Despite having some high-performing districts, California gets a C- in education

From its high-flying tech companies to the opulence of prestigious colleges like Stanford, California seems to be the pinnacle of education in the U.S; in fact, many families who move to California, especially to the Silicon Valley, say that they came for the education. 

“My dad’s company told him to move [from Shanghai] to the U.S many times,” said sophomore Jason Lin. “He rejected most of the offers, since the locations were on the East Coast. But when they asked him to move to Silicon Valley, he said yes, because the education here is good.” 

But that is not true in all parts of the state. According to the Mercury News, California’s education rating is a C-, which places its overall ranking at 41st out of the 50 states. This may seem at odds with the intense academic environment students at high-ranking Bay Area schools are so familiar with. 

According to KPBS, California’s education system was ranked fifth out of the 50 states in 1965, but fell to 22nd a year after the passing of Proposition 13 in 1978. 

Prop 13 was intended to allow homeowners to keep their property taxes low so that they could afford to stay in their homes as they aged, but the result was that the state lost tens of millions that would have gone to schools. Since school districts rely on property taxes for their funding to a great extent, Prop 13 resulted in a sharp reduction of spending: In 1978 alone, schools lost one-third of their $9 billion annual budget.  

Education spending has increased since the 1970s, but it might not be enough in some areas. Many districts  serve student populations with high rates of poverty, unemployment and non-native English speakers. These factors depress test scores as well as the ambition of what is taught. According to Spanish 2 and 3 teacher Bret Yeilding, he is familiar with in areas near Sacramento where many children grow up in families that are worried about meeting food, shelter and basic human needs that most Bay Area residents take for granted.

“If you’re hungry, it’s hard to concentrate,” Yeilding said. “If you’ve been kicked out of your apartment, it's hard to go ‘well I'm gonna go home and do my homework.’” 

Contrasting with these areas are school districts that are heralded as some of the best in the nation. This fact doesn’t line up with the assumptions many people have surrounding education in California. If certain schools in the Bay Area, like those of the Los Gatos-Saratoga and Palo Alto Union School District, are ranked 19th and 23rd in the nation respectively, according to Niche, why is there such a divide in achievement?

One factor is funding. Since over 30 percent of a school’s money comes from property taxes, schools that are in an area of higher living costs often receive more money, which directly correlates with increased resources in schools like music and sports programs and higher educational achievement.

Schools with more funding are usually able to pay teachers better, often meaning they are able to recruit the best teachers. 

Spanish 2 and 4H teacher Stephany Marks, who has taught in Santa Cruz and Watsonville where many students were going to be the first generation to get into college, said that schools need to implement programs like AVID, a nonprofit organization that provides educators ways to improve college readiness for their students because their parents cannot provide the necessary advice.

“There seems to be more assistance in districts in Santa Cruz than here in Saratoga because we see that being provided at home, while in other districts, there are parents that haven't even graduated high school,” she said. 

As a result, California’s lower educational rating is more indicative of the economic status of California as a whole and less about the high achieving students from the small bubble of schools in the Bay Area. In other smaller states, however, where the money is more evenly distributed among schools, the academic ratings tend to be higher than that of California.

New York, for example, is ranked 22 according to USNews, slightly above the nation’s average. 

Sophomore Arian Gupta, who attended Herricks Middle School in New York until eighth grade, prefers Saratoga over the schools in New York, because of the higher standardized test scores and the academic opportunities that the school has.

Vignav Ramesh, a sophomore who just moved from Interlake High School in Seattle said that he felt the Bay Area and his old school provide similar educational experiences. 

Washington ranks fourth in education and is one of the top-rated states for higher education. With a relatively high economic status across the whole state, schools are better funded and teachers are better paid than in most of California. Ramesh said that the only difference between his old school and Saratoga High is the community and not academics, showing just how much of an outlier Saratoga is within the California education system. 

Education reformers point to changing  Proposition 13 as a quick means for improvement. Recently, a group including some of California’s public employee unions such as the California Federation of Teachers unveiled a replacement version of Prop 13. The proposed legislation would allow homeowners and small businesses to receive the current low tax rate benefits of Prop 13 while commercial and industry property owners would be required to pay more.

According to the Los Angeles Times, if citizens approve the amended proposition for the November ballot, most of the new tax revenue would go to fund public schools. The new revenue, estimated to be at least $7 billion, would be in addition to current state funding, which is around $103.4 billion.

This would allow many schools to raise the salaries for their staff, lift the burden on their living situations and allow them to focus more on teaching students. The state could also use the extra money to provide more housing for teachers, which could relieve one main burden and help them focus more on their students. 

“I know when I’m less stressed, I seem to perform better,” Marks said. “But I think the school is working on that, and the school knows that’s something we need to improve on.”