6 ms·

I think your reasoning is flawed, but fine...if the goal is to try and have the cheapest possible one room school house. That $200k gets eaten up pretty quick b

by mmcclure 11mo ago

I think your reasoning is flawed, but fine...if the goal is to try and have the cheapest possible one room school house. That $200k gets eaten up pretty quick by things like security, janitorial, building maintenance, support staff like principals, librarians, guidance counselors etc etc. If you’re meaning to include total cost for the full time employees (the teachers) in the list, then the salaries are a lot less attractive once you’re done covering benefits, etc. I've got multiple kids, so I'll admit I think about schools here a lot. The absolute cheapest private schools I've seen in San Francisco are subsidized by religious institutions. The tuition for those schools per child is roughly $28k. Non religious private schools usually start in the $40k range and can easily get into the $50s and well beyond. My point is that it's hard to point at some issue of inefficient public bureaucracy, because clearly private institutions aren't able to do it any cheaper. I would also argue they wouldn't try, because their goal is a good education, or at least better than the public alternative (that only spends $28k per kid).

zaphar 11mo ago
If the religious institution does a better job at roughly the same cost-point then it's probably not the money that is making the difference.
- lazyasciiart 11mo ago
  No, it’s the selection process of parents and children.
  - mmcclure 11mo ago
    And, it's worth noting, the uh...deselection process. Private schools can kick kids out, public schools cannot.
    - rahimnathwani 11mo ago
      Public schools can't legally kick kids out, but SFUSD has shown it can drive parents away.
rahimnathwani 11mo ago
"I think your reasoning is flawed, but fine...if the goal is to try and have the cheapest possible one room school house." I was generous in my estimate for each of the line items. I chose a one room school house as an example because it's easy to grok, and anything larger would be cheaper due to economies of scale. "I've got multiple kids, so I'll admit I think about schools here a lot." Although I have only one child (in 4th grade), I think about schools a lot, too. "The absolute cheapest private schools I've seen in San Francisco are subsidized by religious institutions. The tuition for those schools per child is roughly $28k." This $28k number is false. Most parochial schools charge about $12k. Here is a breakdown by grade level of the number of parochial schools in SF that serve that grade level, and the median tuition among those schools for that grade: # Median sticker price Pre-K 7 $16,610 K 29 $11,530 1 29 $11,530 2 29 $11,175 3 29 $11,175 4 29 $11,175 5 29 $11,175 6 30 $11,519 7 30 $11,519 8 30 $11,519 9 4 $31,725 10 4 $31,725 11 4 $31,725 12 4 $31,725 "Non religious private schools usually start in the $40k range and can easily get into the $50s and well beyond." This 'usually start in the $40k range' is also false. For each of the grades K-5, 33-39% of non-parochial schools in SF charge less than $40k. For each of the grades 6-8, 30% of non-parochial schools in SF charge less than $40k. "because clearly private institutions aren't able to do it any cheaper" Non-parochial private schools don't typically price based on cost. The schools that have high demand (due to parents and student population) can charge more. So they don't need to manage their costs tightly. And they can spend lots of money on marketing. Moreover, not all students pay sticker price. So looking at the sticker prices (which I've listed above) may give an inflated view of total income. "because their goal is a good education" Their goal is happy customers (parents). Different schools achieve this in different ways. Some parents choose a school not based on the expected quality of education but based on the expected networking opportunities for themselves and for their child.
- mmcclure 11mo ago
  I was generous in my estimate for each of the line items. I chose a one room school house as an example because it's easy to grok, and anything larger would be cheaper due to economies of scale. I would argue that economies of scale don't apply to education in the same way they apply to other businesses at large. Sure, you theoretically get the benefits of scale with central organization, buildings, centralized services, etc, but once you get to the classrooms themselves most of the cost simply scales linearly with the number of students. This $28k number is false. Most parochial schools charge about $12k. I'm not sure what we're talking about here anymore. You're using K-8 as the dominating factor for this gotcha a few times in this thread. There are more K-8 parochial schools, yes. "Most parochial schools charge about $12k" is true, unless you're talking about high school. Exactly 1 parochial school is less than $30k (SF Christian, at $16k). From there (limited to religious schools): - Sacred Heart ($31k) - Archbishop Riordan ($32k) - Saint Ignatius ($34.6) - Sacred Heart ($60k) - Jewish Community School ($65k) I might have missed some in here since I'm going by names, but given that SF Christian is the cheapest private high school on SF Chronicle's list[1] I don't think that matters for my point. You started this thread with average cost per student across all SF public school students, which includes special needs, high school, etc, but move to median prices for debate, and structure most of your argument around the cheapest schools (K-8). Mea culpa on my end, though: you are correct that when I was saying "cheapest I've seen," there was an unfair modifier of "cheapest schools on my personal spreadsheet" which is limited to schools within a reasonable commute and that we'd be willing to send our kids to. You're absolutely correct that there are cheaper parochial schools available as long as you only need K-8. Using averages for private schools, which feels more applicable to your starting premise, private schools in SF average $27k, $28k, and $52k, for elementary, middle, and high school (again, referencing SF Chronicle's data). I still feel comfortable with my original premise that averaging $28k per student across all of SFUSD students is not an absurd number. So looking at the sticker prices (which I've listed above) may give an inflated view of total income. Sure, that's fair! But we're not talking about income, we're talking about average cost per kid. We can't actually know the details under the hood, but again, those schools specifically in your list are usually subsidized by a larger religious organization, so the sticker price doesn't truly reflect that cost anyway. [1] https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2025/sf-bay-area-private-school-tuition/ https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2025/sf-bay-area-privat...

