San Diego Housing Bubble News and Analysis

Personally, the API score is as flawed as the median housing price. Certain schools have much more diversity than others, which greatly affected the score. If you take just a single API score to judge a school, it's almost like taking a median housing price to determine the strength of the housing market. The picture you'll see, when you drill down to the different races will show a slightly better picture. Kind of like drilling down to the different zip codes to get a slightly better picture. I think school is only just one of the many factors in determining a premium of an area.

Personally, I see these API scores as expressions of average IQ's of all kids attending the school. And those are well correlated with IQ's (and pocketbooks) of their parents. I don't think that quality of education matters much. So it's really not the issue of "Poway school district has great scores therefore houses are expensive". Causation goes both ways. Rich and smart people settle in expensive and well maintained areas, their kids do well in schools, scores go up. Scores go up, area becomes attractive to parents, they compete for houses in a good school district, houses appreciate.

I agree that, above a certain threshold, score differences does not matter for most people. If you compare a house in Serra Mesa (bad schools) and a house in Rancho Penasquitos (good schools), the house in RP will be more expensive because the school district is better. But if you compare RP with Carmel Valley, causation goes in the opposite direction - CV scores are higher because houses are more expensive.

So, I'm gonna guess that you don't have any kids. 'Cause this strange thing happens to people when they have kids. They suddenly start to think in all kinds of totally irrational ways, like... "I've got to get the very absolutely best that there is. Absolutely no compromising due to cost or anything else. My kid deserves the absolute best, top shelf, nothing else will do."

The other reason of course is that most people have little financial reasoning ability to start with, and the idea of actually weighing the cost/benefits is beyond them. How else do you explain $150 jeans? I guess if you're single and desperately trying to find a rich spouse, you could maybe justify that from a financial sense, but even there it seems a bit of a stretch to me.

Of course this same argument could be used to question why people pay for ivy league colleges. But we've all heard of studies that show how much more money you make going to Harvard law or some such infamous place. Of course the fact that just getting into harvard law school is probably the better predictor, and completion of the degree is irrelevant.

Yes of course the teachers are doing all they can to game the system. And they are doing it with the help of the administrators, politicians and the parents. Sorta like the loan business gaming all the loans with the help of the loan brokers, real estate agents, wall street banks, etc. It's just good for everyone to cheat on those no doc loans. (See this is a thread about real estate!)

XBoxBoy

Esmith makes some very good points.

My personal observations -- having worked in both high-performing and low-performing schools -- are that the lower-performing schools actually have better, more dedicated teachers. API scores are a better indication of the neighborhood demographics than they are of actual school/teacher quality.

It is a fact, though not "PC," that higher-IQ parents tend to have children with similar IQs. Higher IQs are usually correlated with greater incomes (BTW, you will also find many criminals and mentally/socially disturbed people who have exceedingly high IQs, so it's not always a good thing).

Most parents want their children to live in safe, clean, comfortable neighborhoods with people who share the same values. Those with higher IQs and incomes will likely choose the best locations, and you'll see that the high-scoring schools just happen to be in neighborhoods where a disproportionate number of people have higher IQs, college degrees, and incomes.

IOW, it's not the schools, but the neighborhoods that people are paying a premium for. The API scores are a good indication that the surrounding areas will be safe, clean and full of people who value education, and don't do drugs, don't engage in violent acts, etc.

Exactly. Look at 10 highest rated elementary schools in the county. Four in Carmel Valley, two in La Jolla, one in Del Mar, one in Rancho Santa Fe, one in Poway (Sabre Springs), one in San Diego (Santaluz). Do people pay more money to live in La Jolla and Rancho Santa Fe because schools are good, or vice versa?

(BTW, you will also find many criminals and mentally/socially disturbed people who have exceedingly high IQs, so it's not always a good thing).

but your chance to end up in prison is much higher if you're above 120 than if you're below 80.

I'll bust an HBO, The Wire quote, "It's all connected." Determining the API of the three schools (elem, middle, high) for a particular house is very relevent, especially for those who aren't familiar with the underbelly of a particular area. If the elementary and middle school scores are high but the high school scores fall significantly, it reveals that a lower class neighborhood is nearby. This pulls values down for R/E and increases other problems not just for selling but for living there. Most people visit just the neigborhood they are interested in but fail to realize they share a grocery store, park, high school or other things with people they would rather not be near, nor will the eventual buyer of that property when they choose to sell.

