| I think your reasoning is flawed, but fine...if the goal is to try and have the cheapest possible one room school house. That $200k gets eaten up pretty quick by things like security, janitorial, building maintenance, support staff like principals, librarians, guidance counselors etc etc. If you’re meaning to include total cost for the full time employees (the teachers) in the list, then the salaries are a lot less attractive once you’re done covering benefits, etc. I've got multiple kids, so I'll admit I think about schools here a lot. The absolute cheapest private schools I've seen in San Francisco are subsidized by religious institutions. The tuition for those schools per child is roughly $28k. Non religious private schools usually start in the $40k range and can easily get into the $50s and well beyond. My point is that it's hard to point at some issue of inefficient public bureaucracy, because clearly private institutions aren't able to do it any cheaper. I would also argue they wouldn't try, because their goal is a good education, or at least better than the public alternative (that only spends $28k per kid). |
| "I think your reasoning is flawed, but fine...if the goal is to try and have the cheapest possible one room school house."
I was generous in my estimate for each of the line items. I chose a one room school house as an example because it's easy to grok, and anything larger would be cheaper due to economies of scale. "I've got multiple kids, so I'll admit I think about schools here a lot."
Although I have only one child (in 4th grade), I think about schools a lot, too. "The absolute cheapest private schools I've seen in San Francisco are subsidized by religious institutions. The tuition for those schools per child is roughly $28k."
This $28k number is false. Most parochial schools charge about $12k. Here is a breakdown by grade level of the number of parochial schools in SF that serve that grade level, and the median tuition among those schools for that grade: # Median sticker price
Pre-K 7 $16,610
K 29 $11,530
1 29 $11,530
2 29 $11,175
3 29 $11,175
4 29 $11,175
5 29 $11,175
6 30 $11,519
7 30 $11,519
8 30 $11,519
9 4 $31,725
10 4 $31,725
11 4 $31,725
12 4 $31,725
"Non religious private schools usually start in the $40k range and can easily get into the $50s and well beyond."
This 'usually start in the $40k range' is also false. For each of the grades K-5, 33-39% of non-parochial schools in SF charge less than $40k. For each of the grades 6-8, 30% of non-parochial schools in SF charge less than $40k. "because clearly private institutions aren't able to do it any cheaper"
Non-parochial private schools don't typically price based on cost. The schools that have high demand (due to parents and student population) can charge more. So they don't need to manage their costs tightly. And they can spend lots of money on marketing.Moreover, not all students pay sticker price. So looking at the sticker prices (which I've listed above) may give an inflated view of total income. "because their goal is a good education"
Their goal is happy customers (parents). Different schools achieve this in different ways. Some parents choose a school not based on the expected quality of education but based on the expected networking opportunities for themselves and for their child. |
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| ▲ | mmcclure 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | I was generous in my estimate for each of the line items. I chose a one room school house as an example because it's easy to grok, and anything larger would be cheaper due to economies of scale.
I would argue that economies of scale don't apply to education in the same way they apply to other businesses at large. Sure, you theoretically get the benefits of scale with central organization, buildings, centralized services, etc, but once you get to the classrooms themselves most of the cost simply scales linearly with the number of students. This $28k number is false. Most parochial schools charge about $12k.
I'm not sure what we're talking about here anymore. You're using K-8 as the dominating factor for this gotcha a few times in this thread. There are more K-8 parochial schools, yes. "Most parochial schools charge about $12k" is true, unless you're talking about high school. Exactly 1 parochial school is less than $30k (SF Christian, at $16k). From there (limited to religious schools): - Sacred Heart ($31k)
- Archbishop Riordan ($32k)
- Saint Ignatius ($34.6)
- Sacred Heart ($60k)
- Jewish Community School ($65k)
I might have missed some in here since I'm going by names, but given that SF Christian is the cheapest private high school on SF Chronicle's list[1] I don't think that matters for my point.You started this thread with average cost per student across all SF public school students, which includes special needs, high school, etc, but move to median prices for debate, and structure most of your argument around the cheapest schools (K-8). Mea culpa on my end, though: you are correct that when I was saying "cheapest I've seen," there was an unfair modifier of "cheapest schools on my personal spreadsheet" which is limited to schools within a reasonable commute and that we'd be willing to send our kids to. You're absolutely correct that there are cheaper parochial schools available as long as you only need K-8. Using averages for private schools, which feels more applicable to your starting premise, private schools in SF average $27k, $28k, and $52k, for elementary, middle, and high school (again, referencing SF Chronicle's data). I still feel comfortable with my original premise that averaging $28k per student across all of SFUSD students is not an absurd number. So looking at the sticker prices (which I've listed above) may give an inflated view of total income.
