How to get your kids into a good school in California – camp for days, punch out others, voluntary mandatory donations
“California ranks toward the bottom of the barrel” [Burbed.com]
tenspeedSF Says:
May 29th, 2008 at 9:58 am
Every year around this time, scores of San Mateo parents wait in line for 3-4 days outside the “best” elementary school hoping to enroll their kiddies into its kindergarten class. This what paying property taxes on million-dollar homes gets you?I’m not even sure I’m going to have a kid, but I’m already planning my escape. I’m not drinking the Kool Aid. Fahgetaboutit.
# bob Says:
May 29th, 2008 at 10:11 am
Same thing out here. You’ll see parents sitting in lawn chairs out on the curb all weekend waiting to enroll their tots. The school itself was “upgraded” a few years ago-complete with new trailers. The old building is from the 30’s.Most of my friends who have kids had to get them into some sort of lottery in order to get into kindergarten. I’ve never lived anywhere where parents just about knock each other out just to have what is seriously a given in most other areas across the country.
# madhaus aka guitar hero Says:
May 29th, 2008 at 11:39 am
I’ve heard in Palo Alto that some of the kids simply aren’t allowed in their neighborhood schools because they are “full” and the parents have to drive them to other schools up to 5-6 miles away. They don’t keep siblings together, either. Then they ding you for huge “voluntary” contributions to the PTA or whatever.Cupertino district also has overflow schools. And I’ve heard Monte Vista high isn’t taking everyone even those who live in its boundaries.
This is not about the parents. It’s about the selfish jerks who brought us Prop 13 and ruined our school systems. California was not always at the bottom of the barrel, we used to be at the top. Thanks a lot. [Note: madhaus clearly hates senior citizens and corporations - things that make California excellent.]
# Pralay Says:
May 29th, 2008 at 11:54 am
Knocking other parents? Damn! My parents had to do it in India to enroll me in a good school. Do I have to do that for my kids too (if happens at all)- in C-A-L-I-F-O-R-N-I-A? My father must be laughing at me “Is that all you achieved after moving to other side of the planet – standing in line for your kids enrollment?”
Wow… fascinating stuff. I’d love to hear more stories about this – if anyone wants to write an entry on “How to get you kid into a public school in California”, I’d be more than happy to post it.
You really can’t get valuable life lessons like this in any state. Imagine if your children didn’t have to face hardships like this – they would think life is easy, and not work hard. How would Silicon Valley be the leader it is without people with drive and dedication?
But in the end, this is kind of depressing because Manhattan still has us beat:
Shortly after Grubman upgraded AT&T, the company announced it was spinning off its wireless division, in what would become the largest IPO in Wall Street history. Salomon Smith Barney was chosen as one of the underwriters and Citigroup made $63 million on the deal. Six months later, Grubman downgraded his rating on the stock to “neutral.”
The upgrade had been controversial at the time, but Spitzer’s investigators uncovered a bombshell. They discovered an e-mail that Grubman had sent to a social friend on Jan. 14, 2001, in which he wrote:
You know everyone thinks I upgraded [AT&T] to get lead for [AT&T Wireless]. Nope. I used Sandy to get my kids in 92nd ST Y pre-school (which is harder than Harvard) and Sandy needed Armstrong’s vote on our board to nuke Reed in showdown. Once coast was clear for both of us (ie Sandy clear victor and my kids confirmed) I went back to my normal negative self on [AT&T]. Armstrong never knew that we both (Sandy and I) played him like a fiddle.
According to Grubman’s e-mail, Weill was motivated by a necessity to obtain Armstrong’s vote in a boardroom battle with Citigroup co-CEO John Reed, who resigned in February 2000. After the e-mail was leaked to the press, however, Grubman disavowed it and said he had been showing off to impress a friend.
However, Spitzer’s investigators also discovered a memo from Grubman to Weill entitled “AT&T and the 92nd Street Y,” dated Nov. 5, 1999, in which Grubman reported back to Weill on a meeting with Armstrong, and reiterated a request for assistance in gaining the preschool admission for his children. Although Weill admits that he asked Grubman to take another look at his position on AT&T, both he and Grubman deny that there was a quid pro quo. Armstrong also denies that the stock upgrade had anything to do with his board vote.
Sigh. Some day we’ll beat Manhattan. Some day.
Again, I’d love to hear more stories about this topic – if anyone wants to write an entry on “How to get you kid into a public school in California”, I’d be more than happy to post it.
June 4th, 2008 at 11:10 am
Back in the early ’60s, when the Bay Area WAS a real normal, fun and quaint place, my mom marched me right down to the school a few blocks away and enrolled me on the spot. Oh yea, and I could leave my bike unlocked in the rack all day, and it would be there when school got out. My, how far we have fallen since then. I don’t see too many unlocked bikes in Palo Alto now. So much for a great place to live (oh, yea, but the houses are worth SOOOOO MUCH MORE THAN ANYWHERE ELSE! That MUST make the schools worth more, too).
June 4th, 2008 at 11:14 am
did your mom vote for Prop 13?
June 4th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
So, I went to Albany High, which is a pretty sought after school district in the East Bay. The funny thing is, a lot of my friends didn’t really live in Albany. One kid’s grandma had a house in Albany so his parents used that address when they really lived 10 miles away in El Sobrante. One kid’s family was in Kensington, and my parents were renters in Albany. After a year of renting in Albany my parents bought in El Cerrito, which was like 30% cheaper than Albany back then. So I guess a good strategy is, rent in the town you want your kids to go to school in or have a rich grandma.
June 4th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
On PBS’s Charlie Rose last night, he was interviewing an author whom I’ve never heard of and whose name I can’t remember, but one thing that made me take notice was his answer to Rose’s question, “How would you improve U.S. public schools?” His answer was (I’m paraphrasing) “Money must flow from the state directly to the pupil, and schools must compete. As long as money goes directly to the schools, there is no incentive for improvement. Choice and competition will drive improvement.”
