"BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — Daniel Kahn has never lived in this city, but he has attended its legendary public schools since the fourth grade. Now in eighth grade, he is vice president of the student council, plays in two school bands and is an A student who has been preparing to tread in his sister’s footsteps at Beverly Hills High School"
But Daniel will almost certainly be looking for a new place to hang his backpack next fall. The school board here intends to do away with hundreds of slots reserved for nonresident children, most of whom live in nearby neighborhoods of Los Angeles where the homes are nice but the city’s public school system is deeply distressed.
The students used to be a financial boon for Beverly Hills, bringing millions of dollars in state aid with them. But California’s budget crisis is changing the way schools are financed in many wealthy cities, suddenly turning the out-of-towners into money losers.
The result has been raucous school board sessions,Facebook pages devoted to each side of the debate, severed friendships and an unflattering snapshot of the social dynamic between Beverly Hills — an incorporated city of “much-haves” that needs no introduction — and the often faceless Los Angeles neighborhoods of simply “haves” that surround it.
“Membership has its privileges,” said Lisa Korbatov, vice president of the Beverly Hills school board. “But anyone can be a member. I made a choice to spend more to live in a home here when I could have spent less on a bigger home in another area. But I made a choice and sacrificed.”
Children like Daniel and his parents say the board’s impending decision — which has so riled the community that the police will be called to watch over next month’s board meeting when a formal vote will be taken — is callous toward the many children who have spent years in