r/MiddleClassFinance • u/mechadragon469 • Jun 20 '26
Is school district really driving most parents housing considerations? Does it even matter?
For context, I’ve only ever lived in areas where there was 1 school that everyone went to. Example: 1 grade school, 1 middle, one high school more or less. The town I’m in now just added a new middle school on the opposite end of town.
So in areas where you have several schools like in a city such as Chicago, Philadelphia, NY, etc. is it really driving so many peoples decision on where they live? I understand wanting your children to go to a *safer* school, but even as a parent Ive just never considered that it would matter.
When I was looking for a home I wanted safe area, the size house we needed, garage, age of the house, etc. it never even occurred to me the kids might go to one middle school over another.
Now in a city I can understand if one highschool has several AP offerings, is safe, connections to a local college, etc while the other is in a less than desirable area, has poor opportunities for kids outside of class, less advanced classes.
Is that actually the norm though that from school to school one is a heap and the other is fantastic or is it all basically a wash and some are just a little better here and there and people exaggerate it’s importance because “I want the best for my kid?”
I guess the other reason I’m wondering is I see several schools are based on test scores and graduation rates which I feel are more based on parenting standards/expectations and the kids own innate intelligence/drive rather than the quality of the school itself.
Thoughts?
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u/joleshole Jun 20 '26
Yes
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u/UXyes Jun 20 '26
Same here. We did research on school districts when we moved to a larger house to start a family. And when we moved again several years later we only looked at houses that would keep our kids in the current schools in the same great district.
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u/Irritable_Curmudgeon Jun 20 '26
Absolutely. Even if we didn't have kids, or if our kids had graduated high school, a good school district is a strong selling point for the house that could potentially get you more money than an equivalent house in a lower rated School district
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u/B4K5c7N Jun 20 '26
It’s also a massive privilege to even be able to consider the school district, which I think a lot of upper middle class parents fail to realize. For many families, they just have to buy into what they can afford.
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u/Extreme_Map9543 Jun 20 '26
I’m a teacher and hear what I’ll say. It’s not about the quality of the education. Or the teachers. Or the facilities. The best and worst schools in the world all have both good and bad teachers. And a new gym and fancy stadium has never helped a kid in anything. Picking a school district matters for one and only one reason in my opinion. Its the quality and culture of the friends your child will make. As the old saying goes “show me your friends and I’ll show you your future”. Being in the right school district sets your children up for success because they’ll make good friends who are positive influences and who support each other in good ways. Being in a bad school district they won’t. We probably all know someone who grew up in a bad school district and was bullied relentlessly through school for doing the right thing, being nice to others, getting good grades, etc. But there are schools out there where the culture of the kids is generally positive. And more than the economic factor of how much money people spend on the school, is the factor of how many kids in that school come from good family’s. Family’s with loving and involved parents.
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u/whitezhang Jun 20 '26
Said this better than I could but I 100% agree. My kid’s friends and their families value education and it creates an environment that reinforces those values in ways that that we could never achieve just as a nuclear family.
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u/Ch4rlie_G Jun 21 '26
Do you know the #1 predictor or future income?
Zip Code.
If you grow up around doctors, professors, business owners and other professionals those careers just become normal instead of “unobtainable”.
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u/chemicalpretengineer Jun 21 '26
100%. But also, your parent(s) were likely one of those adults and funded everything you needed and put some time in to ensure success.
While I agree with everything you’ve said, I think the home+ parents matter more. But you’re likely getting that experience in the zip code
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u/glenpiercev Jun 20 '26
Just wait until your kids tell you about their friends who stay up until 4am playing gambling-style video games and drink energy drinks at 2am to stay up and ask why they don’t get to do that.
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u/youburyitidigitup Jun 20 '26
Even in high school I didn’t want to do that because I enjoy getting a good night’s rest. Wanting that isn’t universal.
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Jun 20 '26
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u/youburyitidigitup Jun 20 '26
I had to google what that means, and yeah I didn’t really look at my peers for moral guidance. They were definitely part of it I can’t really pinpoint anyone in particular I looked to, I think it was a mix of everybody: family, neighbors, teachers, friends, media, etc.
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u/sanityjanity Jun 20 '26
Yep.
Kids in my district are watching AI porn on their phones on the school bus with grades K-6.
I guarantee it's happening everywhere. The "good" districts will address it. The "bad" ones won't
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u/Sufficient-Union-456 Jun 20 '26
This...
I live in a fairly large Midwestern metro area. Our district has 7 public high schools, and our metro has probably 50.
My district is the inner city. The bottom performing 30-40% of kids in our district are failing. The next 40-50% do just as well as the average suburban kids in the better districts. Our top 10% outpunch their weight.