I must admit that up to this point, I have bought into the arugment that school vouchers would be a subsidy for the rich, and the poor would get screwed even worse than now. However, hearling the argument presented like that has totally turned me around.
Another benefit would be that the quality of your education would no longer be directly tied to the location of your house. We would never tolerate such restrictions for employment. Imagine if Google was prohibited by law from hiring anyone who did not live in Mountain View. And if you live in Mountain View, you MUST work for Google. That would be ridiculous, right? So why do we tolerate such restriction for our schools?
This is a new position for me, and I would be interested in hearing other opinions.
June 4th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Nah, it’s still a subsidy for the rich. The poorest and least educated would end up having their kids enroll in I’m-A-Sucker-So-Please-Steal-My-Money Middle School. They’d be influenced by flashy mailers and ads. The wealthy and educated would do their networking and research and end up at the better places. Look at the charter school movement, some of the earlier schools were just rip-off vehicles.
Right now little of property taxes goes directly to the schools anyway (it goes through the state and back), so even having a good school system doesn’t reward the people running it financially.
June 4th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
So I guess a good strategy is, rent in the town you want your kids to go to school in or have a rich grandma.
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Or you just need to forge couple of documents.
Clamping down on student scofflaws
District sets up resident fraud tip line
June 4th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
How to get your kid into Cupertino Unified School District
If you live in CUSD borders:
1. Go to your neighborhood school during enrollment week, usually early February. District website has attendance area map and address finder.
2. Bring PG&E bill, birth certificate of kid, other ID
3. Child must be 5 by December 2nd of that year if enrolling in kindergarten.
4. To enroll in another neighborhood school or alternative program, tell enrollment person and get “lottery ticket” plus enrollment form.
5. Go to alternative school or other neighborhood school during alternative enrollment week, bring ticket and form to sign up. Some alternative schools have additional requirements to enroll. You should call the school well before enrollment to find out what they are so you can meet them.
6. Lottery is held at school district office. You can attend but what you see is meaningless. School by school, they call a bunch of names by picking them out of a hat and numbering them. But students with enrolled siblings are given preference, and you don’t know how many spots there are for each grade, so your number isn’t that useful. A kid with a sibling with #799 is ahead of another #1 and no sibling. Just wait for a letter from the school within 1-2 months.
If you want your kid to go to the intense homework factory with perfect scores on the API, there will be 700 other families trying too. Very few will make it due to sibling preference.
If you missed enrollment week:
Follow same procedure, knowing you are behind everyone who enrolled when they were supposed to. Schools are closed for 6 weeks in summer, you may have to wait until August to enroll, or call school district office.
This means your child may have to attend overflow school instead of regular neighborhood school. And this is why everyone enrolls the first day of enrollment week, first thing in the morning.
There is no transit provided to any CUSD school unless your child goes to a special education program.
If you do not live in CUSD and wish to have child attend:
1. One alternative school takes out of district kids, but makes it very tough. They will not let you know if you’re in until first day of school, since district residents always leapfrog you. None of the regular schools will take out of district, though.
June 4th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
If CA schools used to be so great, how come all these CA natives are being priced out of the home market by immigrants from poor nations (China, India) where education funding is a tiny fraction of what it is in this country? Maybe it’s not about funding, eh?
June 4th, 2008 at 8:06 pm
The voucher program is pretty much against the idea of public school. The public school is there to level the playhing field between the rich and the poor. If you are the rich you send your kids to private school and pay taxes for the poor to go to public school.
The voucher program makes it pretty much like our healthcare system, it not only pays back the rich money for nothing, also drain the public school that the poor attends (fact it, money have to come from somewhere), the middle upper class may receive marginal benefit.
Some education system has the best schools not district based, but score based, and they receive the best funding (probably are also boarding schools). Maybe people here will like that. But most education systems are probably district based, for kids it does not make sense.
Lastly, I think when it comes to university admission, being an average performer at a great school probably has less chance getting into Stanford than the best performer at a terrible school. Anybody disagree?
June 4th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
how come all these CA natives are being priced out of the home market by immigrants from poor nations (China, India) where education funding is a tiny fraction of what it is in this country? Maybe it’s not about funding, eh?
That view entirely ignores the many & vast financial sacrifices that are made by Asian parents for their children’s education. Public funding may be a tiny fraction of what is spent here, sure. Asian parents pay for tutoring, books, enrichment, prep, private schools, overseas colleges, overseas grad schools in some cases, & they pay hand over fist. Trust me, the money’s getting spent, by anyone who has two pennies to rub together.
But in the U.S…. and this is partly why so many of us came here… there is this idea that, even if you don’t have two pennies to rub together, you have a right to a good education.
June 4th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
the home market by immigrants from poor nations (China, India) where education funding is a tiny fraction of what it is in this country?
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I don’t know about China, but your comment is simply not true for India. I got my high school education from government – for FREE. I got my higher education for almost free. And almost free means paying $10 tuition free per semester. India is a poor country with a very weak tax collection system. But still it spends enormous amount of money in education, if you compare with country’s GDP. When you see so many Indians in hitech industry – it’s not an accident.
If you rank all the first world countries (US, Canada, Western Europe, Japan, Australia, NZ) for the amount of money they spend for education, US will probably somewhere in bottom. We spend obnoxious amount of money in military – even after cold war is over.
June 4th, 2008 at 10:11 pm
>>When you see so many Indians in hitech industry – it’s not an accident.
Keep in mind only the educated Indians come to this country. There are also tons of illiterate Indians, particularly women, that got left out of their education system.
June 4th, 2008 at 10:19 pm
>>Lastly, I think when it comes to university admission, being an average performer at a great school probably has less chance getting into Stanford than the best performer at a terrible school. Anybody disagree?
