Why are California schools so bad ? (San Diego, Sacramento: low income, rent, school district)

[ferretkona]

When you consider half of each class does not even reach their 12 year it looks worse. The drop out rate is very high now. There is no enforcement to keep kids in school. If the parents do not take a aggressive stance, why should the school care.
My ex-wife taught special ed (the small bus kids). She had to work one on one, when she stepped aside to work with the next student the previous child would go back into limbo.

[cobmw]

Niners fan I couldn't agree with you more. Set high expectations including standards for behavior and don't cave in to cry baby parents who complain that their Johnny is being worked too hard. And dump the PC nonsense (tolerance studies, earth day, compulsory volunteerism) - use the time to keep kids caught up.

[SoCalMomma]

I sort of agree with everyone so far...

My kids both attended schools in Thousand Oaks. I work at an elementary school in Thousand Oaks, so I can speak with a little first hand knowledge (but take it for what it's worth).

Overall, I feel that the Conejo Valley Schools are wonderful and turn out kids who can compete with kids from public schools in any other state. Of course there are lower end students, unmotivated students, kids that cant speak English, etc who bring down the averages, but as a whole, we have MANY kids who take all the AP classes and get into all the prestigious schools.

There are definite problems with the California State Schools: Without going into too much detail. The amount spent per student is not equal (across the state or district level). Some schools (Title 1 schools) get TONS of extra money per student. Special Ed students, ESL students, all get more than a 'regular ed' student. This is part of the problem. There is not enough funding for all the 'extras' at school (music, art, PE, etc.) PTA's usually try to pick up the tab for these things.

When there are 30-35 kids in a class, its very hard for the teacher to reach them all. In elementary schools (thru 3rd) there are only 20 per class & it's amazing to see the difference that small class size makes. If the money was taken away from some of the special ed programs, ESL, etc and spread evenly across all students, we could probably afford a few more classrooms per school and you could lower class sizes. Smaller classes would definitely make the teacher's jobs easier.

There is not even enough room in all the Honors and AP classes at the Conejo Valley High Schools. SO many kids qualify and want in these classes that there just arent enough spots. That says a lot about the quality of education - kids want to be in those higher level classes. I cant compare to other districts, but maybe someone here knows the statistics...

Parents need to be involved, and many times they are not. I see some parents who actually hurt their kids education, more than they help. Poor, rich, it doesnt matter. A parents participation is probably just as important as the teachers' - but many parents put it all off on the school to 'teach' their kids.

It's not a perfect system, that's for sure.

[Don Vito]

All these crazy hippy, granola, la raza, alternative, etc. charter schools are not helping. they are sucking what little funds and resources that are left left right out of the system.

[NYSD1995]

I grew up on Long Island where schools are among the best in the country and the taxes are sky high. Think 15k/yr on a 500k house, not to mention the NYC commuter tax, village tax, etc.

Much of the Northeast, especially the wealthy suburban areas have the same deal - great schools, practically a free pass to the ivy leagues - but crippling property taxes. The problem with CA schools is that people simply don't want to pay for them.

[Don Vito]

Originally Posted by Sassberto

I grew up on Long Island where schools are among the best in the country and the taxes are sky high. Think 15k/yr on a 500k house, not to mention the NYC commuter tax, village tax, etc.

Much of the Northeast, especially the wealthy suburban areas have the same deal - great schools, practically a free pass to the ivy leagues - but crippling property taxes. The problem with CA schools is that people simply don't want to pay for them.

That and they cant. The majority of people comming fresh to california arnt from the united states and they arnt exactly making six figure salaries. Most are barley making 5 figures. Add that to the massive domestic out migration of california's wealthy and middle class natives and you don't got much to go around for schools, much less anything else.

[missionhome]

California State Testing (CST) administers a test according to the classes for the subjects the student is currently taking. I am going to use my sons' high school, Capistrano Valley High in Mission Viejo as my example. You guys mentioned how disappointing the algebra proficiency scores are at high schools for example. Most top students have already taken algebra in middle school, thus the are usually enrolled in classes like geometry or algebra II freshmen year and will not be tested for algebra on the CST. That means your top students are left out of those types of scores. My son took algebra II freshmen year and is an advanced student, now in the IB program, so he was never tested for algebra in high school for example.
At Capistrano Valley about 280 freshmen took algebra II, about 400 took geometry, and 180 took algebra I. Is it a surprise that algebra II has a 83% proficient or above, geometry was 64% or above, and algebra I was 54% proficient or above? It looks to me like the scores were directly proportional to the advancement of the student in high school mathematics. Of course algebra I is going to have a lower proficiency level when only the bottom level students (lazy students, difficulty with math, English learners, etc..) are taking that class freshmen year (a class that should be finished by middle school) and are administered to that test. When you look at algebra I by subgroups, 60% of white students were proficient or above and 35% of Hispanics were proficient or above. I do support the idea that Asians' value on education leads to their high scores. First off freshmen Asian students at Capo are not even enrolled in algebra I (at least significantly enough to be a statistic), 100% were proficient or above in geometry, and 100% were proficient or above in algebra II. 94% of the freshmen students in world history passed freshmen year and then 51% passed sophomore year. Biology scores were decent at 81% in my opinion too.

I know that these aren't perfect scores, but I think it will be hard to find perfection in California when we have such diverse populations and many who don't speak English. Imagine how hard it is to do a test when you only have been speaking English for two years for example. Still, I know my two sons will be able to excel at their school as they have taken every resource they can to get good grades and get into good colleges. California students get accepted to prestigious schools just as often as other states so I personally think it is up to the student to excel. Sadly high school students just don't care anymore. My son knows kids that just say, "Why work in high school, you can go to a community college and then transfer to a UC school so why work now, Just enjoy high school!" Until parents and teachers can convince students the time to work hard is high school, we will continue to see generations of slackers.

[NYSD1995]

Originally Posted by Don Vito

That and they cant. The majority of people comming fresh to california arnt from the united states and they arnt exactly making six figure salaries. Most are barley making 5 figures. Add that to the massive domestic out migration of california's wealthy and middle class natives and you don't got much to go around for schools, much less anything else.

and the NY metro area is different how?

[cobmw]

Missionhome

I don't see where Capistrano Valley High School is any better than the rest. According to the CA Dept of Education site and looking at the California Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) scores Capistrano students are scoring rather poorly on their tests. You suggest that it's not right to look at basic subjects like Algebra 1 because the kids took that subject in middle school (and should be forgiven for forgetting what they learned). But even if you look at higher math subjects the scores are bad. For example over 60% of kids will fail to reach proficiency in Geometry, over 50% will fail in Algebra, while 40% will not become proficient in English and 40-50% will fall below proficiency in science.

[junkman18]

Originally Posted by cobmw

Many people think that by finding a nice neighborhood where people say good things about their local school that they have fulfilled their obligation to give their kids a good education. Nothing could be further from the truth. If they checked out the test scores on the state website they would learn that even in the best of California neighborhoods only 50% of the kids are reaching proficiency in math, science, and history. Why this sad state of affairs? Why do people refuse to look at test scores and put their kids in these schools?

It's not the schools or teachers that are bad. It's the kids that go to schools in Ca. that are bad.