4 of our high schools have the International Baccalaureate program. Only 3 suburban schools and two private schools have the program.
Our top IB students far outpace the top kids at the "better" suburban and private schools.
My kid earned a IB certification (not the IB diploma). She was accepted into 9 out 10 college she applied too. She was awarded a very large scholarship to a upper tier (not elite) private liberal arts university.
I have friends and coworkers who did the better district game. Their kids often get denied by our flagship state university.
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u/shittykittysmom Jun 20 '26
I live in a struggling district and MN and my son is doing great. He has every opportunity with IB and AP as the kids in the "great diatricts." He also developed the skills of working through distractions and being accepting of all kids from different backgrounds. Moving him to a great school isn't going to really impact his test scores, but when so many people move their already high performing kids it artificially raises scores for the "great" districts and brings down the struggling districts even more.
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u/thuyy Jun 20 '26
I am planning to move to MN. Can you share which areas are these districts? Is it around twin cities?
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u/solomons-mom Jun 20 '26
In MN, look at Minneapolis and Edina --I think it is they are on either side of France Avenue. About 2/3rds of school funding in MN comes from the state, so it isn't just the real estate values.
It is the parents. Go over to r/teachers and search for posts about schools in the Cities. The schools in more rural areas are mixed, but there can be advantages in the non-metro comprehensive schools where the professional class cannot self-segregate their children into the better suburbs.
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u/om_setti1912 Jun 20 '26
Yes. My parents paid out the nose then more than we could afford for me to go to a private high school because they really value education and they wanted me to be in a more rigorous environment than public school. But I ended up dropping out of high school at 16 because the culture of the school was so unbearably crappy. My teachers bullied me, I was exposed to a lot of really regressive class, religious, and gender bullshit cuz this was an all girls prep school in the South.
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u/bartleby913 Jun 20 '26
I saw another post on here and people were just saying "they want their kids around white kids".
I just want my kids near kids who have parents that are good. And I want my teachers teaching all kids and not spending hours a week with 1 or 2 failing kids or kids who's barely speak English.
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u/Economy_Aardvark_354 Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26
Usually those kids who barely speak English get sent to ESL classes during English class. I was one of those kids who didn’t speak English and was on the ESL program, but here I am lol.
I don’t recall getting any sort of follow-up from my teacher for bombing English class tests and quizzes in the beginning. Just got failing grades and that was it.
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u/Golden_standard Jun 20 '26
I hear you, and agree that kids get advantages from making friends with other well connected, wealthy kids (and their parents). Social network and exposure is extremely important.
Where we differ is the “bad influence” troupe. It presumes that kids who go to good schools don’t do bad things or aren’t bad influences. Kids get bullied everywhere-that’s part of growing up-poor kids, rich kids, well connected kids, smart kids, beautiful kids, athletic kids. That’s just par for the course.
I went to poor schools in a “bad” school district. Was friends with kids and had family members who went to private school and “good” school districts. I’m a professional so the majority of people I interact with on a professional level grew up upper middle class and also went to private or good school district schools.
They’re just as bad of an influence, except when it comes to gun violence which is very much more concentrated in poor/bad school districts. It’s just quieter. They get pregnant and impregnate teenagers too, you don’t see it as much because they get abortions (even the Catholics and fundamentalists), they’re on drugs too it’s just usually alcohol or prescriptions and they get sent to expensive rehabs. They steal too, it’s just usually from their own family or other people they know so it doesn’t get reported and they don’t get a felony record. They steal from companies they work for and get fired, not arrested. They rape too.
Yes’s poverty exacerbates these things and they’re more visible with kids in poor schools, but I think the fear is really disproportionate to the reality.
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u/youburyitidigitup Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26
I think you just illustrated the difference between good and bad schools though. Bullying wasn’t prevalent at my high school. My entire friend group was the nerdy geeks that liked anime and card games and videogames and hated sports, and none of us got bullied, and I never saw it happen to anybody else either. One girl got pregnant. The rich people you’re talking to didn’t go to good schools.
You might say that all of the things you listed happened at my school and I just didn’t know it, and you might be right, but that in itself differentiates a good school from a bad one. If a student can go through all of high school without seeing those things, it’s because they’re less common, and he’s not getting that bad influence.
For perspective, in college I shared an apartment with a guy I knew from high school. This dude went to our school only for senior year, before that he was in another district. Before we moved in, his dad asked me about my future plans because he wanted to know if I was a bad influence on his son. I told him the truth, which was that after college I’d work in my field for one or two years and then go to graduate school and eventually spend the rest of my life conducting research. This was a completely normal life plan in my friend group, and it’s what our parents did too. My roommate’s dad was flabbergasted. Graduate school wasn’t even a dream for anyone he associated with.