Spare me the diversity comments and anectodtal stories, just look at it from a purely financial perspective because that is all I am pointing to. Race isn't relevent here, demographics are. Show me a elem, mid and high school boundary with no apartments and the API will be high, thus the property values will be also, even for people with no kids. It's about not being near poor and uneducated people when buying real estate and API is an indicator, not the only one but a fairly reliable one. Look further into the state's api reporting and you can see the percentage of free lunch kids, english learners and education level of the parents. That always translates into API scores and that is relevent in valuing real estate. If you do nothing else other than buy in a trifecta of high api, you will be better off in maintainig value in your r/e. Just like people avoid or factor in mello roos when comparing properties, they factor in private school for houses in stabby school areas.

The drawback to this theory is it makes for mediocre h/s football teams at best. When I watch my son's team lose and engage in conversation with fellow parents someone always comments that the other team appears larger. I remind them that if you send your kid to a school with a high api, a low "grub stub" percentage(read: free lunch) and a low english language leaner number, you lose games (these numbers are available from the state's website). All of this hurts the football teams. While they may see different skin colors on the team, being a minority does not translate into football prowess when the minorities are rich and smart, they become as mediocre as the white boys, it's just the way of things. So buy a house in the best school district you can afford, just be prepared to lose some football games. It won't kill you.

I hate to change subjects but TG brought up football. I spent about 8 years in Texas before returning to Ohio and in both states HS football is king.

Certainly in Texas you almost always have to have a mixed type school to win the state championship. We lived in a town that was in the same district as Odessa Permian, and since my wife was a coach (track/volleyball and later swimming) we went to most of the football games. If you watched Friday Night Lights you'll see that Odessa lost to Dallas Carter, a completely inner city school seemingly 100% minority if you look at the team. Now as I recall after moving to DFW it was a magnet school and thus for that inner city area, was a good school. Nevertheless they beat Permian that year as the movie shows, and that was a highly unusual. Typically the best teams in Texas are the more upper class schools in a given community, which happens to have just enough minority kids to make them great.

I recall watching our hometown Abilene Cooper in the state championship against Drew Brees' and Austin Westlake. At that time Cooper was the "nicer" school in town, and Westlake HS was considered the school to be at in Austin.

I don't have enough date points to see if that's the case here in SD. LCC in my area seems to be less diverse than the schools we were around in Texas, yet they seem to have pretty good teams. (No CIF titles though). Oceanside has a rough reputation and backs it up on the field. Torrey Pines though has some good football teams with a good API.

It's different out here.... Maybe the API is more indicative.

Colin Cowherd likes to joke about colleges who start bragging about graduation rates are schools getting their asses kicked on the field. i.e. Stanford, Duke, etc.

Oh I didn't mention specific minority types but I see that the high school where my wife worked in DFW is ranked number one in the ESPN HS poll. (Euless Trinity). That HS was chock full of Tongans. (Oceanside - Samoans). These Tongans are some big people with broad shoulders and compact powerful torsos. I don't know if the demographics have changed much at Trinity (10 years ago when I was there) but at that time the football team generally had more Tongans across the O-Line and D-Line than any other race. Trinity was not considered high class, but it was also not inner city Ft. Worth where the teams tended to stink though there were great individual talents. I've noticed that nearby town Southlake which is very high class has killer football teams too.

Rich, you are far too polite. This is your website, you could have just hijacked the other thread. Not a big deal.. But I'll try to answer both of your questions in my opinion of course.

1. What is the fascination with good school district?

You know I can really only answer this from my own background. But it's probably true for a lot of asians....chinese(from china and taiwan),korean,japanese,Indian in particular.

The aforementioned asians view education as an extremely important thing. Historically and culturally, education systems overseas are quite different from here in the States. the best schools overseas are state sponsored public schools. Typically these schools are free or nominal cost, but it is generally not available to everyone. You have to pass entrance exams to get into these good schools, and probably 1-2% of the applicants make it into a public school. In the united states, if you don't get into the "best" schools, it's not really the end of the world. Overseas it's really different. It's ultra competitive. Historically, if you don't get into a good public school, then pretty much a good portion of the white-collar opportunities aren't available to you and you can pretty much either (1) go into blue-collar type professions (2) stay back and try to do better on the entrance test next year (to a certain point that), (3) go to a shitty private school that your parents end up paying a lot for (excludes U.S. tailor expat schools which are $$$$ more so than the normal locals can afford), or (4) try to make it on your own doing some business of some sort, which although not impossible is probably not as easy as for say folks here in the States. BTW, while blue collar work here is perfectly respectable and you can make a lot of money here doing it (IE plumbers , mechanics,etc), it's not the case overseas where intellectual contributions typically convey a better lifestyle than blue collar work. Labor is cheap relative to white collar desk job overseas, versus here when often a trip to your mechanic costs more than you could bill out as a software professional, for example.

