A decade and a half ago, San Diego Unified revealed a new master plan for student success: Vision 2020. The plan aimed to revamp district schools and promised a \u201cquality school in every neighborhood.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
District officials set 12 lofty goals including erasing longstanding achievement gaps and increasing neighborhood participation rates \u2013 a measure of how many kids in a school\u2019s attendance area actually attend their neighborhood school.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Vision 2020 ultimately had mixed results<\/a>. \u00a0<\/p>\n Even with the pandemic drop-off, test scores have ticked up slightly. The achievement gap between Black and Latino and White and Asian students, however, remained.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Students are also no more likely to stay in their neighborhood school than they were 13 years ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n In 2011, 58.5 percent of students who lived within the district\u2019s boundaries attended their neighborhood school, according to a study from the University of San Diego<\/a>. In 2024, 58.9 percent did, according to an analysis by Voice of San Diego.\u00a0<\/p>\n During that period, the district spent billions to rebuild schools, dialed back programs<\/a> that once ferried kids out of their local schools and adopted more rigorous graduation requirements (which they later\u00a0backtracked on). Still, nearly 40,000 students avoid their local public school in favor of district schools in other parts of the city, charter schools or some other form of education. Those trends also still play out on socioeconomic lines<\/a>. \u00a0<\/p>\n For some district officials,\u00a0individual success stories, of which there are some, are more important than the district\u2019s overall numbers. But to other observers, the stalled rates point to something more basic \u2013 that Vision 2020 itself was scattered, half-baked and, ultimately, unworkable. \u00a0<\/p>\n Vision 2020 and School Choice<\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n For decades, San Diego Unified embraced school choice. It allows parents to opt their children out of their neighborhood school and send them to a school in a different part of town.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n It was an integral part of San Diego Unified\u2019s court-mandated<\/a> \u2013 and now largely abandoned \u2013 efforts to integrate historically segregated schools. But it was far from just a district priority. President George W. Bush\u2019s watershed and much maligned education bill, \u201cNo Child Left Behind,\u201d mandated that underperforming schools offer families the opportunity<\/a> to transfer their kids out of low-performing schools.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The practice was a double-edged sword.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Choice allowed parents to steer their kids toward schools they thought may better educate them, but it actually helped keep San Diego schools segregated<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n It also enabled a generations-long exodus of children from schools in lower-income neighborhoods whose schools were more likely to underperform<\/a> on metrics like test scores.\u00a0<\/p>\n The \u201cmind drain<\/a>,\u201d as some on the front lines have referred to it, likely only worsened test scores at the schools kids avoided. Juan \u201cWicho\u201d Flores is the head counselor at Logan Memorial Educational Campus, the district\u2019s state of the art new combination early childhood center, elementary, middle and high school in his hometown of Logan Heights. He was also one of the kids bussed out of his neighborhood school. In his case, he ended up at Point Loma High.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere was a big lack of trust and also stigma that at the community schools all these bad things are happening,\u201d Flores said. \u201cSo, the thought was you want to get your kids out of the area so they can get educated.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n That was what officials sought to change with Vision 2020\u2019s quality-schools-in-every-neighborhood-pledge. If all neighborhoods had a quality school, the thinking went, parents would not send their kids away from the school down the block. District officials would judge if the plan was a success, in part, by if more kids chose to attend their local school.\u00a0<\/p>\n That goal was repeatedly included in district meetings. \u00a0<\/p>\n During a 2016 meeting, district officials reviewed the neighborhood participation rates<\/a> of clusters in the 2014-15 school year and the specific increases they\u2019d hoped clusters would achieve in the 2015-16 schools year. In 2024, not a single cluster has a higher neighborhood participation rate than the goals set in that presentation. \u00a0<\/p>\n As part of a 2017 evaluation of then-Superintendent Cind Marten<\/a>, board wrote that progress had been slow on promoting the district\u2019s neighborhood schools.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe need to move with more urgency on a comprehensive strategy of letting parents know what their neighborhood schools offer, so that we see the percentage of families enrolling in neighborhood schools increase,\u201d the board wrote.\u00a0<\/p>\n In a Vision 2020 progress report<\/a> from 2018, Evans affirmed that \u201cone of our indicators of a quality school is a high neighborhood participation rate.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The increases they\u2019d hoped for hadn\u2019t happened yet, Evans wrote. But he predicted change was on the way.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe increase in neighborhood enrollment should happen gradually over the next decade as a new generation of parents become aware of the quality of their neighborhood school,\u201d he wrote.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n But remarkably little has changed. Fewer than 60 percent of families sent their child to their neighborhood school in 2011. The same was true last year. \u00a0<\/p>\n District officials are not bothered by the lack of progress. In conversations, they largely waved away concerns. For them, it seemed more like a communication problem. In an email, Marceline Sciutto, San Diego Unified\u2019s executive director of operations support touted the district\u2019s efforts to pitch neighborhood schools.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cSan Diego Unified consistently communicates to families that their neighborhood school is often an excellent option \u2013 offering strong academic programs, community connections, and convenient proximity,\u201d she wrote.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Sciutto also said the district\u2019s neighborhood participation rate stands at 62.6 percent, a number about 4 percentage points higher than what Voice found. The district figures, however, come from averaging the rates of each cluster a statistically unsound way to calculate such figures because it is essentially an average of averages. Read more about that below.