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Like a lot of education, California's is so tied up in so many ways that it takes books to understand. The first issue that springs to mind is the funding. Mos

Like a lot of education, California's is so tied up in so many ways that it takes books to understand. The first issue that springs to mind is the funding. Most funds in California do not stay local, they go to Sacramento and are then distributed out. If you're thinking that is a system ripe for abuse, then you are correct. The formulas and methods for determining funding aren't easy to grok. But then you add in all the fraud from schools themselves and you get a real mess. Further, Prop 13's starvation of property taxes has also contributed to the lack of public school funding in California. It's a bit of a winding tale there, but suffice to say, less taxes means less good schools. Then again, Prop 13 is, just, hoo boy. What a total long standing mess. So, does California need better education. Oh heck yes. But fixing that requires dealing with things like Prop 13 and other huge political monsters barely hidden under the rug. Try finding any politician with the bravery, let alone stamina, to fix those titanic underlying issues (pun intended).

rahimnathwani 3y ago
Funding is not the problem, at least not everywhere. My local school district (San Francisco) has: - an annual operating budget of $1.2bn/year. - ~50k K-12 students. That's $24k per student per year. Let's assume a teacher costs $150k/year and you want a low student:teacher ratio of 20:1. Of the $24k, $7.5k is needed to pay 1/20th of the cost of the teacher. You still have two thirds of the money left. Is that not enough to pay for management and facilities?
- Balgair 3y ago
  The median salary for a teacher in SF seems to be ~$70k +/- $9k [0], so about half you guess. Which, I mean, how the heck are they living anywhere near SF on that salary? Jeeze Louise... A better breakdown of the '21-'22 budget for SFUSD seems to be here: [1]. Numbers in () are a per student number Federal Revenue: $48,915,000 ($926) Local Revenue: $667,062,000 ($12,631) State Revenue: $455,213,000 ($8,620) Instructional Expenditures: $503,371,000 ($9,532) Student and Staff Support: $193,984,000 ($3,673) Administration: $104,612,000 ($1,981) Operations, Food Service, other: $103,178,000 ($1,954) Construction: $190,399,000 ($3,605) Student/Teacher Ratio: 19.32 Total $ per student seems to be ~$22k, the ratio is just under 20:1, and construction is just under 20%, so your guesses were pretty good! The site has more info, but one thing to notice is that the expenditures add up to more than the revenues. As in, SFUSD is in debt at ~$6 per student. Play with the numbers yourself (please also find another source of data). In the end, it seems SFUSD is not doing all that well if it's only paying teachers ~$70k, is still running a deficit, and has revenues of ~$1.1B per year. Something seems strange about all those numbers. [0] https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/public-school-teacher-salary/san-francisco-ca https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/public-scho... [1] https://nces.ed.gov/ccd/districtsearch/district_detail.asp?ID2=0634410 https://nces.ed.gov/ccd/districtsearch/district_detail.asp?I...
  - rahimnathwani 3y ago
    Some quick thoughts: 1. You can find the latest operating budget (for 2023-2024) here[0]. It's $1.28bn. 2. The student ratio and cost per teacher assumptions I have were meant to be generous, to illustrate how, even with generous assumptions, it's hard to explain why $24k/student isn't enough. 3. If you do want to look at actual teacher costs for SFUSD, don't forget to sum salaries, benefits and pensions. If you want to look at total compensation for a specific teacher, Google 'transparent california', which has a searchable database for past years. 4. Cost of living changes don't affect everyone equally. Due to rent control, people who signed a rental contract 10-15 years ago (like many SFUSD teachers) aren't paying the same as folks who moved more recently. [0] https://www.sfusd.edu/about-sfusd/sfusd-news/press-releases/2023-06-22-sf-board-education-adopts-plan-and-budget-2023-24-school-year https://www.sfusd.edu/about-sfusd/sfusd-news/press-releases/...

rahimnathwani 3y ago

Funding is not the problem, at least not everywhere. My local school district (San Francisco) has: - an annual operating budget of $1.2bn/year. - ~50k K-12 students. That's $24k per student per year. Let's assume a teacher costs $150k/year and you want a low student:teacher ratio of 20:1. Of the $24k, $7.5k is needed to pay 1/20th of the cost of the teacher. You still have two thirds of the money left. Is that not enough to pay for management and facilities?

Balgair 3y ago
The median salary for a teacher in SF seems to be ~$70k +/- $9k [0], so about half you guess. Which, I mean, how the heck are they living anywhere near SF on that salary? Jeeze Louise... A better breakdown of the '21-'22 budget for SFUSD seems to be here: [1]. Numbers in () are a per student number Federal Revenue: $48,915,000 ($926) Local Revenue: $667,062,000 ($12,631) State Revenue: $455,213,000 ($8,620) Instructional Expenditures: $503,371,000 ($9,532) Student and Staff Support: $193,984,000 ($3,673) Administration: $104,612,000 ($1,981) Operations, Food Service, other: $103,178,000 ($1,954) Construction: $190,399,000 ($3,605) Student/Teacher Ratio: 19.32 Total $ per student seems to be ~$22k, the ratio is just under 20:1, and construction is just under 20%, so your guesses were pretty good! The site has more info, but one thing to notice is that the expenditures add up to more than the revenues. As in, SFUSD is in debt at ~$6 per student. Play with the numbers yourself (please also find another source of data). In the end, it seems SFUSD is not doing all that well if it's only paying teachers ~$70k, is still running a deficit, and has revenues of ~$1.1B per year. Something seems strange about all those numbers. [0] https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/public-school-teacher-salary/san-francisco-ca https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/public-scho... [1] https://nces.ed.gov/ccd/districtsearch/district_detail.asp?ID2=0634410 https://nces.ed.gov/ccd/districtsearch/district_detail.asp?I...
- rahimnathwani 3y ago
  Some quick thoughts: 1. You can find the latest operating budget (for 2023-2024) here[0]. It's $1.28bn. 2. The student ratio and cost per teacher assumptions I have were meant to be generous, to illustrate how, even with generous assumptions, it's hard to explain why $24k/student isn't enough. 3. If you do want to look at actual teacher costs for SFUSD, don't forget to sum salaries, benefits and pensions. If you want to look at total compensation for a specific teacher, Google 'transparent california', which has a searchable database for past years. 4. Cost of living changes don't affect everyone equally. Due to rent control, people who signed a rental contract 10-15 years ago (like many SFUSD teachers) aren't paying the same as folks who moved more recently. [0] https://www.sfusd.edu/about-sfusd/sfusd-news/press-releases/2023-06-22-sf-board-education-adopts-plan-and-budget-2023-24-school-year https://www.sfusd.edu/about-sfusd/sfusd-news/press-releases/...