Sure, that's fair! But we're not talking about income, we're talking about average cost per kid. We can't actually know the details under the hood, but again, those schools specifically in your list are usually subsidized by a larger religious organization, so the sticker price doesn't truly reflect that cost anyway.[1] https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2025/sf-bay-area-privat... | | |
| ▲ | rahimnathwani 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | You started this thread with average cost per student across all SF public school students, which includes special needs, high school, etc, but move to median prices for debate
The reason for this is simple and not nefarious:- I don't have access to data that would allow me to apportion total SFUSD costs to individual school types - When considering schools with vastly different prices (and different scales), the median is a much more informative measure than the mean (which could be skewed by an unusually expensive or inexpensive school with a tiny student population). Another reason for using median is that I was responding to your comments which talked about general price levels ('tuition for those schools is roughly', 'usually start in the $40k range'). You were not talking about averages, but typical prices or minimum (starting) prices. The mean prices have no bearing on the truth or falsity of those claims. Using averages for private schools, which feels more applicable to your starting premise, private high schools in SF average $27k, $28k, and $52k, for elementary, middle, and high school
If we look only at non-parochial schools, the means are even higher (e.g. $39k for 5th grade, $41k for 8th grade, $59k for 12th grade). those schools specifically in your list are subsidized by a larger religious organization, so the sticker price doesn't truly reflect that cost anyway
Sorry, I should have been clearer. I meant when we look at the sticker price for non-parochial schools, we should assume their average revenue per student is less than the sticker price, and the average cost per student is less than or equal to the average revenue per student. I still feel comfortable with my original premise that averaging $28k per student across all of SFUSD students is not an absurd number.
My original point in this subthread was that SFUSD is NOT underfunded. Do you believe it IS underfunded? which is limited to schools within a reasonable commute and that we'd be willing to send our kids to
If we limit the discussion to only those schools we'd be willing to send our kids to, then that would rule out almost all SFUSD schools, which kind of defeats the point of the discussion!BTW In case you want to see the SF Chronicle data in a form that's more personalized (showing the schools nearest to you first, filterable by grade levels and price and type), I made a tool to do that: https://tools.encona.com/schoolfinder | | |
| ▲ | mmcclure 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | My original point in this subthread was that SFUSD is NOT underfunded. Do you believe it IS underfunded?
Your original point was not that it's "not underfunded," it was that it's overfunded (and substantially so, based on other comments). Your top(ish) comment on this thread to the $28k per student average: I'm saying it's a lot.
My only argument here is that I don't think $28k is unreasonable, particularly when viewed against the cost of private alternatives. then that would rule out almost all SFUSD schools, which kind of defeats the point of the discussion!
We go to our attendance area SFUSD school and love it. There are plenty of SFUSD and private schools that would not be on our list, be it for academic reasons or logistical. I made a tool to do that
Cool, I dig it! Annoying, unsolicited feature request would be to allow addresses or zip codes rather than requiring geolocation :) | | |
| ▲ | rahimnathwani an hour ago | parent [-] | | Your original point was not that it's "not underfunded," it was that it's overfunded
Here's my original comment. I didn't say it was overfunded: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46007623(But I do think it's overfunded.) My only argument here is that I don't think $28k is unreasonable, particularly when viewed against the cost of private alternatives.
OK, so we agree SFUSD is not underfunded? We go to our attendance area SFUSD school and love it.
That's great! At my attendance area school, two thirds of students are behind grade level in math, and there's no opportunity to be grouped with kids in other grades. Annoying, unsolicited feature request would be to allow addresses or zip codes rather than requiring geolocation :)
If this is for privacy, don't worry, it's all front end code and your location isn't sent to the server. (You can check the network tab or just look at the code.) |
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