That’s true, provided that the kid at the lesser school can still excell on the SAT. The other factor to consider is that the crappy schools wouldn’t offer the same kind of opportunities in sports, music, and other extracurricular/leadership activities, which are important criteria for admission to Stanford and Ivy League schools.
June 4th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
The good school districts in the BA get funding from the community. They are not entirely dependent on the government. For example, Palo Alto just passed Measure A, which would raise $378 million from parcel taxes (see http://www.paloaltoonline.com/weekly/story.php?story_id=8470). Similar measures exist in other RBA districts.
In addition, such school districts regularly hold fund raising drives, and virtually all parents contribute the suggested $600/child; some contribute thousands to tens of thousands of dollars. You will not see that kind of money coming into the lousy school districts, where residents are scraping by.
June 5th, 2008 at 12:55 am
Yeah, India also has that inconvenient thing called the caste system. It guarantees that the vast majority of the citizens of India will only make $.15/day. Have you EVER seen a light skinned Indian woman from an upper caste with a DARK skinned man from the bottom?
Of course in the United States it is utterly impossible for a poor kid from a backwater town like Hope Arkansas to become President of the United States.
It is also impossible in the USA for a poor Mexican kid from the wrong side of the tracks whose parents are farmworkers to go to UC Berkeley or Stanford and then become an MD after graduating top tier med schools like UCLA or UCSF. Oh, wait, I happen to know 3 people who did just that.
Face it, unless you go to a top flight grammar school you’ll never make it to a first eschelon university. The best you can hope for is a third rate junior college and we all know that no one ever makes it to the top from a JC.
Oh wait, I know lots of people who ended up in top graduate and professional schools who started out at JCs.
Never mind, you over indulging parents who spoil your kids better get the tent and sleeping bags out and sell your souls to get your very average kid into a “good” school. Don’t worry, chances are you kids will end up living at home for the next 35 years.
June 5th, 2008 at 7:44 am
One thing that really gets my blood boiling( and I don’t even have kids) is the fact that more often then not, the ‘good’ schools here are typically in upper class areas with parents who are thrilled to shell out lots of dough to assure that lil’ Jr will have art and band classes.
This is another one of those examples that contradicts what people claim about the BA, which is that its so diversified and forward thinking. Yet to me it stinks like Old Europe and its long history of class division.
In my own little perfect world, all kids, regardless of where they come from should have access to a sound and fair education regardless of whatever side of the fence you grow up on.The irony is that this is actually the case in many, many other states. It was never a problem or even a concern in the area I grew up in and it still isn’t. Yet here its ridiculous. If I had kids, the first thing I’d do is get a job transfer and then hire a moving van because there’s no way in hell I’d subject my kids to such BS.
In regards to India, China, and so on, well the one thing that’s clear is that those countries have their education priorities in order. The focus they place is heavily in math and science. China alone has something like 70,000 engineers that graduate EVERY YEAR from their often state run universities. If you have a Motorola Q or a more recent IBM laptop, then those are just a few of the thousands and thousands of Chinese engineered products designed in China. The Buick Invicta concept car was partially developed in China. It looks way the hell better than anything designed in Detroit. Buicks sell well in China.
http://www.autoblog.com/2008/04/19/beijing-2008-buick-invicta-concept-debuts-say-hello-to-next-la/
The bottom line is that the US is screwing itself out of its future. Most major metro areas-aka- NYC, LA, SF, etc etc have extremely poor public schools. College nationally is pretty much out of reach for the middle class. Grades are failing. Yet across the pond, the results of having a focus being placed on education is showing and frankly, India and China will be eating our lunch in every industry within the next decade or so. In fact, I bet that in the next 20 years, there will be a reversal of people moving to the US for opportunities. They’ll be heading to India and China instead.
June 5th, 2008 at 8:32 am
Yeah, India also has that inconvenient thing called the caste system. It guarantees that the vast majority of the citizens of India will only make $.15/day.
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I don’t think it related to the original topic (whether govt spends enough tax money for education or not). I already mentioned that India is a poor country. Poverty, woman’s right, caste system, hindu-muslim riot, violent separatist movements in various part of the country, corruption, unequal civil laws based on religion – you name it. But by mentioning them I don’t think it adds anything in the discussion. But whatever the condition India has, it spends good chunk of money for education. And it not that govt spends tax money for education wisely all the time. I remember couple of years back govt, influenced by right wing groups, categorized Astrology as science and allocated huge amount of money for it. Does it sound anything similar here? Intelligent Design Theory is science!
June 5th, 2008 at 10:34 am
Bob,
The capitalist system never promises to provide equality of outcome. You shouldn’t expect to get a top notch product without paying a price for it. The government’s role is only to provide you a basic level of service, which is, every kid would receive an education. If you’re at a place where you and your community do not contribute money to education, then you will get the vanilla level of service. I don’t see why it should get your blood boiling.
June 5th, 2008 at 11:31 am
“I don’t see why it should get your blood boiling.”
You don’t see it, RE, because you’re a monumental jackass. I won’t speak for Bob, but the reason this gets so many people riled is that just about the only way that underserved children have any chance of succeeding in this country is through education. In fact, this ideal is the cornerstone of Brown v. Board of Ed. Holy crap, RE, the fact that you can’t see that there’s something wrong where a government essentially institutionalizes class differences through asymmetrical educational opportunities is beyond my comprehension. No, we can’t make life equal, but the idea that, as a society, we only have to provide “adequate” education is repulsive to me. Sadly, as a society, we have largely chosen to provide less than adequate education to the children most in need. To other bloggers, please excuse my pulpit pounding (I know it veers from the genial atmosphere that burbed creates), but I work with children with special needs, and this same, apathetic, pathetic attitude infuses the schools that are supposed to serve them. And it pisses me off.
June 5th, 2008 at 11:38 am
Realestater,
I come from a family with 150 years worth of teaching under the belt. I had great, great Grandmothers and Grandfathers who taught in extremely rural, spread out communities where the schools were one room and sometimes had fewer than 10 students. Yet even these schools had adequate books, teachers, and materials to give students a good education.
