Why do Silicon Valley schools have so little money per child?
Last updated: 2020–10–30
How much do Santa Clara and San Mateo county school districts spend per child?
The median amount of money Santa Clara County schools have available to spend per child is $13,731.
(Note that the Lakeside Joint district has just ~75 students total, and is a complete outlier.)
The median amount of money San Mateo County schools have available to spend per child is $13,559.
Both counties have less to spend per child than the state of North Dakota which is at $13,758.
Quite a few districts have less than the national average of $12,201!
Think about how far, or rather not far, a dollar goes in Silicon Valley compared to elsewhere given labor/living/operating costs here. How much do you think it costs a teacher to own a home in North Dakota versus Silicon Valley?
But isn’t Silicon Valley the richest place in the world? Why is it so terrible? Keep scrolling!
How does San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Clara county school districts spending compare nationally?
If San Francisco’s school district were a state, would rank 9th — right between New Hampshire and Pennsylvania. (If you’re wondering why SF can spend more than Santa Clara and San Mateo, it’s because of the state minimum per child rules. This is explained in the LCFF section.)
If the median Santa Clara County and San Mateo County school districts were states, they would rank #18 and #19 in terms of spend per child — right between Ohio and Maine.
Think about how far, or rather not far, a dollar goes in Silicon Valley versus Ohio or Maine.
Actually, there’s a way to think about that…
Let’s assume that all school employees have to live in a home of some sort (some Silicon Valley teachers live in RVs parked on the street and are therefore considered homeless). Let’s assuming that housing is a driver of local costs.
How are schools funded in most states with property taxes?
In most states, local elected school boards determine the school budget (revenue) and then determine a property tax rate based on the assessed values of all properties in the jurisdiction.
Simple Example:
- The locally elected Springfield School District school board decides it is going to spend $1M to educate it’s children next year.
- The District has 1000 homes, all worth $500K. That’s $500M in assessed property values.
- The District then divides $1M/$500M to come up with a property tax rate of 0.20%.
But wait! What if there’s a real estate boom and all home prices go up massively in a short period of time? That’s mostly a California thing, but what happens is that assessments, the budget, and the tax rate are calculated regularly. If all home prices double, but the school budget stays the same, the tax rate falls. (Of course, if your home value doubles because you doubled the size of your home, you would pay more in taxes.)
But wait! What if the locally elected school board keeps increasing the budget which increases the tax rate? First, the locally elected school board is locally elected — people generally want to get reelected. Second, you get better funded schools — which is great for the community.
California used to have something like this, but due to a combination of court orders and voter passed ballot measures— namely Prop 13 in 1978 this no longer happens, and school funding is decided mostly by a formula in Sacramento. This is the opposite of local control.
How are schools funded in California? LCFF versus Basic Aid explained with cups of water
California uses a formula that can basically be described as this:
- Each student gets a minimum spend amount of$7K-$9K depending on grade. This the same across the entire state: from the wealthiest to the poorest.
- Each student that has hardships (poverty, foster care, English as a second language, etc) gets a small percentage boost on their minimum spend amount — because these children need more support and more expensive to educate.
- Each school district’s minimum spend budget is each student (with hardship boosts if applicable), multiplied by average daily attendance numbers. (If your district has a lot of absenteeism — best of luck!) This is called the LCFF Funding Level.
- Each school district’s LCFF Funding Level is compared to the amount of local property taxes allocated to schools + parcel taxes + foundation (certain types of donation) money. Fun fact: the % of local property taxes allocated to schools was whatever the % was in 1979/1980 and forever set in stone.
- If the property+parcel+donation is less than the school district’s LCFF Funding Level, the district is considered “LCFF” and the state backfills to meet the minimum. Note how many school districts in Silicon Valley (the red bars) are LCFF and require state funding to meet the minimum!
- If the property+parcel+donation is greater than the school district’s LCFF Funding Level, the district is considered “Basic Aid” and the state provides any additional aid it can afford ($0.00).
This explains why LCFF schools can have different amounts of spend per child. However, the LCFF formula doesn’t take into account the cost of living/labor/doing business. So many Silicon Valley schools struggle as a result in hiring and retaining teachers.
A Silicon Valley school district administrator once said that what kept them up at night wasn’t school shootings, but rather the upcoming wave of retirement by housing secure boomer teachers. How would they hire replacements?
We’ve all heard stories of classes with rotating substitute teachers for months, no teacher on the first day of school, classrooms that are rarely cleaned. And this is why.
I saw on social media and email forwards that this is the teachers Unions’ fault right?
It’s the fault of the Unions that schools are mostly funded at the state minimum? That the schools are funded at around (or even below!) national levels in high cost Silicon Valley? If these Unions were so powerful and successful, wouldn’t schools be better funded? Instead the Unions fight for scraps with the administrators.
I saw on social media and email forwards that this is all because schools are bloated with administrators, right?
There’s actually laws that say what the maximum ratio of administrators to teachers are to combat this widespread myth. But we’re in a post-fact era.
But let’s say it’s true that there’s 100 administrators per teacher. How does this change the fact that the schools are funded at around (or even below!) national levels in high cost Silicon Valley?
More Topics to be covered:
- Why property taxes don’t meet meager state minimums per student in wealthy Silicon Valley?
- I thought <school district> is great! Isn’t it? (yes — for california)
- What are consequences of this? (terrible teacher:student ratios, year long rotating substitute teachers, inability to hire)
- This is the fault of unions right? (wtf no)
- What about the lotto? (lolsob)
Additional Reading
What is Prop 13? How could something like this happen?
This 12 minute video will answer all your questions: https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/100000004711534/proposition-13-mad-as-hell.html?src=vidm
Why many Peninsula/South Bay schools have per-child funding that’s less than the state average:
(tldr: The per-child formula takes into account challenges children have — like poverty, foster care, english as a second language… but not cost of living/labor/doing business)
Why do some school districts get so much more share of property taxes than others:
(tldr: The share of property taxes was frozen in 1979/1980. Back in the 1970s, some Peninsula/South Bay town residents culturally didn’t value schools as much, or want to spend as much on school — so their number was frozen. Some bet that the state would swoop in and somehow keep school funding strong despite Prop 13, so they defunded schools to save city services instead — they bet wrong and their number was frozen. Palo Alto and other more educated/white collar towns kept theirs high, and were frozen at that high level.)
How much does each school district spend per child:
Click on one of the “Current Cost of Education” spreadsheets
How to tell if a school district is LCFF or Basic Aid:
Search for the field “LCFF State Aid Before MSA”. If it is $0, then it is “Basic Aid”
