Beautiful areas with horrible schools in LA (Los Angeles, Long Beach: low income, section 8)

[Clampdown69]

All city school systems are kind of bad, cities attract poor people, gangsters, and immigrants who don't speak english and this drags down the system

However the other 2 big cities in America (Chicago and NYC) have decent schools. Of course in New York the schools in the South Bronx or East Harlem are bad, but in the nice parts of Manhattan (Upper East and West Sides, TriBeCa, Midtown East/Sutton Place) yuppy brooklyn (Park Slope and Brooklyn Heights) and basically all of Staten Island besides one HS in the middle of the one bad area where all the projects are on the north shore.

I understand LA is different because a lot of areas that are upscale and considered LA by the public are actually separate cities like Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, Calabasas, Burbank and they do have good schools.

However LA city has some really rich areas like Tarzana, Sherman Oaks, Brentwood and some upper middle class communties like Encino or even Chatsworth in the valley and upper/middle class Jews in the Fairfax area. But from my understanding the schools in these areas are horrendous...why?

The demographics seem to be wealthy families in two parent stable homes, in safe areas with mad expensive real estate...so why are the schools no better than poor immigrant areas like Westlake? What gives?

Why do these parents stand for paying $10 million dollars for a home in an area with failing schools?

I remember in Brooklyn a few years ago, a group of yuppie parents that were gentrifying a neighborhood got together (there were like 60 of them) and all enrolled their kids in a mostly minority elementary school that had severe behavior problems, bad test scores and was underfunded. Once their kids were enrolled there, they basically campaigned and fought like hell and "took over the school" and now a few years later it is one of brooklyn's best k-5 schools.

Does LA have local schools or does it bus kids all around the city?

I have read that the only *ok* LAUSD schools are grammar schools (k-5) in nice areas and even those are just ok, not good..but all the High Schools and Junior High/Intermediate schools are just horrible.

I understand that if you can afford a mansion in Brentwood, you can afford to send your children to private school but for that much money you shouldn't have too, especially when you can cross the street into an independent city with similar homes, prices, scenery/area, AND good schools.

Your opinions?

[bruhms]

class sizes are large
students misbehave - teachers can't discipline them
bussed in students
immigrants
not enough teachers


my high school only had 3 cleaning people for the whole campus and only a few bathrooms were open at one time

when the school would get some money it would usually go to sports

blacks and mexicans would disrupt classes and be disrespectful and even some of the rich persian and jew kids would join. nothing would be done about that though. they just get sent to the office and it continues the next day.

the "normal" classes had most of the stupid unruly children and the AP/honors classes had kids that would have been considered normal decades ago but now are considered bright.

[Clampdown69]

Originally Posted by bruhms

class sizes are large
students misbehave - teachers can't discipline them
bussed in students
immigrants
not enough teachers


my high school only had 3 cleaning people for the whole campus and only a few bathrooms were open at one time

when the school would get some money it would usually go to sports

blacks and mexicans would disrupt classes and be disrespectful and even some of the rich persian and jew kids would join. nothing would be done about that though. they just get sent to the office and it continues the next day.

the "normal" classes had most of the stupid unruly children and the AP/honors classes had kids that would have been considered normal decades ago but now are considered bright.

Wow, that sucks.

LA could solve its school problems by stopping bussing.

Take Fairfax, the area is pretty wealthy, very safe and like 80% white Jewish. But Fairfax high has more than half of its students in poverty, lots of ESL and is like 65% Latino and 20% black which doesn't represent the neighborhood it's in at all.

[Harpaint]

If you reread your first sentence, you'll have your answer. Check the demographics of the schools. Funds for public schools are spread around to all the schools, so those in the nicer areas aren't favored even though they pay much higher property tax.

[disgruntled la native]

There's some exaggeration in your post. Uni and Hamilton aren't as "bad" as Jefferson or Crenshaw.

White families don't have kids anymore, or they send their kids to private school.

[Clampdown69]

Originally Posted by disgruntled la native

There's some exaggeration in your post. Uni and Hamilton aren't as "bad" as Jefferson or Crenshaw.

