Here in SF proper, private schools (independent, not parochial), do indeed run around $30K/year. (Parochials are less expensive.)
That's for K-8; HS costs even more. (Random example: Urban, which runs $42K/yr for soph-sr.
http://www.urbanschool.org/page.cfm?p=170)
Interesting. I found a lot of secular schools well under those price points? The German and French schools are around $22K for middle school and $29K for high school, for example. Stratford was 22K for K-8 (maybe less at the lower grade levels).
SF schools are definitely more than the schools down south (geography presumably playing a role), but most of the ones I found weren't at the East Coast price points.
I also learned that public schools in San Francisco still place students in schools that may not be close to their homes. I feel for anyone trying to navigate schools up there.
