Let's discuss public schools in the SFBA

[Anonymous]

I find it mind-boggling that a blue state spends so little on K-12 education compared to other states, and that the state is at the bottom of the rankings of K-12 schools in the country (except for select strong high schools). It is very expensive to live in those schools' "catchment area" and many of them are crazy competitive which makes them, well, not for everyone.

There is also this phenomenon where a neighborhood has 1-2 million dollar houses yet schools are ranked 4-7 (and there are mobile home parks and older apartment complexes where most of the school population lives, and SFH owners tend to send their kids to privates or charters).
Interested in everyone's take on it!

[Anonymous]

It's crazy. I agree. We lived in SF and then Sausalito. We moved back to the East Coast. Schools was a BIG factor. Our home cost a fortune and the property taxes were insane and the school was so disappointing.

And the SF city lottery system is ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

We live in a "great" school district yet we still send our kids to private. "Great" meant tenured teachers who were burned out and treated the kids either poorly or as an after thought and an absurd focus on APs in high school. Private is worth every penny. Now, I want to sell my house in suburban hell and move to the city but I can't afford it.

[Anonymous]

It's because of Prop 13, a very short-sighted decision that has limited property tax money flowing into schools, even as demand skyrockets.

A couple personal anecdotes:

I grew up in the part of San Carlos that feeds into Redwood City schools. My parents pulled me into Catholic school when my public elementary couldn't keep teachers for more than a few months, and the middle school didn't have enough desks to go around (the Catholic school was no great shakes either but we had desks and it was safe). They've since remodeled and expanded the public school and it's now well regarded locally -- although it seems to only be good by comparison to what it once was, not by comparison to what you could get outside of CA.

Separately, San Carlos HS was closed when I was a child. This was not directly because of Prop 13, but was another short-sighted decision made by an aging voting population: enrollment was down (aging households had not yet flipped over to new families) and local government wanted to take advantage of the growing real estate demand. The site is now a housing development, and the city has no high school.

[Anonymous]

Yep. It's why we moved out of CA. Had to think of my kids' schooling and didn't want to do private because I was afraid that if one of us couldn't work due to health or was laid off, then kids would be stuck in a terrible school. I lived through the dotcom crash there, and it made me realize that the high tech bubble can't sustain itself long term.

As a PP noted, it was prop 13 that killed it. I grew up in CA, and was in grade school prior to prop 13. Once that passed, in hindsight I can see a difference in education quality. Gone were the "extras" and class sizes increased. It's worse now.

CA has lots of public colleges, but even the CalState Univs (the tier below UCs) are now getting harder to get into. It's crazy.

[Anonymous]

I educated in Marin county schools when prop 13 passed. Pre-prop13, the schools were excellent. We left soon after prop 13 passed.

My peers who were left behind in Marin described steadily declining schools over the years.

None of us would send our kids to public school in California today.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's because of Prop 13, a very short-sighted decision that has limited property tax money flowing into schools, even as demand skyrockets.

A couple personal anecdotes:

I grew up in the part of San Carlos that feeds into Redwood City schools. My parents pulled me into Catholic school when my public elementary couldn't keep teachers for more than a few months, and the middle school didn't have enough desks to go around (the Catholic school was no great shakes either but we had desks and it was safe). They've since remodeled and expanded the public school and it's now well regarded locally -- although it seems to only be good by comparison to what it once was, not by comparison to what you could get outside of CA.

Separately, San Carlos HS was closed when I was a child. This was not directly because of Prop 13, but was another short-sighted decision made by an aging voting population: enrollment was down (aging households had not yet flipped over to new families) and local government wanted to take advantage of the growing real estate demand. The site is now a housing development, and the city has no high school.

San Carlos schools are considered excellent now! The 4-7s are because Greatschools recently changed their rankings to "equity ratings" based on how the test scores of students on free/reduced lunch. Some of the schools in my district that were 9s last year have now dropped to 7s.

But yes, you can have a $1+ million home and need to send your kids to a magnet school (or private school).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's because of Prop 13, a very short-sighted decision that has limited property tax money flowing into schools, even as demand skyrockets.

A couple personal anecdotes:

I grew up in the part of San Carlos that feeds into Redwood City schools. My parents pulled me into Catholic school when my public elementary couldn't keep teachers for more than a few months, and the middle school didn't have enough desks to go around (the Catholic school was no great shakes either but we had desks and it was safe). They've since remodeled and expanded the public school and it's now well regarded locally -- although it seems to only be good by comparison to what it once was, not by comparison to what you could get outside of CA.

Separately, San Carlos HS was closed when I was a child. This was not directly because of Prop 13, but was another short-sighted decision made by an aging voting population: enrollment was down (aging households had not yet flipped over to new families) and local government wanted to take advantage of the growing real estate demand. The site is now a housing development, and the city has no high school.

San Carlos schools are considered excellent now! The 4-7s are because Greatschools recently changed their rankings to "equity ratings" based on how the test scores of students on free/reduced lunch. Some of the schools in my district that were 9s last year have now dropped to 7s.

But yes, you can have a $1+ million home and need to send your kids to a magnet school (or private school).

Great Schools didn't change their rankings--California did (as did other states) in response to new federal legislation that requires that schools be showing growth for all kids, rather than just looking at average performance of kids. Some schools that previously looked very strong and have fallen had kids who came in high-performing but weren't necessarily moving them much year to year; others had small numbers of kids far below grade level who were averaged out in the old system by many kids above grade level. Great Schools just uses a formula that has the state scores as an input.

But agreed with PP--even the "good" California schools are a shadow of what they once were, and sadly many would not be considered strong compared to schools in other states.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's crazy. I agree. We lived in SF and then Sausalito. We moved back to the East Coast. Schools was a BIG factor. Our home cost a fortune and the property taxes were insane and the school was so disappointing.

And the SF city lottery system is ridiculous.

+1.

The schools situation is absurd.

[Anonymous]

There are some very good school districts in south bay, the peninsula and east bay. Palo Alto, Cupertino, Los Gatos, Union, Saratoga, are all small and very good school systems. I think Walnut Grove is considered to be good. Orinda, San Ramon, Danville are other East Bay schools that we've heard are good. The smaller districts seem to have better funding and resources than the SF schools.

There is even one school cluster in SJ unified that does pretty well down in Almaden.