Are So Cal schools really that bad? (San Diego, Long Beach: sales, real estate)

[YoungSanDiegoDude]

I have lived out here in So Cal for over 5 years now and I have noticed that there are a lot (and by that, I really mean A LOT) of people that either skip school all of the time or drop out, but I never knew what the actual state of public schools out here were.

I knew something has to be wrong, because in many areas (this includes San Diego, BTW; SD is not as perfect as many are led to believe), junior high and high school students seem more interested in guns, drugs, forming gangs, and hanging out at the park, rather than going to school. I have seen this in person and on TV (good example: an episode of OPERATION REPO last week where a group of junior high students in San Bernadino County pulled guns on the repo crew and the camera crew).

Also, you know that something is not right when you have people in places like Connecticut dissing the public school systems of So Cal; i.e. in the following article:

//www.city-data.com/forum/conne...alifornia.html.

So my question is, is the state and quality of schools out here as bad as it's made out to be? If so, then I can't imagine anyone wanting to raise a family out here; I know I don't want to anyway because of the culture of So Cal.

[EscapeCalifornia]

Depends on the area. Many are fine but you'll need to spend big bucks to live there. Many are terrible.

[Green Irish Eyes]

Originally Posted by EscapeCalifornia

Depends on the area. Many are fine but you'll need to spend big bucks to live there. Many are terrible.

And some are both. For example, the high school where I've been teaching is a National Blue Ribbon School of Excellence. The AP and Honors classes are wonderful -- but the Special Ed department is abysmal. So a lot depends on what one's particular needs are .....

[esmith143]

I knew something has to be wrong, because in many areas (this includes San Diego, BTW; SD is not as perfect as many are led to believe), junior high and high school students seem more interested in guns, drugs, forming gangs, and hanging out at the park, rather than going to school. I have seen this in person and on TV (good example: an episode of OPERATION REPO last week where a group of junior high students in San Bernadino County pulled guns on the repo crew and the camera crew).

There are good schools and bad schools everywhere. It is to be expected that some students will excel and some students will prefer to hang out at the park and smoke weed. By and large, SoCal does not get as extreme as the East Coast:

http://www.wbaltv.com/news/3871075/detail.html (broken link)

"Around 4 p.m. Wednesday, Raymond Savoy Jr., 16, became the latest victim when he was shot multiple times in the 200 block of South Caroline Street in southeast Baltimore. Police said Savoy was shot at least once in the face while possibly walking home from school. He was in the Perkins Homes development, between Lombard Middle and City Spring Elementary schools, when he was shot.

... It appears the young man was on his way home from school," Baltimore police spokesman Donny Moses said.Friends told 11 News the boy was shot while walking to his mother's house a few blocks east of Baltimore's Little Italy neighborhood, through a public housing development filled with kids and, some said, drug dealers, Tucker reported Wednesday. "I don't even like coming down here. It's bad everywhere, it's like a war's going on -- a kid got shot up in May Court just a couple days ago," Marva Montague, a neighbor in the community, said. Last Thursday, two teen brothers were shot and wounded near the Thurgood Marshall Middle and High School Complex. One of the victims was shot in the abdomen, and the other was shot in the leg, according to police."

Originally Posted by YoungSanDiegoDude

Also, you know that something is not right when you have people in places like Connecticut dissing the public school systems of So Cal; i.e. in the following article:

//www.city-data.com/forum/conne...alifornia.html.

So my question is, is the state and quality of schools out here as bad as it's made out to be? If so, then I can't imagine anyone wanting to raise a family out here; I know I don't want to anyway because of the culture of So Cal.

Connecticut is ranked #3 nationwide in terms of K-12 spending per pupil. California used to be in the twenties, but it is likely to drop lower because of budget cuts. So, I am not surprised at all that (if) their schools are better, on average. CT is a quintessential blue state. They have better equipped schools, smaller classes, and, more generally, good public services, and they also have high taxes. (Sales tax is lower, income tax is similar, and they don't have anything like our prop 13, so there are no old-timer freeloaders with beachfront houses and $500/year property tax bills.) It's an old adage - you get what you pay for.

We could have a state like that too, if only we could boot all conservative nuts from Sacramento and repeal prop 13.

