-- Jean Covington, a San Francisco resident who works as a public defender in Contra Costa County, said she noticed a “pilgrimage” of her friends out of the city when children reached school age. When she decided to stick it out, she was confronted with what she described as a bewildering public school selection system governed by an algorithm that determines where children in the city are placed — sometimes miles from home.
When her daughter turned 5, Ms. Covington applied to 14 public kindergartens, but her child ended up being placed in another. She chose a private school instead, along with the strain on the family budget that it entailed. --
In my personal case, we owned a house, but moved out of the city specifically because of the school system placement process.