As mentioned before, the school that my Mother teaches in back in TN is fairly typical and entirely government backed. Yet the quality of hers and others throughout the area is in most cases better than the “good” schools in the Bay Area. It isn’t a question of capitalism. The issue is mismanagement and the misappropriation of funding. Parents PAYING to make their schools function is utterly ridiculous. The system here is broken. Parents paying for their schools means students with less wealthy parents are basically kind of screwed, and I find this wrong for none other than that the basic right in this country has been for all children to have a good education, which they are clearly denied here.
June 5th, 2008 at 11:41 am
You don’t see it, RE, because you’re a monumental jackass.
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Lionel,
Needless to say that he misses the whole point Bob referring – that is Old Europe style class division. It has nothing to do with capitalism or socialism. Socialist systems have enough class divisions – probably more than any capitalist system.
June 5th, 2008 at 11:46 am
I will never sacrifice my values in favor of Chinese values regarding education. I hear time and time again from people who grew up in Chinese culture that there is too much pressure. Sometimes there is so much pressure that the kids grow up to be miserable adults to the point of not being able to function, because they honored their parents wishes to get nothing less than a perfect score and went into the career their parents wanted to them.
I know two asians with nothing but straight A’s that dropped out of their prestigious universities the second year into their education. I remember one of them crying in high school because she received an A- and was going to have hell to pay when she got home.
What about the Stanford graduate that drove across the bay bridge, got into her trunk and took a couple bottle of pills to kill herself. The only thing on the website for her memorial were her achievements, not one thing about who she actually was.
My generation growing up in California was told that we should choose a career that would be fulfilling. We weren’t told to go into tech to make the big bucks, or other industries to make money. Some of course did, a lot of the kids that I graduated with are in tech. Some have left the state because they want more for their money. Some are here sticking it out doing the jobs that they have to have 2 degrees for but don’t get paid enough to live here to do. I know quite a few people with Phd’s and masters that don’t make the big bucks. Some of them work with disabled kids (where there is a shortage of workers) what would we do if it weren’t for their willingness to this job for peanuts?
Timmay- Your logic is so far off the mark, one would have to question your intelligence, where did you go to school? The United States has allowed those from not only asian countries but also european countries to come here and work because we have a shortage of engineers and an abundance of jobs. People being priced out has nothing to do with race and everything to do with the economics of the area. The United States also allows less educated people from South and Central America to come to this country to do low paying, low skill jobs because we have a shortage of workers to do these types of jobs. This doesn’t mean that Central and South Americans are dim uneducated people. Those that have skills and education remain in those countries.
Bob- Anyone can go to college in the USA. Anyone. Anyone that wants to better their future can enroll in community college, and transfer to a 2 year University. It doesn’t matter if you received poor grades in high school, or scored poorly on the SAT.
Yes Bob, I am sure that in 20 years people are going to moving to China to get away from the US. I am sure that China is going to receiving scores of Americans into their country. I am sure Americans will not longer want children and they will be willing to live in a communist country where they can send their kids to schools that collapse like pancakes in an earthquake. I thought the saving grace of the US was going to be found outside California are so wonderful. I guess the super education found in Texas, TN and those other states that score higher than those two states won’t be good enough to lead this country.
June 5th, 2008 at 11:49 am
The issue is mismanagement and the misappropriation of funding.
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Bob,
Bottomline, buy a home in Palo Alto in inflated price. Because they have “fund-rising”. He he! And as home price always goes up, you can always tap your equity and do more and more mandatory-voluntary donations.
June 5th, 2008 at 11:57 am
Here is a great example of what you can do when you don’t give up. We need more schools like this in California, but I think there is a lot of hope for this state. I hope to teach my kids how to be apart of the solution. Do you think this school also receives money from wealthy parents? Or do you believe that those that donate large sums of money to their child’s school only support their child’s school? Those evil wealthy people only look out for number one don’t they?
http://www.epacs.org/school.php
June 5th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Also Bob- Do you think it gives you more authority that your family has been teaching in this country for 150 years? My family has 200 years of being national leaders (including teaching, the presidency and leading exploration) in this country. We don’t go where the goings easy and shelter our children, did you know you can learn from adversity?
June 5th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
been_there_done_that,
Believe it or not, I did exactly what you mentioned: Started in community college and transferred to a university. That was 11 years ago. Since then, the cost of the university I went to is now triple what it was. I wouldn’t be able to afford it if I went today. College is just like RE: becoming increasingly out of reach financially for many.Unfortunately, colleges and universities also caught up with what many students were doing- taking the community college route- and now no longer allow many CC credits to transfer. I wouldn’t be able to do what I did back then today. I would have probably been forced to go to a university all 4 years.
As far as Chinese work ethic, well I hate to sound like I am profiling, but seriously- It seems that a great many Chinese Americans own or have bought a house, and what’s more- manage to pay the thing off in 10-15 years. One guy on my block who is maybe 5 years older than I am owns 4 houses altogether.The guy runs around like his rear is on fire 24/7. It seems from talking to my Chinese American friends that you MUST buy a house. That’s simply a given, and additionally, you need to take care of your family. So from what I see, it seems that Chinese Americans get their act together financially perhaps better than others. I find some aspects of that admirable.
But it is interesting to hear your perspective, which sounds like there is an interest in younger generations to try and ease up just a bit.
June 5th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
According to this table from the government we spent $826,600,000,000 on education in this country in 2004. http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2007/tables/07s0205.xls
This is more money than virtually anything else with the exception of health care, Social Security and Medicare.
We spend enough on education in this country. And BTW, you have to be extraordinarily naive to believe that China could build even a mediocre car.
…..
June 5th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
test
June 5th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
A lot of what differentiates a good school district from a lesser one is not the school itself, but the type of people that go there, and the larger environment in the community. In the “good schools”, parents read to their children every night, volunteer for school events, and have close interaction with the teachers. The parents themselves are well educated, and provide the right support framework for their children. These are the sort of elements that cannot be provided by money or government.
