4 ms·

Shouldn't the schools in SF be incredible? I mean with the skyrocketing costs of residences intersected with the hugely decreased student populations, $/pupil s

Shouldn't the schools in SF be incredible? I mean with the skyrocketing costs of residences intersected with the hugely decreased student populations, $/pupil should be higher than ever. Seems like a great place to start to draw families back into the city.

dragonwriter 10y ago
$/pupil in public school operating costs is mandated to be equal across the state; local tax base may make more money available for capital improvements, but doesn't make any more available for classroom operations (even to keep pay of faculty and staff in line with living costs.)
- _dark_matter_ 10y ago
  Thank you for the reply. While I understand the idea behind that law, it seems untenable for a teacher in SF to be making the same as a teacher in Bakersfield.
- JauntTrooper 10y ago
  SF children are also assigned a school via a lottery. Kids can't go to the school that's closest to them unless they get lucky. My co-worker was assigned a school with a terrible commute, so he reluctantly chose a private school instead. I think it was done to improve racial/socioeconomic integration, but in practice it means wealthier parents withdraw from the system and send their kids to private schools instead. The results: 58% of SF public school students are on free/reduced-price lunches, higher than the national average. That means they're in families making $43k for a family of four (quite tough in SF). The racial impact is also striking. San Francisco is 42% white, but in 2013-2014, only 13% of SF public school students were white. That number is 9% for high schoolers.
  - spullara 10y ago
    This is exactly right. All the poorest kids get to go to a bad school far away. The rich kids go to a great school far away. One of the reasons that I wouldn't move back while my kids are in school.
  - zeroer 10y ago
    That's silly.
  - mesh 10y ago
    You can find a good description of the system in this article: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/education/21sfschool.html http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/education/21sfschool.html --------- Here is how the current system works: Let’s say a 5-year-old — we’ll call him Jake, like my son — wants to go to kindergarten. His parents fill out an application and list seven schools they prefer. The more desirable schools get more applications than they have seats; in some cases that ratio is 20 to 1. That’s where the Diversity Index comes in. Known as “the lottery,” the index uses five factors to determine a child’s profile: poverty level, socio-economic status, English-language proficiency, academic achievement and, for upper grades, the quality of the student’s previous school. Once that profile is built, the child is placed in one of his selected schools, in a class of students whose collective profile is as different from his own profile as possible. As each child is added, the class profile is adjusted, and more “most different” children are placed. Students living near their selected schools are considered first. The district also gives preference to children who have siblings at the same school and apply on time. But there is no guarantee that a child will get in a selected school. And once the lottery has filled all the slots, those soon-to-be kindergartners who get into none of their choices are offered a place in a school with open positions. Proximity to their home and transportation are considered. Designed to be race-neutral, the system has instead been widely criticized as too complex and opaque. “It’s all magic and voodoo,” Ms. Menegaz said, only half joking. --------- Basically, they try to balance out the schools, but it means that if you are of a higher socio-economic status you are placed into schools with people with lower socio-economic status to try to balance things out. But that often means being placed into schools that are farther away, and don't perform well. So, it pushes away people from public schools who can afford to move away, or send their kids to private schools (this is why we left San Francisco).
    - em500 10y ago
      > But there is no guarantee that a child will get in a selected school. And once the lottery has filled all the slots, those soon-to-be kindergartners who get into none of their choices are offered a place in a school with open positions. Proximity to their home and transportation are considered. Is there _any_ system that can "guarantee" that a child will get in a selected school when there are big demand-supply gaps?
- bb611 10y ago
  > $/pupil in public school operating costs is mandated to be equal across the state That's not accurate, a major part of Jerry Brown's education policy changes have been improved funding for title 1 schools (low income criteria - which most or all SF public schools meet) at the expense of non-title 1 schools. The measure is the Local Control Funding Formula. You are directionally accurate in that CA law greatly reduces the ways cities can put money into the operating budgets of their school districts. However, there are plenty of ways around this, if people were strongly invested in building better schools in SF they would be using them.
thephyber 10y ago
Proposition 13 caps the rate at which property taxes may increase. Unless a huge proportion of SF properties are being transferred (outside of a family), property taxes don't keep up with market rates. San Francisco has notoriously strong NIMBYs that largely prevent new developments and redevelopments, which also suppresses tax base improvements.
- shostack 10y ago
  Added fun... New home owning families pay massively disproportionate taxes than those who owned a long time, despite probably not getting anywhere near the same benefit of those tax dollars.
eli 10y ago
DC schools spend more per student than anywhere and the results are uneven at best (though improving). Money sent everything.

dragonwriter 10y ago

$/pupil in public school operating costs is mandated to be equal across the state; local tax base may make more money available for capital improvements, but doesn't make any more available for classroom operations (even to keep pay of faculty and staff in line with living costs.)

