[quote=AN]
Please look at the above data to disprove your statement of “Schools in white areas are underpopulated. There aren’t enough neighborhood children to fill them.” Students are being bussed to MMHS, yet, MMHS itself is overcrowded. It has always been overcrowded, that’s why Scripps Ranch was created, to reduce the overcrowding. If other areas down south are even more overcrowded, why waste money and time busing students instead of just build more or bigger school in areas where they live? Unless you want to propose a voucher system, which I would totally support.[/quote]
They did pour a lot of money into renovating Lincoln HS and increasing its capacity by some 2000 students (SESD/Encanto). But busing is cheaper than building new schools, especially when existing schools would be left underutilized. Scripps Ranch (the area east of Black Mountain and north of Lake Miramar) was the last area in San Diego Unified that experienced any major homebuilding since 1990. The rest was built out long time ago. Any changes in overcrowding since then are due to demographic shifts (and lately due to NCLB).
Take UCHS, for example. University City is an older, established neighborhood. Median age is in the 40’s. Furthermore, it’s mostly whites and asians and neither like to have kids. New kids are mostly made south of the 8. So it was the right size for the neighborhood back in the 80’s when it was built, but now it’s just too big. The same thing happens with Henry High in San Carlos. On the other hand, City Heights, Kensington, etc. used to be populated by whites 20-30 years ago, and now those areas are home to Hispanic and African immigrants, often with 3+ kids per household. The remaining whites choice their kids over to Henry High. The district evens things out further by busing around some minority kids.
As a result of reshuffling. UCHS is, as you say, 37% white, 34% hispanic. Without busing it would be more like Doyle Elementary (40% white, 31% asian, 20% hispanic) or Curie Elementary (60% white, 16% asian, 15% hispanic).
Its accountability card states quite straightforwardly that around 34% of its students come from outside its local boundaries. Some of these choice over from Clairemont High (which sucks quite a bit more than UCHS) but many are bused from inner city. In Clairemont High the percentage is 36%. There’s no data for Point Loma and La Jolla, but I’d expect similar bussing rates.
