Critics say San Diego superintendent nominated for national post has mixed record on equity

The recent announcement that San Diego Superintendent Cindy Marten was tapped to become the next deputy U.S. education secretary drew widespread praise among policymakers and educators, who say Marten has championed the cause for school equity.

But some local parents, community members and the NAACP San Diego are criticizing the choice, saying Marten did not reduce racial disparities in schools for Black and Latino children and that her failure to reopen schools for 98 percent of San Diego Unified students is setting students behind.

The nomination of the former teacher and principal at Central Elementary in City Heights drew praise from Secretary of State Shirley Weber, State Superintendent Tony Thurmond, the San Diego Unified school board, the San Diego teachers union, the national Council of Great City Schools, Mayor Todd Gloria, former mayor Kevin Faulconer and District Attorney Summer Stephan, among others.

“Cindy Marten will be a great voice for our students and educators,” Weber tweeted. “Thank you for your equity work, spanning 31 years in education, including 17 years in the classroom.”

“Congratulations to (Marten), who has dedicated her career to improving the lives of students, inspiring countless educators, and championing equity,” Thurmond tweeted. “A great day for California and our nation, and I am proud to call you a colleague and friend.”

“This is a great pick by @JoeBiden,” tweeted Mayor Todd Gloria. “Since her time as Central Elementary’s principal I’ve seen (Marten’s) passion for educating students. I’m excited that San Diego will be at the table in the new administration.”

But some local parents and community members who have long had complaints with San Diego Unified criticized the nomination and challenged the idea that Marten has succeeded in making schools equitable.

One of the criticisms is that Marten has kept students out of school for the past 10 months of the pandemic.

Parents say distance learning has exacerbated inequities because it often leaves much of the teaching and supervision of children to parents, hurting families that have essential workers or are otherwise not able to help children learn at home.

Many students also lack a suitable home environment for learning, and some students, particularly many students with disabilities, can’t learn effectively online or through Zoom.

“If one of Biden’s focuses is to reopen schools, how can Cindy Marten be a role model?” said Tamara Hurley, a parent whose children graduated from the district.

San Diego Unified officials have repeatedly said the district is taking a “science-based approach” to reopening, consulting with UC San Diego experts and staying closed because community rates of COVID-19 have been high in some areas of the district.

Several parents have supported the school closures, saying they’d rather their children stay home than risk getting exposed to COVID-19 at school.

Many large districts, including Los Angeles, also remain closed. Marten was among a group of California superintendents who called on Gov. Gavin Newsom to provide more supports for schools to reopen, including more COVID-19 testing and funding.

San Diego Unified has offered limited, in-person support sessions to students on an appointment basis. But that has been a disappointment because it is serving a small number of students — currently about 1,100, or 1 percent of the district’s students — San Diego Unified school board members have said.

Others say that even before the pandemic, Marten had failed to provide equity for all students, particularly for Black students.

NAACP San Diego has called on Biden to rescind Marten’s nomination because the district suspends and expels Black students at disproportionately high rates — a disparity that is widespread among schools nationwide.

“Dr. Marten in the past year has attempted to correct harm by having anti-Racist trainings that included changing policies on grading. While this is commendable, it does not erase the fact that SDUSD has a history of harming Black children,” NAACP San Diego said in a statement.

Disparities by race

San Diego Unified suspended Black students at a rate of 8.6 percent during the 2018-2019 year. That was down from 10.1 percent in 2012-2013, the last school year before Marten’s first full year as superintendent.

In 2018-2019, however, Black students in San Diego Unified were suspended more than three times as often as White students, and they made up 18 percent of students suspended despite making up 8 percent of the student body.

“Someone at the level of deputy superintendent has to have a long track record of success within education for all students, for providing equity for all students,” said Katrina Hamilton, education chair for NAACP San Diego. “And while we have folks who are saying that (Martin) has 31 years of equity, where is that track record?”

Racial disparities are evident in other aspects of San Diego Unified schools, including the national test scores that President Joe Biden’s team cited as one reason for choosing Marten.

In 2019 San Diego Unified was one of two large, urban districts nationwide to outperform the average on national test scores for math and reading for fourth- and eighth-graders.

Despite that record, achievement gaps for Black and Hispanic students compared to White students remained largely unchanged from 2013, the year Marten became superintendent, according to NAEP, the Nation’s Report Card.

State tests score data also tell an inconsistent story about performance.

State data show the district had raised the performance of all students — including Black, Hispanic and White students — between 2015 and 2019.

But while achievement gaps between Black or Hispanic students and White students shrank slightly, they still exceeded 30 percentage points for both English language arts and math.

About 62 percent of Black students and 57 percent of Hispanic students did not meet state standards for English language arts in 2019, while 72 percent of Black students and 68 percent of Hispanic students did not meet standards for math in 2019.

In graduation rates, there is a 10-percentage-point gap between Black and Hispanic students, who had rates of 84 percent, and White, Asian and multiracial students, who had rates of 94 percent or greater.

The district’s overall graduation rate is 89 percent.

Some local leaders dispute the criticisms about Marten, saying they unfairly disregard the progress she has made in the district.

“She has worked hard to bring about positive change when it comes to equity,” said Frank Jordan, a past president of the San Diego NAACP and California NAACP.

“It’s very easy to complain, but what have you done to create that dialogue and open doors yourself,” he said. Marten “has tried, she has honestly tried. You cannot snap your fingers and create change. To create positive change, it takes work.”

Equity reforms

A report by the Learning Policy Institute, an organization led by the state school board president that helped amplify San Diego Unified’s reputation as a well-performing district, found that San Diego Unified was one of multiple California districts where Black, Latino and White students performed better academically than predicted — given the socioeconomic status of families in the district.

The report noted that percentages of all student racial groups and low-income and non-low-income students reaching proficiency on state tests rose between 2015 to 2017. About 57 percent of San Diego Unified students are low-income.

San Diego Unified’s Black and Latino students also graduated at higher rates than Black and Latino students in California as a whole.

Under Marten’s leadership, San Diego Unified has implemented several racial equity reforms, including changing the way students are graded to be less punitive, requiring restorative discipline, launching efforts to increase staff diversity and studying the role of school police.

San Diego Unified Board Trustee Sharon Whitehurst-Payne, who represents southeastern San Diego, recently said the district is moving in the right direction.

“I don’t think anybody existing is perfect, and that goes for me, you, superintendent and the rest of us,” Whitehurst-Payne said. “But the question is, are we on a continuum to improve? We at least have discovered a path and we’re following that path.”

Marten will stay with the district until she is confirmed by the Senate, which school board officials expect to happen next month.

The board has appointed Area Superintendent Lamont Jackson as interim superintendent and will decide in coming weeks how it will find a permanent successor for Marten.