zaphar 11mo ago

If the religious institution does a better job at roughly the same cost-point then it's probably not the money that is making the difference.

lazyasciiart 11mo ago
No, it’s the selection process of parents and children.
- mmcclure 11mo ago
  And, it's worth noting, the uh...deselection process. Private schools can kick kids out, public schools cannot.
  - rahimnathwani 11mo ago
    Public schools can't legally kick kids out, but SFUSD has shown it can drive parents away.

rahimnathwani 11mo ago

"I think your reasoning is flawed, but fine...if the goal is to try and have the cheapest possible one room school house." I was generous in my estimate for each of the line items. I chose a one room school house as an example because it's easy to grok, and anything larger would be cheaper due to economies of scale. "I've got multiple kids, so I'll admit I think about schools here a lot." Although I have only one child (in 4th grade), I think about schools a lot, too. "The absolute cheapest private schools I've seen in San Francisco are subsidized by religious institutions. The tuition for those schools per child is roughly $28k." This $28k number is false. Most parochial schools charge about $12k. Here is a breakdown by grade level of the number of parochial schools in SF that serve that grade level, and the median tuition among those schools for that grade: # Median sticker price Pre-K 7 $16,610 K 29 $11,530 1 29 $11,530 2 29 $11,175 3 29 $11,175 4 29 $11,175 5 29 $11,175 6 30 $11,519 7 30 $11,519 8 30 $11,519 9 4 $31,725 10 4 $31,725 11 4 $31,725 12 4 $31,725 "Non religious private schools usually start in the $40k range and can easily get into the $50s and well beyond." This 'usually start in the $40k range' is also false. For each of the grades K-5, 33-39% of non-parochial schools in SF charge less than $40k. For each of the grades 6-8, 30% of non-parochial schools in SF charge less than $40k. "because clearly private institutions aren't able to do it any cheaper" Non-parochial private schools don't typically price based on cost. The schools that have high demand (due to parents and student population) can charge more. So they don't need to manage their costs tightly. And they can spend lots of money on marketing. Moreover, not all students pay sticker price. So looking at the sticker prices (which I've listed above) may give an inflated view of total income. "because their goal is a good education" Their goal is happy customers (parents). Different schools achieve this in different ways. Some parents choose a school not based on the expected quality of education but based on the expected networking opportunities for themselves and for their child.

mmcclure 11mo ago
I was generous in my estimate for each of the line items. I chose a one room school house as an example because it's easy to grok, and anything larger would be cheaper due to economies of scale. I would argue that economies of scale don't apply to education in the same way they apply to other businesses at large. Sure, you theoretically get the benefits of scale with central organization, buildings, centralized services, etc, but once you get to the classrooms themselves most of the cost simply scales linearly with the number of students. This $28k number is false. Most parochial schools charge about $12k. I'm not sure what we're talking about here anymore. You're using K-8 as the dominating factor for this gotcha a few times in this thread. There are more K-8 parochial schools, yes. "Most parochial schools charge about $12k" is true, unless you're talking about high school. Exactly 1 parochial school is less than $30k (SF Christian, at $16k). From there (limited to religious schools): - Sacred Heart ($31k) - Archbishop Riordan ($32k) - Saint Ignatius ($34.6) - Sacred Heart ($60k) - Jewish Community School ($65k) I might have missed some in here since I'm going by names, but given that SF Christian is the cheapest private high school on SF Chronicle's list[1] I don't think that matters for my point. You started this thread with average cost per student across all SF public school students, which includes special needs, high school, etc, but move to median prices for debate, and structure most of your argument around the cheapest schools (K-8). Mea culpa on my end, though: you are correct that when I was saying "cheapest I've seen," there was an unfair modifier of "cheapest schools on my personal spreadsheet" which is limited to schools within a reasonable commute and that we'd be willing to send our kids to. You're absolutely correct that there are cheaper parochial schools available as long as you only need K-8. Using averages for private schools, which feels more applicable to your starting premise, private schools in SF average $27k, $28k, and $52k, for elementary, middle, and high school (again, referencing SF Chronicle's data). I still feel comfortable with my original premise that averaging $28k per student across all of SFUSD students is not an absurd number. So looking at the sticker prices (which I've listed above) may give an inflated view of total income. Sure, that's fair! But we're not talking about income, we're talking about average cost per kid. We can't actually know the details under the hood, but again, those schools specifically in your list are usually subsidized by a larger religious organization, so the sticker price doesn't truly reflect that cost anyway. [1] https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2025/sf-bay-area-private-school-tuition/ https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2025/sf-bay-area-privat...