Anonymous wrote:You are really asking - how can poor people afford the Bay Area?

THe poors are well funded by the liberal elites desire to do-good. It is the middle class the liberal had no use for and kicked them out about 20 years ago.

California is liberalism at its finest.

Anonymous wrote:OP here: my question was not why schools in CA are worse than elsewhere. My question was how can poor people afford to stay in rapidly gentrifying cities (not SF).
In my city rent control was passed only around 2016. It helps some but I think it’s not all.

The short answer is that they can't--California is losing a million residents a year, and those who are leaving are disproportionately households making under $55K. The lower-income families who do stay are usually either protected by rent control, living in affordable housing developments, living in substandard housing (apartments or houses that couldn't be rented for market rate to gentrifiers without a lot of repairs and remodeling), doubling up with family, or living in homes they own that they bought before costs were at their current level.

Based on your description, I'm guessing you may live in Mountain View. If so, it's worth noting that MV is a dramatically different city than it was 20 years ago. The schools are changing too, but those changes lag the overall changes in the city given the demographic of who is moving in. MV has also been very proactive in working to ensure that lower-income families are able to stay in the city as rents rise. Still a long way to go, obviously, but they have made more headway than some of the other Peninsula cities.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:California has some of the most poorly funded schools in the nation, despite its wealth. Other states fund schools through property taxes, but California effectively eliminated this as a funding source in the late 1970s, and the cost to infrastructure and education has unfortunately caught up. The schools are either subsidized by parent contributions and local parcel taxes in wealthy areas or are abysmally underfunded in less wealthy areas, with people of means opting out for private or parochial schools.

I think we will see a sea change in the next 10 years, but it's incredibly depressing that the system had to break so dramatically for people to care. California used to have one of the best public education systems in the nation.

When I was in elementary school in the Bay Area in the 70s, we had an orchestra, a gifted program with 10 course choices, and a school nurse. the Prop 13 passed. Classes were cut, art and music were cut, and library hours were slashed. At the time, it was generational warfare. The Boomers had mostly graduated, and their parents no longer cared about schools.

Here in DC, I pay 9.5 percent income taxes. We have free pre-K starting at age 3, dedicated music and art teachers, a science program, and a health teacher who cooks with the kids. Every high school in the area offers AP classes, and many schools offer 20+. There are also a lot of public IB programs. DC and the surrounding suburbs spend more than twice as much per pupil as California.

We have good friends who moved from DC to the SF East Bay and were appalled at the public schools that the Bay Area considers "good." I have lived here long enough that I've gotten acclimated to it so don't bat an eye anymore, but it did make me want to cry when they shared their PK3/PK4 experience in DCPS. The CA equivalent to PK4 is only available to kids born in the months of September, October, and November, and has a class size of 24 with one teacher. No PK3 at all except for low-income families (and not even enough spaces for the kids who qualify for that program). No music class at all in many schools, let alone an orchestra. No librarians in many schools, and some don't have libraries at all. The state eliminated the gifted program. Our CA district has one school nurse for every 1600 students.

California has many wonderful assets, but don't move here for the schools unless you're ready to roll up your sleeves and join the fight to fix them.

We moved to SF Bay Area (east bay to be specific) from NOVA and were in FCPS. We found the public elementary school here to be better than our FCPS school ( a fairly well respected school --probably a 8 or 9 on Great Schools). The middle school here was ok, but I wasn't wowed. High school was largely AP focused, so not our bag and we switched to private.

OP here: my question was not why schools in CA are worse than elsewhere. My question was how can poor people afford to stay in rapidly gentrifying cities (not SF).
In my city rent control was passed only around 2016. It helps some but I think it’s not all.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:California has some of the most poorly funded schools in the nation, despite its wealth. Other states fund schools through property taxes, but California effectively eliminated this as a funding source in the late 1970s, and the cost to infrastructure and education has unfortunately caught up. The schools are either subsidized by parent contributions and local parcel taxes in wealthy areas or are abysmally underfunded in less wealthy areas, with people of means opting out for private or parochial schools.