_dark_matter_ 10y ago
Thank you for the reply. While I understand the idea behind that law, it seems untenable for a teacher in SF to be making the same as a teacher in Bakersfield.
JauntTrooper 10y ago
SF children are also assigned a school via a lottery. Kids can't go to the school that's closest to them unless they get lucky. My co-worker was assigned a school with a terrible commute, so he reluctantly chose a private school instead. I think it was done to improve racial/socioeconomic integration, but in practice it means wealthier parents withdraw from the system and send their kids to private schools instead. The results: 58% of SF public school students are on free/reduced-price lunches, higher than the national average. That means they're in families making $43k for a family of four (quite tough in SF). The racial impact is also striking. San Francisco is 42% white, but in 2013-2014, only 13% of SF public school students were white. That number is 9% for high schoolers.
- spullara 10y ago
  This is exactly right. All the poorest kids get to go to a bad school far away. The rich kids go to a great school far away. One of the reasons that I wouldn't move back while my kids are in school.
- zeroer 10y ago
  That's silly.
- mesh 10y ago
  You can find a good description of the system in this article: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/education/21sfschool.html http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/education/21sfschool.html --------- Here is how the current system works: Let’s say a 5-year-old — we’ll call him Jake, like my son — wants to go to kindergarten. His parents fill out an application and list seven schools they prefer. The more desirable schools get more applications than they have seats; in some cases that ratio is 20 to 1. That’s where the Diversity Index comes in. Known as “the lottery,” the index uses five factors to determine a child’s profile: poverty level, socio-economic status, English-language proficiency, academic achievement and, for upper grades, the quality of the student’s previous school. Once that profile is built, the child is placed in one of his selected schools, in a class of students whose collective profile is as different from his own profile as possible. As each child is added, the class profile is adjusted, and more “most different” children are placed. Students living near their selected schools are considered first. The district also gives preference to children who have siblings at the same school and apply on time. But there is no guarantee that a child will get in a selected school. And once the lottery has filled all the slots, those soon-to-be kindergartners who get into none of their choices are offered a place in a school with open positions. Proximity to their home and transportation are considered. Designed to be race-neutral, the system has instead been widely criticized as too complex and opaque. “It’s all magic and voodoo,” Ms. Menegaz said, only half joking. --------- Basically, they try to balance out the schools, but it means that if you are of a higher socio-economic status you are placed into schools with people with lower socio-economic status to try to balance things out. But that often means being placed into schools that are farther away, and don't perform well. So, it pushes away people from public schools who can afford to move away, or send their kids to private schools (this is why we left San Francisco).
  - em500 10y ago
    > But there is no guarantee that a child will get in a selected school. And once the lottery has filled all the slots, those soon-to-be kindergartners who get into none of their choices are offered a place in a school with open positions. Proximity to their home and transportation are considered. Is there _any_ system that can "guarantee" that a child will get in a selected school when there are big demand-supply gaps?
bb611 10y ago
> $/pupil in public school operating costs is mandated to be equal across the state That's not accurate, a major part of Jerry Brown's education policy changes have been improved funding for title 1 schools (low income criteria - which most or all SF public schools meet) at the expense of non-title 1 schools. The measure is the Local Control Funding Formula. You are directionally accurate in that CA law greatly reduces the ways cities can put money into the operating budgets of their school districts. However, there are plenty of ways around this, if people were strongly invested in building better schools in SF they would be using them.

thephyber 10y ago

Proposition 13 caps the rate at which property taxes may increase. Unless a huge proportion of SF properties are being transferred (outside of a family), property taxes don't keep up with market rates. San Francisco has notoriously strong NIMBYs that largely prevent new developments and redevelopments, which also suppresses tax base improvements.

shostack 10y ago
Added fun... New home owning families pay massively disproportionate taxes than those who owned a long time, despite probably not getting anywhere near the same benefit of those tax dollars.

eli 10y ago

DC schools spend more per student than anywhere and the results are uneven at best (though improving). Money sent everything.