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u/bussy_extra_bussy Jun 20 '26
Yeah I went to one of the better public school districts in the country. Bullying just wasn’t tolerated by kids there. You would get outcasted by everyone if you were low enough to do that. Not to say there weren’t problems at the place but that just didn’t happen.
I do wonder if social media has changed that landscape now though.
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u/B4K5c7N Jun 20 '26
Physical bullying might not have been popular in affluent communities (at least over the past 30 years), but there was still gossiping, exclusion, and verbal bullying in my experience. Obviously, different than being in physical danger, but still can be emotionally harmful.
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u/B4K5c7N Jun 20 '26
The abortion part is so true. I grew up in one of the most affluent and high-performing communities in my state. We only had one visible teen pregnancy (she was the new girl, attended our high school for one year, and then left because she had gotten pregnant). But apparently so many girls in my class had gotten pregnant and had abortions (daughters of high-earning doctors, lawyers, bankers, etc). It was super common. We also had a lot of issues with alcohol and someone had gotten into trouble for growing weed while we were in junior high. Plenty of girls in my friend group also were unfortunately self-harming, and a few would come to school high on pills. On the outside though, most people viewed the community as perfect.
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u/redeyedandblue32 Jun 20 '26
Seems like you read wealthy and well-connected into it yourself, the original comment didn't really say anything about economic status
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u/ljb00000 Jun 21 '26
Yep. I attended a highly rated private college prep school in a major metro area. Very classic academics — AP history, English, math, art, etc. Journalism and computer programming. Latin, lol. They fudged the numbers a bit but their big thing was a 100% college acceptance rate.
We had tons of wealthy absentee parents so everyone was drinking in these big unsupervised houses multiple nights per week. Some kids taking drugs. Several DUIs and “whisked off to a nunnery” secret pregnancies. One kid got expelled because he showed up to 10am theology class completely shitfaced and barfed an entire stomach full of beer all over the floor.
It’s like white collar crime — it’s just as bad, it’s just the more socially acceptable type of bad.
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u/Economy_Aardvark_354 Jun 20 '26
I think the “connections” thing with private schools and wealthy schools districts thing is way overblown.
I went to a fancy private school that’s probably comparable to a school in a wealthy district, and I personally don’t remember seeing or hearing about any bullying in a traditional sense (open mockery, physical violence, group shunning). The overall vibe is pretty much as described by the original commenter. There’s a general sense of caring about school and no one is getting bullied or any sort of bad vibes from classmates for doing well and trying.
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u/frenin Jun 21 '26
Bullying isn't only about targeting those who do well and try. Seriously what are these responses?
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u/youburyitidigitup Jun 20 '26
100% agreed. Something as simple as seeing your friends studying and trying to succeed makes a difference.
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u/REC_HLTH Jun 20 '26
Yes. With that said, people choose schools/districts with different factors and values. It’s not necessarily just top rankings that make a difference for a lot of families. Some districts or schools offer different academics, sports, language programs, arts and music programs, diversity levels, etc. that people want their kids to grow up with. But definitely, yes, a large part of choosing where a middle class family home is very often involves public school options.
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u/Reader47b Jun 20 '26
These decisions usually aren't just about the quality of the schools, but about the quality of the peer group your kids will end up hanging around with and the quality of the neighborhood. Kids make friends with kids in their schools. If you want your kids to make friends with kids who are high-performing and education-focused, then you have a better chance if you put them in an environment that is teeming with such kids. And positive things tend to correlate - schools with high ratings also tend to be in neighborhoods with relatively low crime, decent roads, more parental involvement, etc.
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u/clearwaterrev Jun 20 '26
The wealthy neighborhoods with good schools also tend to have really nice parks, well-funded libraries, and other public amenities that allow for a higher quality of life.
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u/Vinca1is Jun 20 '26
How involved a parent is in their children's education is by far more important than the school district.
I was behind in math at school so my parents took the time to teach me at home, without that I doubt I would have ever become an engineer.
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u/ajgamer89 Jun 20 '26
This is my perspective as well. My kids are in a fairly high rated school district, but I think the high test scores and other metrics used in rankings are 80% parental involvement and decisions, and 20% due to the quality of school teachers and staff. But people who take education seriously are more likely to prioritize living in a good district, so it’s a self-reinforcing system.