June 5th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
Realestater,
Yes, that is correct, but the fact remains that if you are a poor parent- albeit a good parent that does everything that you mentioned above, then your child will still not have the same treatment or education standards as those who live in more wealthy ones. I am in no way suggesting a Robin Hood type situation, but I feel that these disparities shouldn’t be trickling down to basic public services.
June 5th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Haha, this is the most disputed thread, it seems nobody completely with each other.
People only see those Indians and Chinese becoming educated people, but you certainly don’t see those of them who were not able to advance past secondary and become gangsters or normal workers.
There is no excuse that an American grown up here who cannot do basic math (it is amusing that I usually get more money back in the cash register if I change the result a bit by adding a few pennies and the staff doesn’t know what to give back to me) – that mean their school has failed them as that is the basic school corriculum. However, I tend to think that American universities are far more superior in their teaching than the Asian ones. In Asia the learning stops when you are admitted to a university (you are guaranteed a good life), in America it starts.
I simply feel that America has the worst educational system for education (back in grade 12 I found the resident teacher was clueless on math), but for arts and science and engineering we are still top notch in higher education.
June 5th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
I agree with you all that the education establishment is broken in this country, but I disagree with the general notion that it’s because of social stratification, or lack of funds.
Government services, such as education, all get less efficient over time, because there is no reason for them to strive for efficiency, since they assume they can always appropriate more money or resources. In the US, we spend a huge amount of money per student per year, but don’t educate them nearly as well as countries that spend less. The largest per-pupil spending in the US is in Washington DC, where we also have some of the nations worst schools. Even within the US, there is a huge disparity between per-student spending, and the cost does not imply quality of education.
One fundamental problem is that we’re trying to impose a single standard on all of the students in this country, who are human beings that are all different from each other. The “No Child Left Behind” act, which also ensures that no child gets ahead is a fine example of this standardization. For a counter example, check out the European school systems. As a general rule, they split students based on interests and ability into trade schools, college prep schools, etc. There is also competition among these schools, because many countries have a voucher-like system. When schools, like any other business, compete for money, one of the primary goals is efficiency, in this case quality of education per dollar.
Another big problem is cultural; many parents view school as a babysitter, and nothing more. This varies from place to place, but I’ve been in public schools where there is a definite academic focus, and other schools where students and teachers just don’t care.
The quality of schools isn’t a California or Bay Area problem, since quality is declining in the entire US.
I also think that the argument that children of the wealthy have more opportunity doesn’t hold much water. They may have more options open to them, but those options do not guarantee success. America is one of the best places in the world for people to change their station in life through hard work, since that’s what we reward much more than social standing in this country. My family defected to the US with no money. My siblings and I worked hard as hell, all went to good colleges, and are all working now. This wouldn’t be possible in very many other countries. On the flip side, I went to school with plenty of rich people who studied pointless things like semiotics, guaranteeing themselves a future job at a fast food joint.
June 5th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Bob,
>>then your child will still not have the same treatment or education standards as those who live in more wealthy ones.
Coming back to my original statement about no guarantee of equal outcome, Madhaus’ child may have his home room in a single family house, with a computer on the desk, a stay at home mom, and subscription to cable TV’s Family Package. Another kid may be living in a priced-out renter’s apartment, sharing a room with a sibling, being fed junk food by his single parent. Is there equal treatment? Are they equally likely to succeed?
There used to be an uptopian concept called Communism, where everyone is supposed to get equal treatment. Whether one contributes more or less work, one would supposedly receive the same outcome. What happened? Everybody was equally uneducated and equally poor.
In a capitalist society, shouldn’t a person have the incentive to compete successfully to reach different socio-economic echelons? Of course, one may also choose to be laid back, drive an old junk car, and live a life of subsistence. Whoever said everyone should have things handed to them by the government? That’s not what America is about.
June 5th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Government services, such as education, all get less efficient over time, because there is no reason for them to strive for efficiency
In all fairness though, the same could be said about large private corporations. I believe there are reports that cover the amazing bloat at Blue Cross/Blue Shield. Apparently there’s some plethora of VPs.
Whenever some one says that we should run government more like a business, I think “Like Fry’s? Like Best Buy? Like Walmart? Like the National Association of Realtors? Like the Countrywide?”
Can you imagine the DMV run as Best Buy? (Do a search for all the amazing horror stories about Geek Squad.)
I suppose all of those are optimized – but not necesarily in a way that you would want.
In summary: life sucks and then you die. But at least you’ll die in the Real Bay Area where dieing is great.
Hmm… I wonder if there’s a run on cemetary space…
June 5th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Bob, Lionel,
Are you guys against private schools? Isn’t that a situation where a wealthy parent can buy his child a better education compared to a poor parent? I think your position is quite ridiculous. Would you be in favor of closing down Havard and Stanford universities?
June 5th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
Well, I tell you what. All you folks here that think that the situation in the BA and many other cities are currently unaffected by class structure,or funding in regards to the inherent opportunities, how about sending your child to a school in Hunter’s Point, Richmond, or West Oakland. Since it’s all about hard work and how good of a parent you are, then it surely must not really matter where they go… right? Just think of all the money you’ll save: You won’t have to buy that 900k Sh!tbox in Palo Alto to be close to the “good” schools. You won’t have to wait in line for several days. Heck- it might even be good for em’… toughen em’ up a bit.
Jesus Christ, why should I care anyway. I don’t even have kids.
June 5th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
but you certainly don.t see those of them who were not able to advance past secondary and become gangsters or normal workers.
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Well, I certainly see many people here who are not able to go college (or settled with associate degree) because higher education is too expensive. Let me put this this way, I came from a very middle class home. If higher education in India was as expensive as America, my parents could not send me to University for higher education. Or I would still be paying my student loan through my nose.
