In a remarkably candid assessment, SFUSD chiefs painted a grim picture of where things stand — chronic absenteeism, missed academic targets, and textbooks so old they probably still reference MySpace. The district, by its own admission, remains "far from its stated goals." Which raises an obvious question: what exactly have we been spending all this money on?

San Francisco spends north of $16,000 per student annually — well above the national average — and the results are, to put it charitably, not commensurate. Test scores lag. Kids don't show up. And the bureaucratic apparatus that's supposed to be fixing all of this seems more interested in self-preservation than student outcomes.

Meanwhile, the school board candidates lining up for seats are being asked the question that's haunted this district for years: will you vote to merge or close schools by 2030? It's a question that shouldn't be controversial. SFUSD has been losing enrollment for over a decade. The city has fewer school-age kids, and families keep leaving. Running half-empty buildings isn't compassionate — it's wasteful. Every dollar spent heating an underutilized campus is a dollar not spent on a teacher, a tutor, or — revolutionary idea — a textbook published in this decade.

As one SF resident put it, discussing the broader cost-of-living crisis choking city institutions: "The cost of living in SF continues to skyrocket. Nothing involving manual labor can function sustainably under these conditions and things are starting to crack under the pressure."

That pressure is real, and schools aren't immune. But cost-of-living isn't the whole story. SFUSD's problems are also structural and cultural — a district that spent years prioritizing ideological battles over literacy rates, that resisted accountability at every turn, and that treated consolidation like a four-letter word while enrollment cratered.

Here's the uncomfortable fiscal reality: you can't run a district built for 60,000 students when you're serving closer to 49,000. Consolidation isn't cruelty. It's math. And until the board treats it that way — instead of as a political landmine to be endlessly deferred — expect more candid admissions that nothing is working, followed by precisely zero structural changes.

SF kids deserve better than a district that's honest about its failures but allergic to fixing them.