2 ms·

Plus probably needing private schools if you're not lucky enough to get into the handful of decent publics in sf. As a mere visitor to SF, if SF has lots of po

Plus probably needing private schools if you're not lucky enough to get into the handful of decent publics in sf. As a mere visitor to SF, if SF has lots of poor quality public schools, who's going to them? I keep hearing on HN and Twitter about how ridiculously expensive it is to live anywhere in SF so why aren't the schools, funded by taxes like anywhere else, good too?

x0x0 12y ago
peter -- this is a long involved answer, but basically, sf has fewer kids per capita than any city in america. This means several things: a lack of parents in the city means a lack of support for the schools. The schools have been bad for a while so there's an ugly cycle of the sort of parents that get involved in their kids' educations either leave for the peninsula, or put their kids into private schools. So the schools get worse. So more parents leave, or put their kids into private schools. Having kids are one of the major reasons people move to the peninsula: you trade a $800k apartment in sf for a $1.2mm house on the peninsula, but save $35-$45k/year in private school fees (assuming you have two kids). Spending the money on the house instead of school means you get your money back when you sell. Also, prop 13 destroyed local property taxes. This is another long involved story involving the wealthy getting californians to fuck newcomers, but it basically means very weird taxation. edit: oh, and who goes to public schools in sf? Predominantly poor minority kids. The fastest number I could find is that 62% of students in sf public schools qualify for free or reduced-price lunches [1], a common measure of poverty. In order to qualify your family must make less than 185% of the poverty line, or about $40k for a family with one kid. And that's in a city where 1-bedroom apartments now go for $3500/mo. The demographics of public school kids in sf [2] are 11% white. The city as a whole is 48.1% white [3]. [1] http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2013/02/06/calif-school-districts-found-using-lunch-money-for-other-purposes/ http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2013/02/06/calif-school-districts-f... [2] http://www.sfusd.edu/en/employment/certificated-careers/teaching-careers/why-teach-with-sfusd/our-district-snapshot.html http://www.sfusd.edu/en/employment/certificated-careers/teac... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco#Race_and_ethnicity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco#Race_and_ethnicit...

x0x0 12y ago

peter -- this is a long involved answer, but basically, sf has fewer kids per capita than any city in america. This means several things: a lack of parents in the city means a lack of support for the schools. The schools have been bad for a while so there's an ugly cycle of the sort of parents that get involved in their kids' educations either leave for the peninsula, or put their kids into private schools. So the schools get worse. So more parents leave, or put their kids into private schools. Having kids are one of the major reasons people move to the peninsula: you trade a $800k apartment in sf for a $1.2mm house on the peninsula, but save $35-$45k/year in private school fees (assuming you have two kids). Spending the money on the house instead of school means you get your money back when you sell. Also, prop 13 destroyed local property taxes. This is another long involved story involving the wealthy getting californians to fuck newcomers, but it basically means very weird taxation. edit: oh, and who goes to public schools in sf? Predominantly poor minority kids. The fastest number I could find is that 62% of students in sf public schools qualify for free or reduced-price lunches [1], a common measure of poverty. In order to qualify your family must make less than 185% of the poverty line, or about $40k for a family with one kid. And that's in a city where 1-bedroom apartments now go for $3500/mo. The demographics of public school kids in sf [2] are 11% white. The city as a whole is 48.1% white [3]. [1] http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2013/02/06/calif-school-districts-found-using-lunch-money-for-other-purposes/ http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2013/02/06/calif-school-districts-f... [2] http://www.sfusd.edu/en/employment/certificated-careers/teaching-careers/why-teach-with-sfusd/our-district-snapshot.html http://www.sfusd.edu/en/employment/certificated-careers/teac... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco#Race_and_ethnicity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco#Race_and_ethnicit...