Culturally, that's sort of the value system among several asians, which in principle is why, a typical asian couple would rather settle for less sqft, pay $$$ more for a home in the "best public school systems". Part of this is the old stigma about being in the best school. Part of it is also the concept that if I send my kid to a school in which their parents are also from roughly the same background (lawyer,doctors,enginerds,etc), then there's a higher probability of the kid succeeding then floundering in life flipping burgers. Part of this is also if Asian Family XYZ sends there kids there, it must be good, so I'll send my kids there too. On top of that, a lot of these families in addition to sending them to a "top public school" end up hiring private tutors or sending there kids to after school enrichment programs to allow their kids to "get ahead". This is historically what happens overseas, and ironically though some of the se parents who that emigrate here to the States do so to allow their kids to escape the "one shot at a public school or else" issue overseas, they pretty much bring what I consider all the "vices" here to the States (such as the over-emphasis on enrichement afterschool,etc). In fact, in some cases, I've heard things take to such an extreme that, I've heard some high schools kids go take college level courses at a local JC under radar during the summertime, and then when school starts, repeat the same subject in high school AP classes just so they breeze through it with an easy A, in addition to whatever other enrichment that happens.

In addition, more "well known" schools supposedly opens the door to the "best" colleges. For example, a 4.25gpa in Carmel Valley, some feel, isn't looked the same as say a 4.25gpa out of some school in say El Cajon, because some feel admissions to schools like Harvard,Stanford,etc, are not just about your individual scores and extracuricular activities, but some of it also has to do with your school's reputation (some people think). Don't know if that true or not, though working as a student memer of an admission board in the past I can sort of see where some of this would play into.

Oh, and we also learned that in some of the fields such as medicine, engineering, etc, there's quota's against asians....So.....we realize that we end up competing amongst ourselves for some of those admission spots....Hence, if Asian Family X sends Kid A to "best public school" + enrichment program Z, Asian Family Y better send Kid B to that same school to keep up plus add enrichment programs Z,A,B so that Kid B is one step ahead of Kid A. And once Asian Family X and Asian Family Y talk to Asian Family Z, obviously Asian Family Z will have the same concerns and again try to match or one up things for their kid. Yes, I understand it's ridiculous. But this sort of just feeds onto itself.

You want to reak havoc on housing prices on a market and create a bubble? Simple, get a high testing district, and have a few asian families move in there....and pretty soon it's a domino affect...More asian families move there for the school district, raising the education bar, which then attracts even more asian families. And then if you make access to that school exclusive, based on some set geograpical boundary within that city such that there is is a shortage of homes that has access to a particular school, well then you get the asian families start paying ridiculous amounts of money for some crappy piece of home. It's for this reason why Cupertino in Bay Area will never get cheap....Ditto for the Mission San Jose part of Fremont.

You might ask...Well, gee.. Why not just send your kid to a private school and live in another neighborhood? I don't know. I guess the truth is that there's the sort of "I want my kid to grow up in an environment there families are doctors,lawyers,enginerds,etc". And like i said, some end up living in areas like Carmel Valley AND send their kids to private schools anyway.

Now one might conclude that "gee you talk as asians are rich and have all this money to throw around". Um, no..That usually isn't the case.

The ones I know have a normal job(s). BUT, they don't spend a lot. They penny pinch on everything. And I mean everything...Yet, within economic reasons, they will spend money on their kid's education...and buying an overpriced home in a good school district is one example.That's why you'll see a lot of asians drive a beat 14year old car, live in CV with particle board furniture from Ikea, and still send their kids to a private school.
That's why I have always said that often times it's much hard to try to make a buck off an Asian than to make a few thousand bucks off of the Asian's kid...Because asians are more likely to cut a check for the benefit of their kid's education than themselves.

