Hear hear, and don't forget Microsoft Silicon Valley is there too, who's founder thru the Gates Foundation is committed to improving education.

Very well put, Voice Editors! Our whole community needs to work together to find creative solutions to keep our schools funded and educate the next generation.

Laura Blakely
President, Mountain View Educational Foundation

Well put. I can imagine that Google private schools will take the money in the future so that the public schools will be left out. I would not like to see this. Schools have been the determining factor of home values staying strong in certain areas during this financial downturn. Mountain View doing all it can to help its schools would not harm anyone neither now nor in the future. Palo Alto schools, Los Altos schools, and Sunnyvale's Cherry Chase school all surround Mountain Views East of El Camino Schools which pale in comparison. With Mountain Views founding purpose to be to include everyone, it would be nice to see that we give the resources to those who need it most, not necessarily want it most.

This is an interesting development. Sometime in 2008, as I was reading through the city budget appendices, I came across the tax history for Shoreline on pg. 4-18
"Audited 2006-07 $2,147,316,364 $33,888,148 $2,113,428,216"
--------------total assessed -----frozen base -------Tax increment value

The frozen base is stuck at 1969 values. This is what the schools are guaranteed to access. The other $2 billion plus is forever Shoreline's! When I raised this issue as a question in the 2008 council race (see MV Voice Oct 10, 2008 page 1) it was clear no candidate at the time thought it particularly significant [exception may have been Alicia Crank, HR Commission, who was not elected]. In particular "I haven't heard from anyone [from the schools] say they are unhappy about it," said Tom Means. I think he now has!

This will be a community effort to fix over the next 10 years. We should get started now - so that legislative sunset measures will have time to work gradually. "Debate Season is Here" as said the headline in 2008.

Duggans comment about playing fields is disingenuous. The city gets use of the school sites during non-school hours as parks and playing fields in exchange for paying for the maintenance. The city knows they have a weak hand here and are grasping at straws.

Kong's comment is equally silly. Yes, the Shoreline funds were needed to develop the area, but it is now a mature business park. Who is that development supposed to benefit for the long term- the geese?

Bravo, Craig Goldman and the Voice for their attention to this critical issue!

"However, one can't ignore the fact that local schools are themselves an important part of the future success of companies like Google, especially if the company is serious, as it claims, about moving more of its employees close to the Googleplex. Many of those high-tech workers are young today, but soon they will be starting families — and looking around for the best schools for their children."
--
Google got Slater Elementary and shut it down to the residents so they can have their own school. That was the solution to that problem. Perhaps they will build a Google only school at Shoreline.

The national average spending per pupil adjusted for cost of living is about $10K. The cost of living in Mountain View is 164% of the national average, so schools here are funded at 55% of the national average.