Lots of toddlers, fewer school-age kids in S.F.

Posted on May 30, 2006
Filed Under Uncategorized |

Does this really surprise anyone who lives in the Bay Area? As long as the Board of Dupes continues to favor renters over home buyers (e.g. erecting obstacles for tenant in commons arrangements) and the SF school system remains the embarrassment that it is, of course families will leave. It’s really not that difficult to figure out, but the fact that SF’s political leadership struggles with the fundamental reasons behind this exodus of families from SF is just one more indicator of how disconnected they are from the very population they are supposed to serve.

My prediction: nothing meaningful is going to happen, the school system will receive band-aids instead of surgery, qualified school system administrators will come and go as a result of the political tug of war between the Mayor’s office and the Board of Dupes (which is just a puppet of the powerful teacher’s union), the declining enrollment will have the natural result of less state and federal money and the result of that will be closed schools which will further alienate families, and the healthy regional economy will lull residents and political leaders alike into a false sense of redemption and a belief that everyone else in the Bay Area is just jealous of them and nothing is really wrong with SF.

For families it’s all about the schools and at some point California as a whole is going to have to realize that just throwing money at the public schools is not enough. If not, well we’ll just end up with the finest private school system in the country and a housing market that reflects the economics of good public schools. If you live in a school district that outperforms the region the housing prices are artificially inflated because of the tax advantages of paying a bigger mortgage versus private school tuition.

Lots of toddlers, fewer school-age kids in S.F.: A recent survey by the Public Research Institute at San Francisco State University found that nearly half of parents with preschool-age children planned to leave the city in the next three years.

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