Santa Ana’s poor schools result in low family friendly big city rating

Santa Ana did not fare very well in a new study of the most family friendly big cities in California by the Estately Blog.

The report mentioned a few upsides: 5th lowest crime, 7th shortest commute, 9th most affordable housing market, 4th biggest children’s population.

But the downsides are significant: 5th lowest number of preschools, 4th lowest number of daycares, 5th highest cost of living.  And check out the low GreatSchools Score: 5 out of 10.

The good news regarding our awful public schools is that there are quite a few decent candidates running for the SAUSD School Board in this November’s General Election.  Our advice is to not vote for the incumbent, John Palacio.  We need new blood on the SAUSD School Board!

The study ranks California’s 20 most populated cities based on the following criteria: the size of the youth population, the mean work commute, the number of preschools per capita, the quality of public education, crime per capita, the number of libraries per capita, the number of public parks per capita, housing affordability, daycare per capita and the cost of living.

Irvine came in at number 9, with a perfect GreatSchools score.  Anaheim ranked even lower than Santa Ana, at number 19, with the same GreatSchools score and downsides including: 3rd most expensive housing market, 4th most expensive cost of living, 20th for parks, 14th for daycares.

Estately is a national real estate search site whose articles have been covered by The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, LA Weekly, CNET, NBC News, The Oregonian, The San Francisco Chronicle, and more.