I think we will see a sea change in the next 10 years, but it's incredibly depressing that the system had to break so dramatically for people to care. California used to have one of the best public education systems in the nation.

When I was in elementary school in the Bay Area in the 70s, we had an orchestra, a gifted program with 10 course choices, and a school nurse. the Prop 13 passed. Classes were cut, art and music were cut, and library hours were slashed. At the time, it was generational warfare. The Boomers had mostly graduated, and their parents no longer cared about schools.

Here in DC, I pay 9.5 percent income taxes. We have free pre-K starting at age 3, dedicated music and art teachers, a science program, and a health teacher who cooks with the kids. Every high school in the area offers AP classes, and many schools offer 20+. There are also a lot of public IB programs. DC and the surrounding suburbs spend more than twice as much per pupil as California.

We have good friends who moved from DC to the SF East Bay and were appalled at the public schools that the Bay Area considers "good." I have lived here long enough that I've gotten acclimated to it so don't bat an eye anymore, but it did make me want to cry when they shared their PK3/PK4 experience in DCPS. The CA equivalent to PK4 is only available to kids born in the months of September, October, and November, and has a class size of 24 with one teacher. No PK3 at all except for low-income families (and not even enough spaces for the kids who qualify for that program). No music class at all in many schools, let alone an orchestra. No librarians in many schools, and some don't have libraries at all. The state eliminated the gifted program. Our CA district has one school nurse for every 1600 students.

California has many wonderful assets, but don't move here for the schools unless you're ready to roll up your sleeves and join the fight to fix them.

Rent controlled housing is how poor people live in San Francisco.

Anonymous wrote:California has some of the most poorly funded schools in the nation, despite its wealth. Other states fund schools through property taxes, but California effectively eliminated this as a funding source in the late 1970s, and the cost to infrastructure and education has unfortunately caught up. The schools are either subsidized by parent contributions and local parcel taxes in wealthy areas or are abysmally underfunded in less wealthy areas, with people of means opting out for private or parochial schools.

I think we will see a sea change in the next 10 years, but it's incredibly depressing that the system had to break so dramatically for people to care. California used to have one of the best public education systems in the nation.

When I was in elementary school in the Bay Area in the 70s, we had an orchestra, a gifted program with 10 course choices, and a school nurse. the Prop 13 passed. Classes were cut, art and music were cut, and library hours were slashed. At the time, it was generational warfare. The Boomers had mostly graduated, and their parents no longer cared about schools.

Here in DC, I pay 9.5 percent income taxes. We have free pre-K starting at age 3, dedicated music and art teachers, a science program, and a health teacher who cooks with the kids. Every high school in the area offers AP classes, and many schools offer 20+. There are also a lot of public IB programs. DC and the surrounding suburbs spend more than twice as much per pupil as California.

California has some of the most poorly funded schools in the nation, despite its wealth. Other states fund schools through property taxes, but California effectively eliminated this as a funding source in the late 1970s, and the cost to infrastructure and education has unfortunately caught up. The schools are either subsidized by parent contributions and local parcel taxes in wealthy areas or are abysmally underfunded in less wealthy areas, with people of means opting out for private or parochial schools.

I think we will see a sea change in the next 10 years, but it's incredibly depressing that the system had to break so dramatically for people to care. California used to have one of the best public education systems in the nation.

You are really asking - how can poor people afford the Bay Area?

Sorry to inconvenience you, colonizer.

We are new to the area too and don't understand it either. Even in the areas outside SF with GS 9 and 10 schools the academics aren't very impressive. People in this area of the country are just not as focused on education as they are in New England, New York and the DMV area.

Live in a city where there are 7 elementaries, 2 of them over 60% farms and ESOL, two are about 40-50% that, and only 2-3 are rated 9-10GS (and still have about 10-20% farms and ESOL).
How is it possible? People are complaining all the time about how they cannot afford to live here. Yet, the poverty level of the school district is like 30-40%.
Yes there are still a lot of older apartments but they ain’t cheap! Yes one can live 10 to an apartment but on such a massive scale?