A google search surprisingly doesn't give me a definitive list! I googled "best school districts in southern california" and I get lots of threads and blogs but no definitive list from a reputable source. Does one not exist? Thanks!
I think talking to people who live in the area where you are considering is the best way to go.
greatschools.net
word of mouth.
This was a great help to us when we considered our move
Good Luck
I agree with going to greatschools.org
My father wanted my sisters and i in a good school district. He researched when we were tiny. I fell in love with this town and the schools and put my kids in them also.
I was happy to check the website and see that our elementary school was a 9 out of 10. Middle and High 8 out of 10. Out of curiosity, i checked the town over and they have 2 and 3 rating. Eeeeep :( It makes me glad that i am house poor, while giving me kids a better school :)
My realtor gave me a "realist report" that had all kinds of information about the schools in the area we were looking at (including the national and state rankings, etc).
I would actually advise AGAINST word of mouth for public schools (I mean, it's good to know if there's a bully problem or a favorite teacher or whatever, what do they DO at that school) but in all the millions of moves we did as a kid, we learned that "good" is very very relative.
When I was in 7th grade (in the 80s) I went to an award winning (ranked top 10% in the nation) school that had all kinds of great things: We were able to take really interesting field trips on a regular basis, we had known, published authors come to speak to us and hold workshops on "young author's day", we had AWESOME food from 5 different lines (hot lunch, salad bar, 2 snack bars that had frito pies, pizza, etc), sandwich bar), we had lots of neat electives to choose from (Latin, Spanish, French, German, Geology, Biology, Drama, Speech/Debate, and a lot of clubs). We had school football, baseball, softball, basketball, volleyball, track teams. Loved it! Then we moved to another state. Everyone said we were "lucky" to move into the BEST public school system in the state (there were a lot of private schools, but we didn't want to be with all girls or all boys, or a specific religion). The "best" public school: there was only football or cheerleading. You had ONE choice of electives: band or choir. There were no "special" classes, just very generic Science, a state history, blaaaaah. The food was atrocious, and just one choice: sadly underfunded cafeteria food. There were no field trips unless you were in a club like 4H or Beta, and that was one for the year. I was "traumatized", lol. But to hear everyone's "word of mouth", it was awesome compared to the others. So look at a realist report that your realtor should be able to provide, and see what is really going on with a state and national average, because when it's time to go to University, they'll be competing with students from all over the nation.
That's just my opinion....
greatschools.net and savvysource.com are really good resources. If you want to stay in Southern California, I'd recommend going out to Calabasas or down to Irvine if you're looking for really good schools. Irvine has many of the top schools in the state at every level and it's a great place to live. We left LA and came to Irvine when my son was two partly because we wanted better schools.
Aside from greatschools.org, here is my word of mouth response.
great school districts in the los angeles/orange county area are in no particular order: La canada, Palos Verdes, torrance, manhattan beach, hermosa beach, Cerritos, Irvine,santa monica. Los Angeles Unified has good schools but they are here and there. They usually have decent elementary schools (again check great schools), middle and high school you need to go to a magnet.
