patrick.net

Sybrib says

what about you, thomaswong? A parent?

nope, only conveying comments from life long residents who are parents.

Thomas,

I agree with much of what you write on this topic, but I am sorry that it does not carry so much credibility as if it came from a parent.

Sybrib says

but I am sorry that it does not carry so much credibility as if it came from a parent.

If anything, with the exact cost of private school known at least gives an average buyer an idea what premium they are paying for so called API schools in the Fortress. If they are paying well above the cost of private schools, they are being had big tim.

So why didnt many in prior decades pay for this premium ?
Answer .. there was none!

What matters is your kids' "scores", not the school's API's.

The API is a lazy-parents' index, for folks who don't have the bandwidth or interest to find out what is actually going on at the schools. Instead with a high API they know that their own kid is statistically more likely to have a high test score.

It is taking outsourcing from The Office into The Home.

We live in a very expensive housing market (overpriced shacks really) and have opted for another option: Renting near good public schools. Our nearby charter school is as good as a private school and (almost) free. I say almost because they do much fundraising because California has decided it doesn't care about its children. Still, we pay much less and get private school quality. This is the best of both worlds, right?

Also, in San Diego, it seems to make no sense at all to do the school district thing. You might have a great public or private for elementary, but then discover the middle stinks or the high school is bad. Then you truck your kid all over town (maybe in two directions if you have two kids) to a good school. Better to rent nearby I think.

According to patrick.net manifest, the price of the house can be compared to the same of the rental. Same to the price of a school. Making a rough computation:

- 1 children
- 10K to school one children
- rate 5% (30 year loan, long term interest on the bank)

Break even house overprice is 200K.

Sounds about right. Or am I wrong?
If you have 2 or more children, it seems worth it

ja-

You're forgetting to add in the increase in property tax to your public school "tuition."

For example:
$1.8M Palo Alto home yields approx. $18-20K/year prop tax
$800K Redwood City home yields appr. $8-10K/year prop tax

So not only are you paying a $1M premium for the PA schools, you also get to pay an extra $10K+/year in prop tax to live in the PA school district. So the premium actually turns into somewhere between $1-1.3M for a good public school education. That amount would far exceed private schooling, even for multiple children in our area if you chose to live in one of the nicer areas of Redwood City.

That's not even taking into consideration the "optional" (/required) donation per child required by most of the good school districts.

Seems like the best plan is to rent in a good school district and let someone else pay the property tax, or buy a lower priced condo in a good school district like Sharon Heights in Menlo Park with access to Las Lomitas School District.

Just because you don't physically write out the tax check does not mean you do not pay it.

HW-
Probably a portion, but definitely not all of it! At least not where I am with my rent!

Charter schools are not always what they are cracked up to be. In many areas, like NYC, the charter schools actually have LOWER test socres than the regular schools. Everyone tells me that charter schoosl are just a way to bust the teachers' union.

HousingWatcher says

Charter schools are not always what they are cracked up to be. In many areas, like NYC, the charter schools actually have LOWER test socres than the regular schools. Everyone tells me that charter schoosl are just a way to bust the teachers' union.

In Philadelphia, the privately run schools, that many free marketers touted, did worse than the public schools. There are studies on this:

http://esciencenews.com/articles/2009/04/09/study.privatized.philly.schools.did.not.keep.pace

Also the value for reselling your house will be high with good School.

Public school is not a bad idea if API over 900. Some private is about the same as public, why pay? With the extra money, I'll sent my kids to learn something new after school, or a family trip. Most important is family value, how you build it!

School is not the only decision point for choosing a neighborhood. You also plan to live there indefinitely. More expensive neighborhoods with better public schools have more of the neighborhood friends you want for you kids and yourself, as well as other conveniences and lifestyle preferences.

Are all your kids going to get into the same private school? Do you want to live in any of those neighborhoods? How are your kids going to get to school? Do you want to drive them (maybe 1 hr/day of your time, more if they're in different schools, or drive them to the train station (still takes your time and it takes them 1.5 hrs/day round-trip). They can walk to the neighborhood public school or it will only take a few minutes to drive them.