Of course, there are a bunch of obnoxious asians that are really rich too that spend money on their kids too as well as themselves...Let me explain...
See, there are those asians that came here via an education visa.These were the folks that were from the best schools overseas, and were able to get a scholarship to come here to the states for a graduate school. These are your normal worker bees who probably do alright, but aren't "rich" by rich standards. They are thrifty, and have assimilated into the U.S. because they work with everyone here. I'll call these type I asians... My parents were examples of this.

Then you have the second wave of asians that made a shit load of money doing business in korea,japan,taiwan,china,etc and normally wouldn't have made it to the U.S. under an educational vias....They essentially bought there way into the U.S., bringing their kids with them because they didn't want their kids to have to go through the grueling education system over there. These are the asian rich brats that zoom around in bimmers and porsches and carry Prada bags when 16... I'll call them Type 2...Generally, we, type 1 descendants, hate those type 2 descendants.... not that because we are jealous, but because (1) they lack taste (2) they lack tack (3) they feel like the own the world (4) they flaunt their wealth (5) they give asians a bad name.... But the feeling is mutual because the Type 2 families tend to look down on Type 1 families for numerous reasons the "you got into the best schools, and I didn't but you came to the States and ended up a workerbee while I make a shit load of money and look at me now..." attitude. Anyway, sort of I've started to diverge here. But you get the point that for these folks, money isn't an issue.

I can't comment on any other ethnicities..I'd assume folks from the same social/economic background probably would have somewhat similiar concerns and viewpoints on education.

2. Is the school system gamed?

I'm not an expert at this, since I'm still way off from sending my kid to elementary. BUT...From what I've heard from other parents and such, ever since the "No Kid Left Behind" was instituted, it had an interesting effect. The intentions were to improve school quality across the board via measurable attributes of test schools,etc. Well, since schools quickly became penalized for not improving or not scoring well, schools started become more concerned about scoring well than really teaching what was need for students. Let me explain. Suppose you had a class of students with 1 student that was brilliant, one that was so so, and one that was below average. When I went to school, a schoool would tailor curiculum so that the gifted student would be challenged, the average student would be challenged without being overwelmed, and the below average scoring child would be put into a special program for additional help. Three different types of students, three tracks and three paces. Well, with this "no child left behind", schools started to be more interested in scoring well. So often this means spending all the majority of your resources bringing the below average kid up to par with the average and gifted student, and often the average and gifted student were left as is with nothing else challenging to do. It's not the teacher's fault per se, but how the system sort of starts to work. Ironically is why even Carmel Valley school district, which arguably is supposedly the top public schools here in SD, some of my friends and colleagues have actually pulled their kids out of public schools and put them in private schools anyway...Because simply some of these kids are indeed gifted and weren't really being challenged to do anything more.

3)Why do some asians like CV so much? Oh, hell i don't know. Because I guess it's the most affordable area to access the best public schools, irrespective if we end up using them... LJ and RSF are too expensive and frankly too inconvenient for most of us worker bees that do have this thing called "a job".

Anyway, Realtors take note. Brush up on your Mandarin. Because the only thing preventing a Chinese business families (type 2) from emigrating to the U.S. (like what happened with Taiwanese folks in the 90ies) are the visa restrictions the state government imposes on China. If that ever changes, start your house selling engines.

Actually, if rent prices for the apartment are also high, then the apartments aren't an issue.

Case in point, Torrey Hills Elementary houses students from 2.5 detached communities and 1 apartment complexes. Namely: Sausalito, Shores, apartments right below the Shores.

can't say it better than FLU, here's a real life example.

wife's cousin (Taiwanese) moving down to SD from LA. First question: where's the best schools?

our answer: Carlsbad, Poway, and Carmel Valley are all very good.

question: no, which one is the BEST school district with the BEST reputation.

our answer: well, Poway and Carmel Valley are really close, basically neck to neck.

question: but which one is better????

our answer: well, reputation wise Carmel Valley is better.

result: limited their search of homes to only Carmel Valley and got one for $1.5 million.

any other questions, guys?

btw, wife mentions aforementioned cousin to a Korean friend who had to settle and buy near Westview High in 92129.

this is followed by a priceless look of absolute disdain followed quickly by the comment: "you guys aren't going to be moving to Carmel Valley too? Are you?"

after Korean friend was reassured of our intent to stay within Poway schools, smile and normalcy resume...

Interesting insights, FLU.
Just curious...since you are posting at 4:06 a.m., are you staying up late or getting up early?

