Some of the best public elementary, middle/junior, and high schools in the country are in California. Some of the worst are as well. California as a whole has a pretty good public school system. There are certainly issues. But many of them are really just debatable trade offs. For example, the whole San Francisco ed board recall. The main issue (aside from the renaming, which really was a side show to the main event) was the proposal to eliminate merit based entry to the premier high schools. The scientific data is pretty clear that if you want to benefit the most, you should not track students based on ability (i.e., put the "gifted and talented" into special advanced programs) but rather spend your limited resources on bringing the bottom half up. However, this is "unfair" to those who could benefit from development of their above average intellectual talents. In any way you proceed, there will be winners and losers. If you have an opinion on this: vote!

The rankings beg to disagree - https://www.niche.com/k12/search/best-public-high-schools/. Even the best schools in California are not as good as the other state's top schools. It doesn't help that 18%!!! of students in California's public education system are ESL. That's not due to Visa & green-card immigrants.

Texas and Florida do a much better job educating their minority and ESL kids going by NAEP scores.

> Some of the best public elementary, middle/junior, and high schools in the country are in California. Some of the worst are as well. ... > but rather spend your limited resources on bringing the bottom half up.

Ok, so right here is the issue. It's like saying that US has no poverty issue, because some of the richest people live here. You yourself mentioned, that it is important to improve the bottom percentiles. And the bottom percentiles in California are not good. Some of the exceptional schools in CA are private, some of them are public, but most likely located in expensive areas. You gonna have to pay for a good school either directly or via insane home prices. Yes, you can find decent schools in less-crowded-but-not-very-rural areas with more reasonable cost of living, sort of a sweet spot. And the majority of those schools aren't gonna be exceptional, the will be fine, just fine. Not better than any other state. But the lowest percentile in the worst area is still gonna drag the whole chart down. Everyone I know in CA who cares about school for their kids either lives in a pricy area or pays for a private school.

What the hell do you mean not track students based on ability? How else could you track them? It's not unfair really. If you let the smart fall to the level of the average, you end up with board and angry smart kids. They will not pull up the middle, they'll check out. The end results will be outsourcing. Based on the skilled worker shortage in Cali, I'd say bringing up the bottom isn't doing much for the top.

My main issue with the BoE was competence. There was a lack of competence across the board, but If I had to give a more specific reason to recall them, it was their incompetence with respect to re-opening schools. Their incompetence around the re-naming showed how bad they were.

As for Lowell, I think that was a big issue for many, but not amongst the 100+ parents that I’ve spoken to on the issue.

In no way, shape or form does California have a "pretty good public school system".

https://wallethub.com/edu/e/states-with-the-best-schools/533...

Ranked 42nd overall, 36th in quality and 51st, ie last in safety.

UC Berkeley, UC San Diego, UC Los Angeles are some of the best engineering schools on the planet.

They are talking about non-higher ed when referring to "schools".

My experience with elementary school in California vs. Florida as a kid had such a disparity in quality in favor of California that I was able to notice it even at that young of an age. I came to figure out why much later in life, but I'll never forget that feeling like I'd taken a huge step back.

Maybe as a kid. But Florida kicks California's ass in K12 education these days. https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/profiles/stateprofile?chor...

*According to Californians

According to most charts, numerous Universities in California are generally high ranking (the UC system, USC, Pepperdine, Stanford among them) but within numerous specialties it's indisputable: UCSD for biotech, UC Davis for Ag-tech/veterinary science, Berkeley/Stanford for CS, Boalt/Hastings/King for Law, etc. The specialization matters here significantly.

The US weirdly in general has a lot of high ranking universities, but its elementary and secondary schools are very very uneven, at any level.

It’s not an exclusive list; a lot of states have good tech universities. But it’s a pretty objective evaluation. Ask a tech employer anywhere.

They used to be good.

California has plenty of amazing public schools. But California is also highly segregated by both income and ethnicity. Fremont High School, for example, rivals some of the most expensive private schools nationally in terms of achievement, but it's a majority Asian school, especially South Asian, many of whom are middle- and upper middle-class (notwithstanding that by Bay Area standards the Fremont area is considered "working" class. You can find schools like Fremont all over California, but especially in the Bay Area, coastal Central California, and many places in Southern California.

OTOH, just a few miles from some of the best public schools in the country you can also find some of the worst. While California is segregated, most Californians nonetheless live in relative close proximity to people living in vastly different circumstances, so disparities are very evident.

+1. Georgia has homes selling for 500k in the Walton School district. It's ranked higher than Palo Alto's High Schools.

Let that sink in.

https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/georgia/d...

https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/californi...

I went to Walton; it's a pretty shit school. They keep their stats up by pressuring anyone falling behind to drop out.