Sometimes the public schools are better than the private schools. I went to a private school in the Bay Area. It had at the time serious social problems. Many of us from the local very good school district wished our parents had let us go to the public school. I am sure we would have still gotten into the same colleges but had a much better social life, self esteem, and less psychological damage. On top of that, the 7 hrs of homework per day was a colossal waste of time. I would have learned and accomplished so much more with more free time.

And finally, the financials... Do you mean an extra 100k per year or for the whole house? If the latter, I'm not understanding your question. Bellarmine which is among the cheapest of private schools in the Bay Area costs 16k per year. If all your years of private school are even as low as 16k, K-12 is 13 years. 13 * 16k = 208k. You're way better off financially buying a 100k more expensive house even compared to sending just 1 kid to the cheapest private schools in the Bay Area. Most private schools I know of are over 30k and most people with kids have more than 1 kid. You're looking at more typically 2 kids * 35k tuition * 13 years = 910k. And that's at current tuition rates. Private grade school tuitions have been rising faster than college tuition.

bmwman91 says

Still, weighing a $600k San Jose (Cambrian/Robertsville) house versus a $1.1M Cupertino house surely leaves little room for argument. You could certainly send 3 kids to private K-12 that way.

Math: 3 kids * 13 years * 16k tuition = 624k

You're better off with the 1.1M Cupertino house, and that's if you're paying cash and never sell, not to mention many private schools have 30k+ tuition growing at 6%+/yr.

If you're paying 6% (5% mortgage + 1% property tax), your yearly payment is 36k for the 600k San Jose house and 66k for the 1.1M Cupertino house, which is a difference of 30k per year, less than 1 year tuition at many private schools. Figure in the tax deduction and whether you want to include payment toward principal, and the difference becomes more like 20k per year, less than 1 yr tuition at probably most private schools.

Then add in expected inflation on a highly leveraged house, let's say 3% inflation over 20 years. You might expect to sell the 600k San Jose house for 1.1M and the 1.1M Cupertino house for 2.0M, in other words a gain of 500k for the San Jose house and a gain of 900k for the Cupertino house, so you come out 400k ahead relatively with the Cupertino house after 20 years just on inflation.

Smurfette says

Private grade school tuitions have been rising faster than college tuition.

And there IMHO is the real laugh (on the public falling for it, and paying for it.) Where is your ROI?

commonsense says

Smurfette says

Private grade school tuitions have been rising faster than college tuition.

And there IMHO is the real laugh (on the public falling for it, and paying for it.) Where is your ROI?

Your ROI is the much lower chance of your children being assaulted by minorities, nor do you have to put up with the general 'dumbing down' of the classes for the blacks. Your children's social interaction will include less peers that are from broken homes. Blacks are statistically more criminal(both violent crimes and drug crimes) and that uncaring thug mentality gets instilled in many black children at a young age.

The only key factor in a 'good neighborhood': A low percentage of black people. If that percentage is low, all other factors that create a good place to live will fall into place. It has been proven many times in the past 60 years that a neighborhood/city will destroy itself if the percentage of blacks goes high enough.

These things may not be spoken about in more liberal households, but it is in their minds for sure.

Yes, but I speak there more of the liberalisation of so many so-called private schools that is based IMHO in money making. I'd rather opt for private tutoring/independent study as that is how I finished school. So a parent pays astronomical amounts to send a child to a private school that may well not be what a private school was 25 years ago. I have said before that in the best areas private schools are swiftly becoming what public school were 25 years ago. In the end you pay taxes and have to spend a million to educate a child? What about the mass cheap culture rap ghetto glorifying children of today most of whom cannot even speak properly out of a number of so-called better areas a result of this wave of private schooling? I don't see what it has resulted in because of the dumbing down of the public. I would NOT want to be dealing with children today in the USA no way no how.

Smurfette says

Math: 3 kids * 13 years * 16k tuition = 624k

or get the tubes tied after the 1 kid... its a heck of alot cheaper.

