Our Schools Are Well Funded. Our Community Still Has Work to Do.

A new report from Joint Venture Silicon Valley confirms something many of us already know: our public schools are among the best funded in California. At nearly $29,000 per student, Silicon Valley districts outpace both the state and national averages. Los Altos is one of just seven districts recognized for combining high per-pupil funding with low student poverty rates.

That’s something worth celebrating. Our communities have invested in public education for decades, and that commitment shows.

But reading the report left me with a different question: If our schools are doing so well, why do so many important community needs still fall through the cracks?

Part of the answer is that school funding, even generous school funding, was never intended to solve every challenge a community faces.

Anyone who has ever bid at a school auction or staffed a PTA booth knows that families across Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, and Mountain View show up for one another in remarkable ways. Year after year, that generosity quietly fills gaps that school budgets can’t always reach: field trips, classroom supplies, art programs, library books, and a little extra for the teacher who has already spent too much out of their own pocket.

That generosity is one of the things that makes this community special.

But there are some challenges that neither district budgets nor even the most successful PTA auction can solve.

School funding wasn’t built to keep a favorite teacher in the classroom when their rent doubles and Sacramento starts to look affordable. Nor can it solve the quiet math problem facing nearly every district in our region: we’re asking people to do some of the most important work in our communities while the housing market increasingly prices them out of living here.

That’s not a failure of our schools. It’s a community challenge.

And community challenges require community solutions.

That’s one reason the Los Altos Mountain View Community Foundation created the Mountain View Housing Partnership Fund, helping expand pathways to housing stability for the people who keep our communities running.

I’ve spent my career working in nonprofits, and one lesson has stayed remarkably consistent: the most important community challenges don’t fit neatly within a single institution’s mission. Schools educate our children. Cities provide essential public services. Nonprofits address needs that government institutions can’t meet on their own. Community foundations connect generous people with practical, local solutions that might otherwise never happen.

Community foundations exist because the numbers never tell the whole story. Strong averages can coexist with very real challenges. Behind every encouraging statistic are teachers searching for affordable housing, students working toward college, nonprofits stretching limited resources, and neighbors quietly helping neighbors.

The Joint Venture report tells an encouraging story about our schools. It should. They deserve to be celebrated.

But it also reminds us of something equally important: no public institution can meet every need a community has. Some challenges simply don’t fit within a school budget or a city budget.

Fortunately, our communities have never relied on budgets alone. They’ve always relied on neighbors who care enough to step in, lend a hand, and invest in one another. That’s where local philanthropy does its best work, not replacing public institutions, but strengthening the community around them.