Rich, I as a former military wife have seen many school districts, most in good neighborhoods are fine for the average child. But I have one child who due to a tongue tie is far behind his peers and has an IEP (indiv. educ. plan). This is where districts really matter. Poway unified in my opinion has the best special services I have seen. Best resource teachers, most experience, best evaluation of skills, these things matter a great deal when you are fighting to get you kid help and struggling to get him up to his peer level. I have known many teachers in the 10 years my kids have been in school (four different counties in three states) and PUSD stands out. I just returned from back to school night, and as one teacher said it, she reached the Holy Grail by finally getting into PUSD. She had taught in Logan Heights, North park, all over San Diego, and finally ended up at PUSD. Most of the teachers my kids have had have many years of experience, and while that is not always the best judge of success, it is a reassurance that they know what they are doing. School is barely three weeks old and I have already met with his resource teacher and made decisions on his education plan. Most of the time for the average child, a good neighborhood school is fine, but in certain cases better districts can be the breaker between a child who falls through the cracks and a child who catches up to the rest of his peers.

On some days (like yesterday), I get 2 hrs of sleep. Combination of a day job, a side gig for myself, a side gig for my wife, and waiting folks on the other side of the world to respond, taking care of a kid that has a propensity to get up in the middle of the night, and fixing a deadbolt lock that somehow my inlaws managed to break. (I did get one of those cool digital keyless deadbolts, though it was a pain in the ass to install after I stripped one of the bolts.)

Also, I also fubbed fixing my car last night went a piece of plastic fell down the oil dipstick hole, and is somewhere inside my oil pan. Great....

I've never understood the school district fixation myself.

When we picked a neighborhood in which to raise our kids, we picked an area where the neighbors were much like us in their attitudes and their income level. We didn't want our kids to feel like the poor kids (by buying in at the top of what we could afford) nor the rich kids (by buying too far below what we could afford). We wanted them to feel like they fit right in.

That has worked very well, as they are both happy, well adjusted and ready to enter adulthood with a very good set of morals and self images. Parents and home life are far, far more important to a child's well being than school district.

But schools do play some role, so I quietly smile when people pay hundreds of thousands of dollars extra to buy a home simply because of a school district. Who am I to judge?

Apologies for going somewhat OT.
Everyone here pretty much agrees with the concept that a wealthier family can "buy" their way into a good education for their kids by paying up for a better neighborhood. This has implications for the push for vouchers by different constituencies.
It is no accident that black parents are the biggest advocates for vouchers. Their kids are trapped in the worst schools with, generally speaking, the weakest teachers (all protected in their incompetence by their unions), and unable to escape by buying into better neighborhoods or turning to private schools. Their natural allies in this politically conservative stand ought to be Republicans and conservatives. Yet the latter are content with the present system because their kids go to the best of the public schools. So, by accident or design, the teachers' unions have slowed the growth of vouchers (though vouchers and non-unionized charter schools are still spreading slowly but surely).

Do not worry about any piece of plastic small enough to fall inside the dipstick hole. There is a screen at the oil intake, and if the piece of plastic is small enough to get past the screen, it will be trapped in the oil filter, and if too large to get past the screen, it will just hang out there.

Thank you for your pull-no-punches treatise on the Asian invasion of Carmel Valley. I even saved it in my archives. I am working very hard to figure out whether CV is a long term bet for me and my children, and at the same time wondering whether, if it is a good place to live for the long term, when and if the real estate values will ever get pounded. I can easily see a Chinese invasion propping up the values indefinitely, a la Cupertino, which has few redeeming values besides the domino effect you describe.

Anyone heard McCain's speech yesterday? The part about his plan for fixing education. He said he'll give parents choices between private, public, and charter schools. If he gets elected and does follow through with this promise, how would this change the "premium" people put in an area due to schools? If you can send your kids to private schools or schools in CV/Poway/etc. w/out having to live in the area, wouldn't that eliminate the school "premium"?

The school district is not just about the schools. It also reflects the population in the neighborhood. Simply put, there is a correlation between the API and the income. It is very useful to get a general idea of the areas if you are new.

When you choose a school district, you are not really choose the teachers but rather the peer students.

As for test scores, if everyone is gaming for the scores, then it is a fair game. What is tested is not that important. If every student is required to be tested on Greek or Latin, the grade is still a good metrics to measure the effectiveness of the teachers and the learning behavior of the students.

I did not watch. But I don't think his offering free choice of public schools. I guess what he means is voucher for charter or private schools if your kid does not go to public school.