This is such an interesting topic. I actually posted a very similar one in city-data basically asking the question "parents obessions with "best" school districts.

In San Diego its simply ridiculous with the new wave of upper middles moving here from elsewhere. I understand not wanting to send a kid somewhere that they might be heavily infpouenced by the wrong crowd. But I am of the mind that so much of that foundation in decision making as a child grows up come from the home. School can be influential, but not long term....more "phase" than anything else.
Upper middle whites dont want their kids to be around "not them" basically. Passive agressive segregation is basically what it is. And yes it exists in 2011.

When API scores are calculated there isnt that much of a difference between asian, filipino and whites scoring high in ANY school. The negative numbers that push it down are the english language learners etc.

It really was eye opening to hear the spectrum of opinion. http://www.city-data.com/education/1329216-parents-obsession-best-school-district.html

I grew up in a poor family and went to a public school and did fine. Since I was a smart kid who studied hard, I was fortunately tracked early on to gifted and talented (GATE) courses similar to AP courses in junior high and high school with great teachers who had degrees from UC and Stanford. So the whole school thing to me is WAY overrated.

SJ, two coworkers in about the same pay grade who live in The Fortress had kids graduate HS the same year as my oldest, '09. Their kids went to Coveted "public" HS's with Coveted API scores, mine went to a public system that if they were not polite in front of me, they'd sneer at.

All three of these kids took a sh*tload of AP courses, etc.

Those other two kids had higher GPA's than mine, but then, they did not participate in sports. My kid was in three sports (a fall sport, a winter sport, and a spring sport) all four years.

All our kids got accepted to the same UC's, - (nobody made it into UCB but did all the other campuses).

Our family drove, and continues to drive, beater looking cars we keep well maintained. Fits right in with the neighborhood we live at. Fortress dweller coworkers show up to work in the cars you'd expect to see in The Fortress. And then, there's the once-every-other-year-or-so Very Expensive International Travel to "back home" which of course is Even More Expensive since peak holiday travel prices coincide with when K-12 is not in session.

Now the GrassHoppers are bellyaching about the cost of their kids' college expenses, (the similar expenses my kid is getting) because, well, working in a tech dept kinda makes you ineligible for financial aid. So far anyway, we Ants have been able to absort the cost from our paychecks, though it means setting aside less per paycheck than in years past. I listen empathetically.

I agree that K-12 is very important. Being outside of The Fortress, I had my nose to the ground at my kids' public K-12; was a fixture on the campuses (still doing it for the younger one), mainly so that I could continually assess the academic opportunities, peer groups of kids and families, and safety. If am not confident about the situation, we'd relocate our kid(s) in a heartbeat.

Outsourcing Basic Parenting to an API score can be a Very Expensive Proposition.

SJ,

It totally is overrated.

I have seen tons of parents at just about every socio-eonomic level that neglect their kids. While the chances of parents being brighter in high socioeconmic areas, it doesnt dictate how well they parent.
Because quite frankly when a kid comes into the mix, every parent is on the same page. Page 1. IMHO its how well a parent is able to work with what they have to provide a stable path for the kid. Just as all kids wont be pro athletes, all kids are not going to be academic whiz kids. Its about balance.

Its amazing how kids are kids, but adults at times will try to impose a framework of life that has no meaning to them. Its like hearing a kid say something "adult like" but they are like parrots. All they are doing is repeating what they hear but it has no depth or meaning.

Its a strip mall/cookie cutter mentality that I believe will always be there in society, but I am doubtful will yield the next great thinker or problem solver.

SDengineer says

Its a strip mall/cookie cutter mentality that I believe will always be there in society, but I am doubtful will yield the next great thinker or problem solver.

I thought my take on this was over but I had to comment here. You hit this directly on the head. It is a strip mall mentality, middle class bluecollar mentality of what upper class is supposed to be. The people worry so much about such things to such an extreme level are in my view social climbers. This is not as these climbers would like to believe about society because real high society doesn't think the way some people here are. This is about social climbing and nothing more.