Why San Francisco's Burton Academic High School doesn't make the List and wasn't supposed to

I scoured the list for the high school where I taught and was later promoted to be a guidance counselor. Philip & Sala Burton Academic High School was not on the list. And only two San Francisco schools are listed, one is Lowell High School which only takes students based on high test scores. The second is a charter school. A note about San Francisco Unified School District. In the early 80's a Consent Decree resulting from an NAACP lawsuit against the district resulted in the creation of Martin Luther King, Jr., Middle School, Thurgood Marshall Academic High School, and Philip & Sala Burton. SFUSD had responded to the 1970's US Supreme Court mandate to integrate with reluctance and was failing Black and Brown students. When integration did happen, many white parents took their children out of school and created what must be the most private schools per square mile in the whole country. Remember, we are talking about San Francisco! 

The consent-decree high schools, like Burton and Marshall, were unique in that their graduation requirements were linked to the requirements to qualify for the University of California. This meant ensuring faculty, classes, and programs. The schools were placed in the southeast part of San Francisco, near the the city's highest concentration of Black residents.

The founding principal, Mrs. Fredna B Howell, a Black woman originally from Alabama, is the woman who kept an open social studies position unfilled because she insisted on finding a Black man. Mrs. Howell had that kind of clout, and the consent decree was her tool. When she promoted me to the counseling department, only one of us she chose had credentials.

Under the Clinton Justice Department, the consent decree was deemed "satisfied," and it was withdrawn. With that, the obligation of the SFUSD to fund the school's founding mission and Mrs. Howell's clout came to an end. The school dipped into disarray. Imagine emptying half of the fuel tank on a plane in mid flight. As intended, this was the pretext for the anti-public school/anti-teachers union mob to force the district into accepting more charter schools, thus diverting resources for schools like Burton and Marshall, creating more intended disarray. And as I was by then ending my teacher education program and not credentialed, Mrs. Howell could not put who she wanted in positions she wanted. My days were ended.

The reign was over. For Mrs. Howell. For me. But especially for the Black kids who had been availed of programs sorely needed. And this is the story of public education in the United States, especially where it pertains to Black and Brown and poor students.