the most reactionary attitudes. I am disgusted by the fact that Ackerman was subjected to racist taunts about crack and welfare by some of these parents, who seem to believe that their ethnicity entitles them to whatever they want in this city, the rest of us ó and our children ó be damned.

The Chinese American community complains constantly that it is subjected to racism by other ethnic groups in San Francisco (as its spokespersons did recently when fear of SARS transformed Chinatown into a ghost town). These parents need to take a hard, self-critical look at their own attitudes (i.e. whites are “barbarians” and black people are “criminals”) and decide whether they want to pass these fascist attitudes on to future generations.

Christian Simonetti

Via e-mail

DEAR EDITOR: While some of John Zhao’s points in “A Parent’s Fight Against S.F. Schools,” (June 5) may have been exaggerated, Zhaoís arguments have raised some eyebrows.

SFUSD has not been up to par with the rest of California’s major metropolitan districts after more than a decade of numerous reforms. Instead, the district and Board of Education have simply been all words with no constructive action.

SFUSD has been doing things behind closed doors for years. The previous bond money was mysteriously misallocated by the SFUSD. We are not talking about a ten-year-old child’s allowance here: The unaccounted bond money would let the members of the Board of Education and the Superintendent live comfortably for generations. Have we, the public, forgotten so soon Enron and WorldCom, where executives were making off like bandits?

Despite the district’s contentions in their June 12 (”S.F. Schools Respond to John Zhao and APA Parents”) attack on parent John Zhao, the public schools will not be closed. Sixty thousand students will not be deprived of a public education because the school district does not pass a school bond measure. San Francisco has to look no further than our neighbor to the east, where the state took over the Oakland school district.

We have two choices here: we give the school district more money and power, and gamble that they will do good things; or we let the district go bankrupt and the state takes over to restore common sense and good practices. The choice is obvious.

Erica Au

San Francisco

Amok about Amok

DEAR EDITOR: Has Emil Guillermo ever picked up a copy of Hyphen magazine?

While he claims Hyphen, in “Dissin’ Hyphen” (June 19), is written by people “ashamed to be APA,” who have no connection to civil rights activism, the feature article in the debut issue explores that very topic.

Emil’s race-baiting insults (blue contact lenses? Couldn’t you think up something more original?) reveal him as bitter and self-serving. His envy and jealousy are out there for all to see: “There was just something irritating about the arrogance coming from these twenty-somethings with no money, no circulation, who have come bounding on the scene putting everyone down.” Isn’t he ashamed to be picking on such a young publication?

The fact is, Emil is the one putting people down and now he’s trying to ride the coattails of all their hard work by stirring up trouble. Sorry they didn’t come and bow at your mighty brown feet and kiss the Fang family ring as reverently as you do, Emil.

Emil’s claim to authenticity is laughable: “The gritty ethnic press, where, make no mistake, the focus is undeniably and unapologetically APA each week.” If he were honest, he would admit “the focus is undeniably and unapologetically Emil Guillermo and his fragile ego each week.”

In addition to the civil rights article, Hyphen’s debut issue covered the deportation of Cambodian Americans, the railroading of a non-English speaking Asian immigrant in a murder case as well as Chinese American rapper Jin Tha MC and other, less well-known APA artists. Emil would probably find lots of interesting things to read if he opened a copy … oh wait, then he’d see that his name wasn’t mentioned anywhere. Never mind.

Letters to the Editor

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