Basically when it comes to education, if wealth/money is a BIG factor, you automatically cancel out a huge chunk students from getting higher education – just because they are not wealthy enough. So you get a situation where the only reason a guy enrolls to Marine/Army and gets deployed to Iraq, because he needs money for his college degree. When you cancel out too many students for getting higher education, this is what you get – getting immigrant Indian or Chinese engineers to do the job – like me.
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However, I tend to think that American universities are far more superior in their teaching than the Asian ones.
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It depends. When it comes to pure R&D, creativity and free-thinking, American universities are far superior than rest of the world – so far. But to produce an e
ngineer, you don’t need those things all the time. You just need some students knowledgeable and skilled enough to step on industrial arena. They need not to be Einsteins.
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In Asia the learning stops when you are admitted to a university (you are guaranteed a good life), in America it starts.
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I guess you are talking about America. India has a huge pool of unemployed bachelor degree holders. I have my highschool batchmate who could not get a job after getting BS degree. He ended up staring his own small business.
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I simply feel that America has the worst educational system for education (back in grade 12 I found the resident teacher was clueless on math)
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You will always find some clueless professionals, including teachers – everywhere in this world. But I don’t see any relation with this and the real issue – money spent by govt and the overall quality of education.
June 5th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
Are you guys against private schools?
————-
Is anybody talking against private schools here? I don’t think so. It’s a free country and have many options, including home schooling.
I think people here talking about the schools funded by tax dollars.
June 5th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
Can you imagine the DMV run as Best Buy? (Do a search for all the amazing horror stories about Geek Squad.)
———
There is always a notion that private firms work more efficiently than govt. Hence, contracting core govt jobs became very popular in recent years. Results? Haliburton, Blackwater, FEMA (New Orleans).
June 5th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
Bob,
It basically goes like this. You pay less money, you get a lousy home in a lousy area, where everything sucks including school. You pay a lot of money, you get a nice area with educated residents who pay attention to their kids. Is this any different from everything else? You pay $3000, you drive a crappy old car with 100K miles on it. You pay $70K, you get a BMW. What you’re saying is that for $3000 you deserve a BMW.
June 5th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
>>I think people here talking about the schools funded by tax dollars.
Is there any evidence that schools in one neighborhood gets unfair amount of tax funding compared to another? What we discussed above is that the good school districts have mechanisms for self-funding, such as donations or parcel tax. It’s very similar to the concept of paying for better private education. You pay for it, so you get more. You seem to have all kinds of trouble following basic logic. Could it be due to that free education you got?
June 5th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
>>All you folks here that think that the situation in the BA and many other cities are currently unaffected by class structure,or funding in regards to the inherent opportunities, how about sending your child to a school in Hunter’s Point, Richmond, or West Oakland.
Bob,
If you’re opposed to class structure, why don’t you live in the ‘hood’ with ‘the people’?
June 5th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
Last I checked FEMA is a government agency. And how much of haliburton and Blackwaters money comes from the government?
There is a huge difference between a private firm in a non competive market (health care, buying electricy, cable in most places, guaranteed government contracts,…) and competive markets (consumer electronics, cars, and most products that we buy). To have a competive market you need
1) Choice. As an employee I have pretty much zero choice in picking a health plan. My company picks one that meets their goals not mine. The way the system is set up it is impossible (my company will not pay me the 400 dollars a month it is paying into the plan and I can’t use pretax dollars) for me to pick the best provider
2) Transparency. If I can’t tell the price, I can’t make the right choice. My wife and I go to different doctors. One doctor gets paid 200 dollars per visit. The other gets 80. From the same company. Before seeing the doctor, you have pretty much no clue what you are going to get charged. Makes it hard to price shop.
3) The players in the game need to have a stake in it. In the health care example, I don’t care if my doctor gets 200 dollars or 80. I am paying a copay of 25 dollars either way.
It seems like it should be possible to set up the educational market to be pretty competitive especially if you can vary the funding (white kid from college educated family gets your school 4k. Kid who doesn’t speak english at home gets you 6k. Down Syndrome gets you 8. Obviously numbers totally made up). The tough one might be 1) as you would need to get enough schools in an area to allow individual schools to fail. You can get Transparency with web site reviews, test scores, and so on. And most parents care have a stake in getting there kid educated. Make it so the school has to give the money back if the kid doesn’t pass (prorate based on test scores/some other standard) and school will have the right incentives also.
The big losers would be bad teachers and adminstrative hierarchy. Good schools would pay more for effective teachers and bad teachers would become unemployable as there schools shut down. I am also guessing that district management adds almost zero value to most students education.
June 5th, 2008 at 6:53 pm
You seem to have all kinds of trouble following basic logic.
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RE,
That’s not my logic problem. It’s you who cited about private school, which has nothing to do with the current discussion anyway.
June 5th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
unfortunately k-12 schools, unlike college, require daily commutes. so failing/closed local schools just means more traffic and more commuting. i am personally amazed that they don’t have school buses here for the most part.
here’s a sad story about east palo alto:
http://www.paloaltodailynews.com/article/padn/2007-10-9-epa-bus
they get to enroll in Carlmont in Belmont. but they have to take a 11 mile bus ride and it is always late or simply no-shows.
if you had a voucher system, most of the money would go to gas these days.
June 5th, 2008 at 7:20 pm
doesn’t blackwater only exist because of government spending?
June 5th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
Last I checked FEMA is a government agency. And how much of haliburton and Blackwaters money comes from the government?
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Of course FEMA is govt agency, but haven’t heard that the head of this agency was a commissioner of some horse association and he used contract most of the jobs to private firms? They hired contractors in such an extend that even luxury cruise ships were included. I would love to be Hurricane displaced guy if I could spend a week/month in cruise ship.