[hsw]

Public schools everywhere have deteriorated dramatically over past 20+ yrs (despite ever-greater spending and teacher pay), perhaps due to lack of focus on math/science/economics/English education relevant to helping kids enter leading colleges, which in turn can help kids enter high-income careers

And many families are dysfunctional; have kids they can't afford; and don't value education or upward mobility...and have kids more prone to violence and future career in crime/welfare (perhaps not unlike their parents)

Most families anywhere in US would be smart to budget private schools as part of cost of living (BTW, Greenwich CT public schools suck academically (% Natl Merit Finalists, % kids entering top 5 colleges); anyone w/money in Greenwich opts for private schools)

Most w/bucks don't opt to live in public housing or use mass transit; why would anyone assume more from public schools?

[NYSD1995]

Yes the schools in SoCal are horrible for the most part, of course there are good and bad. It's not entirely fair to blame the state / school system although they do share in the problem. CA and the northeast cannot be compared because they are just radically different, CT like MA, NY is highly segregated racially and socioeconomically, they have their bad schools too but they tend to be all in one place (usually an inner city) as opposed to CA where practically every town has a gang and a "bad area" and practically every school has some element of "bad" in it. Esmith used Baltimore as an example but most Northeasterners would associate WDC and Balty as being somewhat "down South", i.e. Black. Baltimore is 80% black and is a scary city but it's suburbs are much whiter with mostly good schools, WDC and Philly too are the same. In those cities the segregation is much more palpable than a Boston or NYC which are still very segregated compared to CA.

The CA dynamic is much more diverse and variable than in other parts of the country. It's not just ESL either, in the Northeast when you get out of the cities and inner suburbs it is hundreds of square miles of unbroken white upper-middle class suburbia with a few token black towns and a few token white trash towns here and there. That is slowly changing but you would never see that in CA even in places like OC.

The nicest areas of those northeastern states have successfully used property taxes and strong anti-development municipal governments to keep lower income people out. You don't see the mega-sized school districts in the northeast suburbs either, the parents would never stand for it. They love their micro-control and in many cases the local school district is really the only reason some of those towns exist.

[wildgift]

Cal schools per-pupil spending is around 20th in the nation, but the average cost of living here is high, outside of the rural areas.

The problem with this state is Prop 13, which reduced property taxes. Now, schools are more dependent on sales and income taxes. That creates budgeting problem, because revenues fluctuate more.

[JakeInSoCal]

Originally Posted by YoungSanDiegoDude

Also, you know that something is not right when you have people in places like Connecticut dissing the public school systems of So Cal; i.e. in the following article:

//www.city-data.com/forum/conne...alifornia.html.

So my question is, is the state and quality of schools out here as bad as it's made out to be? If so, then I can't imagine anyone wanting to raise a family out here; I know I don't want to anyway because of the culture of So Cal.

Well just so you know for some reason people in other states are always dissin something about us.

[SeattleWA]

The people who pulled guns on the OP repo people were grown men, actually.

Regardless, all the educational problems in California are the result of letting millions of third world people into the country.

[irvine]

Originally Posted by Sassberto

Esmith used Baltimore as an example but most Northeasterners would associate WDC and Balty as being somewhat "down South", i.e. Black. Baltimore is 80% black and is a scary city but it's suburbs are much whiter with mostly good schools, WDC and Philly too are the same. In those cities the segregation is much more palpable than a Boston or NYC which are still very segregated compared to CA.

You don't see the mega-sized school districts in the northeast suburbs either, the parents would never stand for it. They love their micro-control and in many cases the local school district is really the only reason some of those towns exist.

Baltimore, Washington DC, and Richmond (VA) were racially segregated Southern cities, and after the racial integration of the public schools in the 50s, most whites fled the city for the suburbs. Only the wealthiest city neighborhoods or working-class white neighborhoods like Baltimore's Hampden survived the block-busting activities of unscrupulous real estate firms. Whites fled entire middle class neighborhoods in a matter of months.

In the regions surrounding these cities and others further south like Atlanta, most suburban school districts are run by the counties and are quite large. This is common throughout the South, where counties are the primary administrative divisions. In the northeast (PA, NJ and north), counties are divided into towns, boroughs, and townships. The public schools are then usually run by the towns, and the districts are much smaller than county administered systems of the South. Whether or not these small school districts are better than the large county ones is often debated.

Southern California school systems are somewhat decentralized. Districts like the Hart Union High School District (in valencia) or the Anaheim Union High School District serve only junior high and high school age students. Separate school districts serve the elementary age population. These school districts often serve more than one town but are not nearly as large as the county based systems of the South, or the "unified" districts like LA, Long Beach, and others.

Southern California has many excellent schools and districts. Irvine Unified, Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified, Santa Monica Unified, Fullerton Joint Union High School District, etc ... Pali High in the Pacific Palisades/Brentwood area of LA are all excellent.

California high schools are sometimes very large however, approaching 4,000 students at times.