California Public Education, Part One

July 23, 2018

I’m passionate about public education. My wife and I were both educated in public schools, and our two kids go to public schools (Jefferson Elementary and A.P. Giannini Middle). My wife was President of the Jefferson Elementary PTA for two years and is currently Vice President. I started and continue to run an annual charity investor conference (see our website at https://excellencesf.org/), which has so far raised over $1.4 million that largely helps Bay Area organizations improve educational opportunities and life outcomes for underserved youth. When it comes to public schools, I’m all in.

So it makes me very sad to report that the public school systems of San Francisco and California are in poor shape, and have been for many years. There is no sugarcoating it. We are failing to fulfill our most basic responsibility to invest adequately in our future through our children’s education.

The primary problem with our public schools is that the educational outcomes are poor. To start with, the overall level of American education outcomes is unimpressive compared to other rich countries. According to the OECD’s “Programme for International Student Assessment” (PISA) 2015 Results in Focus, the United States scores roughly average in science and reading, and below average in mathematics. Specifically, we ranked #15 in reading, #16 in science, and #25 in math.

Yet even compared to a lackluster American benchmark, California falls short. Back in the 1960’s and 1970’s, California was widely regarded as having one of the nation’s best public school systems. Today we are subpar. Since 1990, national and state-level education performance has been tracked by the “nation’s report card,” administered by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). You can read the results at www.nationsreportcard.gov. (For those reading this online, I like this page.) As you can see from the graph comparing 4^th and 8^th grade student reading and math proficiency, California has long lagged the national average and most other states. (Online readers can find the data here.)

There are some caveats and silver linings. Comparison between states is imperfect because states set their own rules for how the NAEP test is administered, e.g. Texas exempts English learners with fewer than four complete years of English instruction, while California administers the test to all students. (See https://edsource.org/2015/states-in-motion-school-finance-naep-child-poverty/83303, notes under the graph of 4^th and 8^th grade proficiency.) California has improved its abysmal performance from the 1990s and 2000s, and 2017 saw a welcome uptick in reading and math scores, most notably in grade four reading. Nevertheless, California’s performance is below average, and has been for many years.

While even the best public schools could improve – e.g. like many public school parents I would like more opportunities for gifted math students to learn at a faster pace – where our public schools truly fail is in serving our neediest kids. As the table shows, SF public schools significantly underperform in student proficiency for low income African American and Latino students compared to the statewide average for each subgroup (as well as the statewide average for all students).

Source: A Dream Deferred (https://reports.innovateschools.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/A-Dream-Deferred-Report-on-SF-Schools-.pdf), data from pp. 14-15

Another way to see the opportunity gap is geographically. The map (see page 31 of the linked report, “A Dream Deferred” by Innovate Public Schools) shows the “GreatSchools Rating” for San Francisco’s public schools. Look how the eastside/westside divide leaps out! And for those reading online, pages 32 and 32 of the linked report shows additional maps that highlight even more starkly the dearth of opportunities available to African American and Latino students.

Source: A Dream Deferred (https://reports.innovateschools.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/A-Dream-Deferred-Report-on-SF-Schools-.pdf), p. 31

Is San Francisco a liberal, progressive city? You wouldn’t know it from how we treat our students.

A secondary problem with our public schools is the working conditions for teachers and administrators. To be clear, the kids come first: schools exist to serve our students, parents and citizens. Still, I’m sure we all agree that competent teachers should be reasonably paid for their vitally important work.

You have probably read about teacher strikes in Oklahoma and West Virginia. Before adjusting for cost of living, the average annual teacher salary in California looks much higher by comparison: Oklahoma and West Virginia are roughly $45,000 and $46,000 respectively, versus nearly $73,000 in California. But once you adjust for California’s much higher cost of living, compensation in the three states are much more similar: Oklahoma and West Virginia are roughly $51,000/year and California is a little more than $57,000 (which ranks it 19^th out of the 50 states plus DC). These cost of living adjustments are tricky and imperfect. Still, in high cost California cities like LA and (especially!) San Francisco, it’s undeniably challenging to live a normal middle class life on a teacher’s salary.

(An enormous caveat is necessary here: a significant component of teacher compensation is earned via pension benefits, which are not counted in these salary numbers. We will revisit pensions in a later column. For now, here are a few key points to keep in mind. First, more senior teachers who have accrued a lot of pension benefits are in a much better situation than more junior teachers who will have to pay more into the system to receive less generous benefits. Second, while pensions can be a good tool, they can also lead to misaligned incentives if mismanaged. Third – and this will be no surprise if you have read previous Follow the Money columns – the pension liabilities are large and underfunded.)

California teachers also have very high class sizes. California is tied for first (with Arizona and Utah) for the highest student-teacher ratio at 24:1, substantially higher than #4 Nevada at 21:1. (The average student-teacher ratio is 16:1.) The research is indeterminate to what degree a difference of this magnitude is worse for students; what is clear, however, is that it entails more work for teachers, especially given the high percentage of students for whom English is not their native language.  

So let’s recap the problems. California public school educational outcomes are poor. The neediest students are hurt the most by this, especially here in San Francisco. And the teachers? When you adjust for cost of living, larger class size and the high proportion of English language learning students, California’s teachers (especially the younger ones whose future pension benefits are highly likely to be less generous than the ones more senior teachers have already accrued) face a similarly tough work situation as teachers in many other states.

The next post will look at root causes. Here’s a hint. Some people argue that our public schools need reform, while others say we have failed to fund our public schools adequately. Both sides are right.