alt Hacker NewsCalifornia used to have the best schools in the country, and roughly a third of our urban population is Silicon Valley. It's home to the largest economy in the US by a large margin, and is one of the richest states.
Yet, somehow, for math:
https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/profiles/stateprofile?sfj=...
the only states/territories doing worse at math are DC, Puerto Rico, New Mexico, and Alabama.
I'm not sure what Alabama's excuse is, but the other three entries on that list have obvious economic problems (only low income urban, failed power grid, literally blowing away due to climate change).
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California had below average (for US states) school funding per student until recently: https://edsource.org/2026/california-education-funding-rise/...
At times, it was ranked second-worst.
I would argue that with California's high cost of living, "average" funding in California is still low relatively speaking.
Silicon Valley is also the place of serious homeless problem. "The economy" as an abstractions is not what matters - the economy here is some people being super rich while others increasingly outside of good options.
Because most of California isn't Silicon Valley.
The good parts of the Bay Area (which also align to where the majority of the tech industry is) have public schools that haven't changed their curricula despite common core.
On the other hand, the rest of California has had significant financial and budget crises and never recovered from the 2008-13 California budget crisis.
Note that with that link you're looking at data that is over a decade old. Alabama is actually doing better than California in the most recent grade 4 math profile. https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/profiles/stateprofile?sfj=...