Regarding Hulibarton and Blackwater, I really don’t are how much their total revenues are how tiny fraction they earn from govt. The real issue is total waste of tax dollar with sloppy work. Here what GAO has to say:
June 5th, 2008 at 10:03 pm
If a community such as Palo Alto pools together money and resources to support its own schools and supplement government budget, isn’t that something that should be applauded rather than resented? If this is the type of community that matches your values, you should strive to join it. If you want to be a bum and live outside of the real Bay Area, then that’s your choice too. This has nothing in common with old Europe (or some parts of modern day India), where you were born into a certain class, and cannot move up. The last I checked there’s no class restriction to buying a house in Palo Alto.
June 5th, 2008 at 10:24 pm
Pralay,
Too many points to argue about, but I do think that America colleges are better in producing even engineers, it is not because American engineers are bad that we are getting so many immigrant engineers, but because there is simply not enough engineers graduating each year.
And to think about that, with the students from secondary schools of much lower quality than most of their counter parts in other country, we are producing competitive college graduates, that is commendable.
Comparing first grade age students with those from other countries, I would say that we are at par if not better (my son has pretty much excel me in everything other than sports at this age), and producing the low grade secondary graduates, the conclusion about the failure of our 12 year is pretty obvious.
It is not like parents in China or India spent tons of their time teaching their kids (at least for my generation, 6 week work day is the norm), though they certainly put a lot of emphasis and encouragement on succeeding in studies. Between me and my wife’s parents there have been zero time spent on our education, we are lucky to see them, and we turned out fine. I think there are several reasons American 12 year education failed: lack of encouragement from parents, no (or negative) peer pressure, and bad school environment (actually I find my teachers are mostly pretty respectable, the real problem might be enforcement – the school doesn’t care you are great or you fail).
June 6th, 2008 at 8:10 am
Bob,
It basically goes like this. You pay less money, you get a lousy home in a lousy area, where everything sucks including school.
Not exactly. As I’ve mentioned a number of times, I can easily, right this very minute, move to any number of other states, buy a home that is nicer than the equivalent home in the BA, pay 1/3rd the price, have a nicer school system nearby ( even though I don’t have kids) and essentially have no debt. Easy. I realize that it wouldn’t be the BA, but in my opinion, that is actually a bonus. I don’t think people like you will ever get that because it sounds like you don’t have any experience living anywhere- except places like the BA. Simple concept that I don’t think is worth repeating since I gather that you don’t comprehend that at all.
You pay a lot of money, you get a nice area with educated residents who pay attention to their kids. Is this any different from everything else?
I can’t tell you how many people I know who make Sh!tloads of money, have a super-nice house, some posh car with ass warmers in all the seats, and so on who pay zero attention to their kids. Not all rich people are smart either. Some of the dumbest people I’ve ever met are those who were over-achieving wealthy schmucks who have zilch common sense period. Ever watch any of those stupid shows on Bravo? 75% of the shows are about rich people yet the people in them are total morons who often don’t appear to be very happy or content.
You pay $3000, you drive a crappy old car with 100K miles on it. You pay $70K, you get a BMW. What you’re saying is that for $3000 you deserve a BMW.
-Or you could spend 20k on a new Toyota or Honda and actually have a better product to start with. I personally think BMWs are pieces of crap. The things are made in South Africa, Turkey, and Belgium with mostly non-German made parts. BMW doesn’t even make their own cars anymore. They’re all made by a contracted company called Premiere Brands. Yet people buy them because they think they’re getting ” some fine German engineered machine” I’ll take my Toyota thank you. It might be old, but it still looks and drives like it is brand-new. Why? because I taught myself how to work on cars and take very good care of it. Most people trash theirs and have to buy one every 5 years or less. 70k on a car? No thanks. I’d rather retire 10 years earlier because with 70k, you’d be worth 1 million dollars if you invested that into a retirement fund instead. Would you rather retire at 55 or 70? Is a car really worth that much especially since it’ll be in the junk yard in 20 years?
Anyhow, no more school arguments for me. What a hot-button topic!
June 6th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
What a grave state CA is in! Parents having to pay an “optional” fee to schools in addition to hefty mortgage , ax just so that kid could go to a school which is an average school in USA. I thank god, I got out sooner. Wish you all the best BA guys. It seems economy is going towards recession, a train wreck in slow motion. All the best to you to keep your jobs so that you could pay for all those BMWs, mortages for sh!tboxes that you own and funding the schools.
Bob, a few threads back you asked me how austin is. My initial impression is that it’s peaceful, comfortable, inexpensive. I save on gas, commute time. School district where I would be living is one of the best in nation. People are nice to many. Cannot ask for anything more at this time, since these things cost a lot in BA. And something that is relatively unimportant, weather. Well surprisingly I don’t find it as distasteful. It’s hot. But I anticipate that and adjust my schedule accordingly. In no time these hot months would pass by and again it will be in 70s.
June 6th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
Somehow this discussion has turned into philosophy and away from the reality in California schools: Prop 13 drastically slashed per-student payments. California used to have the best schools in the nation, now it’s some of the worst, and its funding is average. Given that cost of living and salaries are high, average per-student funding would lead to serious problems.
This is not rocket science, folks, you get what you pay for. Sure, there’s inefficiencies, but for all the talk about better schools in Texas and Tennessee, you might want to compare the per-kid allotments and run those results through a cost-of-living adjustment. You’ll find out for the most part, places that pay for good schools get them.
Washington DC is not a comparable. There are so many Federal restrictions on what any District agency can do there that it’s no surprise that every branch of government there is non-functional. It almost seems it’s that way by design.
The “voluntary” contributions from parents are a way of getting around the one-size-fits-all funding from the state. My kid’s elementary school asks for over $600 per kid too, and gets most of it. It’s not required but with mostly well-off families at the school, people fork over. The middle school is nowhere as brazen, asking for lab and class and field trip fees for just about everything. So instead of writing one big check we write about 20 little ones.