White families don't have kids anymore, or they send their kids to private school.

Well I mean i am sure they are not all like the school from Freedom Writers (think that was in Long Beach but whatever it was a movie you get it lol) but in relation to the income of the communities in comparison to similar areas in other big cities its still really bad.

And I'm not getting the last sentence?? First off I didn't say anything specifically about whites. Rich blacks Nd Chinese and Mexicans and Congolese Pygmies (lol) all want good schools if they're spending multiple millions of dollars on homes. are you saying white people in general don't have kids? I mean our birth rates definitely need some work but all the young families I know with kids are white. Or are you saying that white people in LA generally don't have kids? Why do they need a 5 bedroom house if they don't have children ?

And I'm sure that they DO send their spawnlings to private schools but for the amount they spend..that really shouldn't be the only option

[Clampdown69]

Also it seems that school issues have spread to other LA burbs like Pasadena which has badly rated schools.
I don't know what that city is actually like but it has a rep out here as an upper class community (Cal Tech, the Rose bowl, more "classy" east coast style homes). Why do the schools in Pasadena of all places, suck??

Does Los Angeles (or Pasadena) have school choice? In Michigan a lot of good neighborhoods that would of normally been protected by cost of entry from going bad (ie expensive homes, high taxes, ordinances against apartments, rents that are too high to be covered by a voucher) have gone from ritzy to nasty in a few years because low income and low performing kids from bad areas (Detroit for instance) use their right (per state law) to school choice and go to schools in nice areas and make the scores go down, increase violence and cause the good kids' parents to use THEIR right to school choice to move to a better school which makes test score averages decrease further, which leads the community to become less desirable because the main reason people choose the burbs is for schools, and also leads a bunch of people to sell at low prices, the homes get bought up by section 8 landlords and rented out and before you know it the nice suburb is a blighted ghetto

[disgruntled la native]

Well there's Palisades High, which serves the Palisades and Topanga but also families in Brentwood and Westwood somehow get their kids there. It's arguably the best public high school in LA.

As you said Malibu High, Santa Monica HIgh, and Beverly Hills High take on a lot of welathy families. I remember some kids I knew who lived in Westwood or Holmby somehow got their kids into Samo or Beverly.

[elhelmete]

And you're from NJ asking about Tujunga on another thread?

[Clampdown69]

Originally Posted by elhelmete

And you're from NJ asking about Tujunga on another thread?

I'm from Long Island NY..not Jersey but it is similar. Our taxes are both too high, the weather is similar, the accents are similar (although it differs slightly. LI is more Fran Drescher and Jersey is more "Goodfellas"), we are both suburbs of NY although NJ has more lower class ghetto suburbs and really upscale ones..we have less ghettoes (there are a few!) but very few rich areas that can be considered commuter suburbs, you can't ckmmute from the Hamptons its like over 2 hours 1 way in the train and with traffic (always traffic) driving takes like 3.5 hours. We have better public transport to the city but they have better transport get to the mall or the supermarket or something if you know what I mean. Our main ethnic groups are Italian, Orthodox Jews, Hispanics and Asians with a few very black enclaves, NJ is very Italian with lots of Irish, regular non Orthodox Jews and lots of Puerto Ricans and Dominicans (ours are mainly Mexican and Salvadoran). We have more Union members and they have more business owners, our beaches are cleaner but their beaches attract MUCH sexier women in the summer. Now you know the difference so anyways..




Yes, I was asking about Tujunga (which I was pronouncing wrong...I asked someone that is from CA about the area and was pronouncing the 'J' the English way instead of Tuh-hunga and he laughed at me lol) for my brother and his girl cause they are moving there.

I was just curious about the LA school thing, this website is cool even if the people here are a bit..quirky and PC. It's interesting to ask questions about other places to locals of those places. Even when you do travel somewhere you don't get a chance to find out certain stuff because it's not like I'm gonna go to Minneapolis or Cleveland or Flagstaff or whatever and hunt down a local and ask them about schools, race/income demographics, prices and other misc stuff. Also hearing from transplants from my part of 'Murica about similarities and differences is something i like. This website allows me to do that and remain anonymous