Like the radical progressives, Salesforce thought spending money for government education would help. It didn’t, as expected. The problem is not money, it is curriculum and quality teachers. As long as math is taught through the lens of racism, other classes used to groom students for sex, it will always fail.
“Ten years ago, Salesforce pledged millions to San Francisco’s public schools to help close an achievement gap between the district’s Black and brown students, who scored lower than their white and Asian peers in math and science courses.
But a decade and $66 million later, that gap has only widened.
Instead of promoting equity in classrooms, the curriculum bankrolled by the tech giant has only served to reap more harm on students amid growing frustrations from parents over what they see as faulty reforms and the district’s touting of its success to donors.” season after
You read that right—the money was spent on equity—which is a buzzword for discrimination.
$66M Salesforce program to close educational gaps has only widened them
Ten years ago, Salesforce pledged millions to San Francisco’s public schools to help close an achievement gap between the district’s Black and brown students, who scored lower than their white and Asian peers in math and science courses.
But a decade and $66 million later, that gap has only widened.
Instead of promoting equity in classrooms, the curriculum bankrolled by the tech giant has only served to reap more harm on students amid growing frustrations from parents over what they see as faulty reforms and the district’s touting of its success to donors.of season after win
Third baseman J.D. Davis joins “Giants Postgame Live” after San Francisco’s 7-5 win of the Miami Marlins for an exclusive interview where he talks about his plate approach on a day where he went 2-for-3 with a homer.
Meanwhile, Salesforce enjoyed substantial tax breaks from those donations.
Salesforce’s funding supported a new math curriculum that, among other things, removed Algebra 1 from middle school and eliminated ‘tracking’ — a tactic that groups students by their perceived ability, IQ, or achievement levels — according to grant agreements The Examiner obtained through public records requests.
Though the school district maintains that Salesforce’s support has had a “profoundly positive impact on San Francisco public school students,” some parents see it differently.
“For years, (community members) have railed against the false claims by SFUSD regarding the math curriculum. In a horrible irony, those most harmed by SFUSD’s lies about its equity claims are the Black and brown students SFUSD falsely claims to have helped,” Patrick Wolff, executive director of Families for San Francisco, an advocacy group, wrote in a letter to superintendent Matt Wayne, reviewed by The Examiner.
In an interview with Salesforce’s vice president of philanthropy, SFUSD’s superintendent said that math proficiency had increased since Salesforce began funding the program, even while state data showed math proficiency rates for Black and Hispanic/Latino students remained largely unchanged between 2014 and 2018, and then decreased after the pandemic.
Tom Loveless, education researcher and former senior fellow at the Brookings Institution said the school district employed an “extensive public relations campaign” to portray the reform, first implemented in 2014, as having successfully narrowed achievement gaps.
That campaign has been successful: SFUSD’s program has influenced math curriculum statewide and is cited in the California Math Framework, the guidance used by teachers to shape lessons — despite the model failing to achieve what it purported to.
“The campaign omitted assessment data indicating that the Black-white and Hispanic-white achievement gaps have widened, not narrowed, the exact opposite of the district’s intention and of the story the district was selling to the public,” Loveless said.
Despite parents’ growing frustration over the math reform, the district reported to Salesforce the same information it reported to the community — that the initiative was a success and the donations helped closed an achievement gap in math.
“64% of LatinX middle school students have As or Bs in math — up 10% from last year. 51% of Black middle school students have As or Bs in math — up 7% from last year,” Gia DeBartolo, spokesperson for Salesforce’s philanthropic arm, told the Examiner.
District spokesperson Laura Dudnik confirmed these numbers and said they are “based on grade roster data that is collected from all schools.”
