Having heard horror stories about San Fran’s public schools, I’ve been surprised how many nice schools I’ve seen during this fall’s school tour process. Seems like I’m not alone in being pleasantly shocked, if a post last week from SF Gate blog The Mommy Files is to be believed. In “Let’s Face It: S.F. Has Good Public Schools” writer Amy Graff teases out several pertinent nuggets proving her case, such as:
- After nearly 40 years of declining enrollment, the San Francisco Unified School District’s applications went up by 308 in 2008, with 500 more in 2009.
- Enrollment is up so much that a closed school, De Avila on Haight Street, will be open next year.
- Earlier in 2009, “San Francisco schools posted the highest test scores (API) among urban districts in the state, far surpassing even the state average in both math and English.”
- The number of San Francisco public school students taking Advanced Placement tests has increased every year since 2000 and in 2009 increased 20 percent.
Of course, enrollment is still way down compared to a decade or two ago: enrollment in 2009 is about 55,000 students, a decrease from 62,000 in 1995. But after declining for four decades, a blip upwards is very interesting, indeed.
My theory? Housing is so expensive everywhere that parents figure they might as well stay renting in the city instead of splitting for the suburbs. It’s the influx of these parents (PTA membership is also way up in the city!) that are changing the schools, fast.

