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There is not one “choice school” scheme in America that has ever worked – and plenty have tried. Within just a few years, they always lead to underserved schools in underserved districts. It should be in fact one of the most basic Laws of Education Physics.
One of these things is not like the others
Only one of those four local school districts is running “Choice Schools” or “School Choice”. Only one school district has a segregated school district. Only one of these four school districts has “underserved schools”. Only one of these district has a really bad ‘approval rating’. Let’s see if you can pick it out.
| School District | RCSD | BRSSD | San Carlos | Menlo Park |
| Per-Student Funding | $21,914 | $15,775 | $19,255 | $25,673 |
| School-Aged Children | 10,969 | 5,201 | 3,765 | 3,841 |
| Enrollment | 6,346 | 3,945 | 2,700 | 2,705 |
| “Approval Rating” | 58% | 76% | 72% | 70% |
| Percentage of families below poverty level | 8.2% | 5.3% | 1.5% | 0.9% |
| District Type | “Choice Schools” | regular neighborhood schools | regular neighborhood schools | regular neighborhood schools |
| Segregated School District | YES | No | No | No |
| Percentage of Spending on Education | 28% | 39% | 34% | 37% |
If we regard the ratio of school-aged kids that should be enrolled with the kids that actually are, we get something we could call an ‘Approval Rating’. People in general would regard BRSSD, SCSD, MPSD as ‘good districts’ with ‘good schools’. Nobody can say the same about RCSD without blushing. And money does not seem to have too much to do with it. All four districts are above the $10-$12k per-student funding required to provide solid education. Not one district cracks the 10% poverty line and yet one district here manages to have 5 or 6 ‘underserved schools’ – which comes with higher funding. Only one district claims to be so poor because of all the low-income kids (SED), children with special needs (SPED), and English Learners (EL). But somehow that is also the only district spending less than 30% on said “Education”.
Is that coincidence? According to The Famous Laws of School Segregation … the answer is No.
More Money, More Problems
- Yes, there are poor school districts in California. But only in a few rural areas.
- No, the Bay Area has not one poor district. All are however made to look poor.
There is not one really poor school district in the Bay Area. RCSD is already one of the richest school districts in California and America. In fact all our local school districts are so rich, that Excess ERAF (aka education funding) has been going back to cities and counties for many years now. Kevin Mullin calls it ‘leftover revenue‘. If any Bay Area school district laments about ‘low funding’ or ‘budget cuts’, we found ourselves a mismanaged school district.
And yes, every single school district in the Bay Area is lamenting about ‘low funding’. Everybody can check this; California data is publicly available to everybody. Any district that exceeds $10,000 in per-student-funding could provide classrooms of 20 easily. As Finland or Canada proves, $12,000 per student allows for outstanding education already. RCSD on the other hand already has almost double that funding now with close to $22,000 and only trailing Luxembourg:
- $25,600: Luxembourg
- $18,000: Norway
- $15,900: Austria and South Korea
- $15,500: United States of America
- $12,000-$14,000: Sweden, Germany, Netherlands, UK, Denmark, Canada, France, Finland.
[ how much did OECD countries spent on educating their children in 2019 ]
Choose any of those countries or education systems you like and see how well our local school districts compare. This should also highlight that ‘money’ isn’t RCSD’s real issue, the district has far too many expensive ‘hobbies’ going on.
But … more, more money would surely help?
“School Choice” is intrinsically connected to School Segregation. But is “School Choice” also intrinsically connected The Famous Laws of School Funding Mismanagement?
By looking at regular good districts with neighborhood schools we did RCSD a disservice. To see if more money would help, we need to compare them to other bad districts which also feature similar “choice school” schemes. And let’s see if these school districts with even more per-student funding are really doing better. Let’s see if it is money or management skills that turns a school district good or bad.
When searching for structurally very similar California School Districts with more funding, four big ones come to mind very quickly:
- Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD)
- San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD)
- Oakland Unified School District (OUSD)
- San Jose Unified School District (SJUSD)
Comparing the Rich Districts
| School District | RCSD | LAUSD | SFUSD | OUSD | SJUSD |
| Per-Student Funding | $21,914 | $24,124 | $23,716 | $25,066 | $18,618 |
| School-Aged Children | 10,969 | 717,000 | 78,485 | 60,056 | 40,071 |
| Enrollment | 6,346 | 427,795 | 48,785 | 34,149 | 25,451 |
| “Approval Rating” | 58% | 60% | 62% | 57% | 64% |
| Percentage of families below poverty level | 8.2% | 19.7% | 9.3% | 16.3% | 5.9% |
| Percentage of Spending on Education | 28% | 25% | 33% | 22% | 31% |
These are some of the richest school districts in California. But you wouldn’t know that, because if you run a search on any of those school districts you will find scandal after scandal. There will be stories about:
- Underpaid teachers, disgruntled unions, and fairy tales about ‘Teacher Shortages’.
- Embezzlement of funds, overpaid administrators, ‘underserved schools’.
- They all blame children with backgrounds of low-income (SED), special needs (SPED), or English Learners (EL) – all while benefiting from that extra funding.
- There is always underspending on ‘Education’, overspending on ‘Administration’, and County Superintendents that are excusing and exempting their behavior.
- There are court orders to desegregate, grand jury reports named “A District Adrift”, and Trustees refusing to act transparently, ethically, or accountably.
- BUT they all are “choice districts”, with various gimmick schools, and still “enrollment issues”.
None of these school districts needs to be segregated, none of these school districts needs gimmick schools, none of these school districts was forced to take on high debt interest – it was their bad choices that brought them here. And more money always led to more spending on gimmicks.
These five school districts have a way higher percentage of low-income children in their schools than U.S. census data would suggest. So there might be some ‘light cheating’ going on to get more funding. And yet the districts that have the most money, would need to have the highest education budget, those districts spend the most on “gimmick schools”.
Editor’s Note: The views and opinions expressed in all blog posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Redwood City Pulse or its staff.