\u00a0<\/p>\n A Note on Neighborhood Participation Rates and \u2018Averages of Averages\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n To come up with San Diego Unified\u2019s overall neighborhood participation rate, Voice performed a relatively simple calculation. A neighborhood participation rate determines how many age-appropriate kids who live in a school\u2019s attendance boundary actually attend their neighborhood school. It can be a powerful figure to help determine a community\u2019s confidence in its local school.\u00a0<\/p>\n Here\u2019s what we did: <\/strong>We added the number of children attending each neighborhood school in the district and divided it by the number of age-appropriate children in those schools\u2019 attendance areas. We also removed a handful of schools that, for technical reasons, made the analysis messy, like those with shared attendance boundaries.<\/p>\n We came up with a districtwide neighborhood participation rate of 58.9 percent. That\u2019s about four points lower than the 62.6 percent neighborhood participation rate provided by San Diego Unified.\u00a0<\/p>\n The district number:<\/strong> When asked how the district reached its number, officials said it was an average of the neighborhood participation rates of each of the district\u2019s clusters. This methodology is problematic because it is an \u201caverage of averages,\u201d meaning it doesn\u2019t give weight to the differences in attributes of each thing being averaged. This metric can be OK to use to get an idea of things but can also produce wildly distorted figures.\u00a0<\/p>\n Here\u2019s an example:<\/strong> the Henry High cluster has 8,772 students. But in the district\u2019s methodology its neighborhood participation rate is given the same weight as the Madison cluster, which has only 2,413 students \u2013 fewer than 30 percent the amount of Henry.\u00a0<\/p>\n Were we to average the overall neighborhood participation rates of these two clusters \u2013 which for Henry is 79.7 percent and for Madison is 45.1 percent \u2013 you would get 74.8 percent. That figure, however, ignores the fact that the two clusters contain a significantly different number of students.\u00a0<\/p>\n When you add the residents attending their neighborhood school of each cluster and divide it by the total grade appropriate residents in each cluster, though, you get 63.6 percent \u2013 a more accurate view of the neighborhood participation rate of those two clusters.\u00a0<\/p>\n Richard Barrera, the district\u2019s longest-serving trustee, was on the board when it adopted Vision 2020. He said that he\u2019s more concerned with how individual schools have fared than the district\u2019s cumulative neighborhood participation rate.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we just look at the city overall and we\u2019re not focusing on what\u2019s happening in different pockets, it\u2019s hard for me to comment on that,\u201d Barrera said. \u201cIt\u2019s very hard to overcome decades of not only messaging, but decisions about investment that are saying \u2018your neighborhood school\u2019s not a quality schools,\u2019 especially in high poverty neighborhoods.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n There are some bright spots.<\/p>\n Neighborhood participation rates are higher than they were in 2011 at 56 percent of\u00a0district schools. Clusters like Hoover and Crawford have also meaningfully increased the number of local students who attend. But those specific examples don\u2019t erase the reality that growth stalled out districtwide.<\/p>\n To rebuild communities\u2019 confidence in their local schools, district officials have often turned to rebuilding schools themselves. The district has funneled billions in bond funds into new school facilities and even entirely new schools, like Logan Memorial. \u00a0<\/p>\n The $200 million campus is the single most expensive construction project in district history. The results at schools like Logan Memorial are how Barrera thinks district efforts should be judged \u2013 just not yet. \u00a0<\/p>\n Currently, the complex\u2019s three schools have a combined neighborhood participation rate of just 36 percent. But because the schools\u2019 recent rollout created a new cluster, officials have allowed students who live within the schools\u2019 attendance boundaries to choose which high school they matriculate into \u2013 the new Logan Memorial, or San Diego High, where they would have previously been sent to. That legacy enrollment\u00a0period ends in the 2031-2032 school year.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIf five years from now we don\u2019t see an increase in neighborhood participation rates at Logan Memorial, that would be disappointing,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u2018Words on Paper\u2019<\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n For those on the ground, though, the stagnant numbers aren\u2019t so surprising. \u00a0<\/p>\n Flores, the Logan Memorial counselor, said pandemic-era enrollment decline likely played a role. But he also said the current rates are partly a function of the same bad reputations that have for decades encouraged families like his to send their kids away. New facilities are part of the equation, he said but reputations are really rebuilt by consistently investing in what\u2019s going on inside of classrooms.\u00a0<\/p>\n Similarly, while charter schools fight for students with consistent outreach, bus bench ads and mailers, public schools haven\u2019t traditionally done the same.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe do a very poor job of engaging with the communities in recruitment,\u201d Flores said. \u201cThere\u2019s been this expectation that \u2018your child is in my district, therefore your child is going to go to me, which isn\u2019t really true because of choice.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n That assumption is actually true in some parts of the district. Neighborhood participation rates range from nearly 90 percent in high-income, high performing clusters, to about half that in often low-income, low-performing clusters, creating a sort of map of confidence in local schools. \u00a0<\/p>\n Another seeming measure of confidence is where kids who don\u2019t attend their neighborhood school go \u2013 to another school in San Diego Unified, or to a charter not managed by the district. This, too, often breaks down on socioeconomic lines.\u00a0<\/p>\n About 14 percent of kids who live within San Diego Unified\u2019s boundaries\u00a0attend a charter school instead of their neighborhood school. In some southern San Diego neighborhoods, where communities\u2019 confidence in their local schools has historically been low, it\u2019s much higher. Nearly one in three children who live within the Lincoln cluster, for example, attend charter schools.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Allison Ohle has been on multiple sides of the district-run and charter side of the equation.\u00a0<\/p>\n