June 6th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
Madhaus,
I get and agree with what you’re saying. But even so, it still bothers me that there’s a situation here where parents can essentially buy their kids a better education whereas others- regardless of their intelligence or attention given to their kids do not have this option.The world is unfair, and I’m fully aware of it. But I’ve never lived in a state where such educational inequality existed.
June 6th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Bob, I don’t know where you lived, but I assure you that it exists in every state. You might want to Google the term “Mt. Laurel decision” which is the same problem in New Jersey — the property taxes stayed local and the wealthier neighborhoods had more money to buy better schools.
Even the relatively mixed-income city I lived in had the same stratification, the public elementary school on the “good” side of the tracks was much nice than the one on the “bad” side.
I agree it sucks, and I’m in favor of leveling the playing field via taxation (yes, I am a socialist and danged proud of it), but there will always be ways people will find around it such as these non-profit fundraising groups. My kid’s school has art because the donations pay for expensive art supplies, but a volunteer parent teaches the art class. In a working-class neighborhood, the kids have all parents working, no one has time, flexibility or background to teach art. Before Prop 13 all kids in all schools had art.
June 6th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
Too many points to argue about, but I do think that America colleges are better in producing even engineers, it is not because American engineers are bad that we are getting so many immigrant engineers, but because there is simply not enough engineers graduating each year.
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Rick,
I did not dispute this point that American colleges produce better engineers. My point is not quality, but quantity. If you are in hitech world, you would not every engineer does not need to Steve Wozniak or Linus Torvalds. Why can’t America produce enough engineers and needs immigrant engineers in first place? Don’t you think that financial factor is one of the reasons why too may students don’t enroll for engineering degree?
June 6th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
>>Don’t you think that financial factor is one of the reasons why too may students don’t enroll for engineering degree?
No I don’t. Actually financial factor should be the reason to enroll for an engineering degree. An engineering degree costs the same as an English degree, but the engineering degree will get you a better paying job.
The reason American students don’t go for engineering degree is because they find the math to be too hard. Many kids didn’t get a sound foundation when they were in elementary school, and they can never catch up.
June 6th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
No I don’t. Actually financial factor should be the reason to enroll for an engineering degree. An engineering degree costs the same as an English degree, but the engineering degree will get you a better paying job.
———-
Another twisted answer which has no relation with the point I have put. Where did I compare with English and engineering? What I said that many students get canceled out from the opportunity of higher education due to financial factor – and that includes both engineering and English.
June 6th, 2008 at 10:35 pm
The reason American students don’t go for engineering degree is because they find the math to be too hard. Many kids didn’t get a sound foundation when they were in elementary school, and they can never catch up.
———-
And many students don’t pursue higher education (or drop out at the middle of it) because they simply don’t have financial support. If they had, some of those many could end up becoming engineers and some some of them BA in English.
June 6th, 2008 at 10:54 pm
Pralay,
American engineering schools are ‘sold out’ every year. It’s always the most impacted program. University of California needs to turn away 4.0 grade point average students because there are so many people applying.
June 6th, 2008 at 11:44 pm
Ha ha ha! Another amazing logic! American engineering schools are ’sold out’ but we still need lots of immigrant engineers from outside. In that case, may be American needs a few more engineering colleges. Or increasing numbers of seats in existing colleges and universities. Of course, we would not do it, because more students require more teachers and resources. Instead our governator would cut funding from UC and CalStates and increase tuition fees.
June 7th, 2008 at 12:24 am
Absolutely. American companies have a huge demand for engineers. If you think about it. It’s not such a bad business model. America does not need to educate those foreign engineers. It simply hires them and use them to make money.
June 8th, 2008 at 12:20 am
Let me laugh one more time: ha ha ha! Did you go to college? I started having doubt.
Just go to any UC campus and find out how many engineering students are studying there on F1 visa. So it’s not true that those univ/colleges are ‘sold out’ with only American students. Colleges are educating ample foreign students. The only problem is that America made those colleges financially unaffordable and unreachable for many American students.
Needless to say that when higher education system cannot match with the growth of the industry, that’s definitely not a good model.
Bottomline, as usual, I don’t see any coherent logic in your argument. It’s shifting as it goes.
June 8th, 2008 at 12:52 am
Pralay,
LOL! You obviously didn’t go to grad school. All those foreign students are in PhD programs, which is free anyways, since they provide years of cheap labor doing research for their professors.
Undergrad students on UC campuses are virtually all Americans, because it would be extremely expensive for anyone without CA residency to attend.
June 8th, 2008 at 1:09 am
Undergrad students on UC campuses are virtually all Americans, because it would be extremely expensive for anyone without CA residency to attend.
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Heard about scholarship?
June 8th, 2008 at 1:15 am
BTW, your ignorance makes significant numbers bachelor degrees from US universities in my friend circle disappear.
June 8th, 2008 at 5:18 am
[...] the envelope and truly innovated in the design of enrolling your kids into the local public school: How to get your kids into a good school in California – camp for days, punch out others, voluntary m… madhaus aka guitar hero Says: June 4th, 2008 at 4:49 [...]
June 8th, 2008 at 9:36 am
>>Heard about scholarship?
Scholarship for foreigners to attend undergrad? You are living in your imaginary world again.
June 8th, 2008 at 10:57 am
Imaginary world indeed! For example this imaginary stat for foreign student enrollment at UC Berkeley (Fall 2007) which tells me that there are 887 undergrad enrollments including exchange students.
I would recommend you to visit other imaginary UC websites (expecially imaginary UCLA and Mi>imaginary UCSD) where similar are stats available for foreign students.
June 8th, 2008 at 11:09 am
In addition, in case you don’t know, after 9/11 number of international students dropped dramatically in various campuses all over USA, as it is hard to get F1 visa nowadays due to long delay of security checks for visa application. Because most of the 9/11 hijackers came to USA on F1 visa. You will be very disappointed to see pre-9/11 stats for foreign enrollments in undergrads.