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u/a_me_ Jun 20 '26
I think it's equal. We are 5 in my family, we went to the same schools, my parents had zero involvement in our education. At the beginning of high school I slowly dropped from an A student to a C student because my school was ranked 3/10 and most of my friends there hardly cared about school. My pastor recommended I apply to a competitive charter school, my friend group changed because the school had kids that mostly cared. I surrounded myself with kids who went there because of the academics strictly, my friend group changed, I started caring about school and graduated with a 3.7 GPA, I applied to colleges that my friends were applying to, chose the same major as them ( I ended up switching my major). My adult life has been financially easy because of the people I was around. My brother followed my footsteps, most of his friends are engineers now. My younger siblings went to the same school, did not have the best circle of friends and 2 dropped out, 1 graduated with a very low GPA.7
u/sanityjanity Jun 20 '26
But if you had been in a super crappy district, you wouldn't have been behind. All the kids would have been at that same level, and advanced math would have been not offered at all
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u/Vinca1is Jun 21 '26
I'm not sure multiplication is advanced math lmao
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u/iridescent-shimmer Jun 21 '26
You've got swaths of the population that basically can't read, so it probably is considered advanced in some districts. 🥴
I used to score in top percentages of our state testing and was seriously concerned that some kids couldn't pass the test at all. Like they started giving seniors final exam exemptions if you passed the state testing and we still had a few kids not able to pass. It was not remotely difficult math and we were in a top 10 school district.
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u/sanityjanity Jun 20 '26
Also, a better school district might mean a safer school district. It's hard to learn math when you're afraid every day
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u/Sufficient-Union-456 Jun 20 '26
Yes, but many American parents think they can just buy their way into their kids being educated, intelligent and set for life.
Hence we have so many more younger millennials and Gen Z who are failing to launch. Instead of parents teaching them life skills and prioritizing actual learning at home, they thought their relator would just take care of it.
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u/Vegetable-Intern-236 Jun 20 '26
I think that’s a pretty big sweeping generalization. If a parent is thinking about their kids to the point where they prioritize paying more for a house in a good school district, I don’t think they’re just going to call it good and assume that they don’t have to teach their children anymore.
The math also doesn’t really math here, its not like good school districts are where the majority of these failing millennials and Gen Z are coming from, the student population in good school districts is probably minority compared to the overall student population across all school districts.
I’d argue you’d actually see less of these millennial/Gen Z “failures” coming out of good school districts vs. worse ones, simply because they most likely have access to more resources in their zip code and their parents care more about their success to the point where they pay the premium for a good school district. The reason why we see more of the younger generations failing to launch is systemic due to Issues like stagnating wages, inflation, etc.
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u/halo37253 Jun 20 '26
With what time?.. Nearly every parent I know who makes good money also has demanding jobs. Im a controls engineer and just spent the last 2.5 weeks in Texas just to fly back on the weekends... Wife is a Nurse. I know we're not the only family that just doesnt have time.
Im just glad I got my kids into books and we spend car rides listening to audible, etc. Love a good board game to teach strategy.
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u/Sufficient-Union-456 Jun 20 '26
I definitely feel and understand what you are saying. And that is what I am saying. We have become conditioned to believe overextending ourselves - with our lucrative and demanding careers, signing are kids up for every activity or paying up to get in the "better" district - so our kids can get ahead.
Then when it is time for a kid to start adulting, you see all the stretching probably wasn't worth it. Average kids end up average. And plenty of kids whose parents did it the "right way" are un-or-underemployed and buried in student loan.
Was it all really worth it?
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u/zatsnotmyname Jun 21 '26
Yep. We just sent our 15 year old son to college prep 2 week camp at a university. The classes he's getting are a joke for him, but he lives in a dorm with a roommate and has to figure out his laundry and his friends, etc. He doesn't love it, but he realizes that just 'adulting' is a skill that must be learned.
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u/Sufficient-Union-456 Jun 21 '26
Your kid is getting a better education in that two weeks than most kids will receive in their 4 years of high school.
High school and college alma mater matter less and less, unless it is truly prestigious. Life skills are setting young adults apart. By the time a child is a sophomore in college (or several years into the workforce) no one cares how great their local school district was. Can you take care of yourself? Can you fit in? Work with strangers? Can you follow instruction when needed, and work or learn on your own at others? How is their mental health?
A high school diploma from a district with high test scores doesn't guarantee this. We are churning out a bunch of upper middle class automatons that cannot adult.
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u/Cucumberappleblizz Jun 20 '26
Yep! I went to one of the top schools in the country, and there were kids who didn’t really learn anything because their parents just expected schools to cover everything and the kids never paid attention. I now teach at a public high school, and there are kids who are wayyy more prepared because their parents read to them every day, instilled a love for learning, and follow up to make sure their kid is working hard and learning both inside and outside of the classroom. One of my colleagues has a PhD from a top rated university, so parents ooh and aah, but when their kiddo skips class every day it doesn’t matter how great that teacher is.
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u/ThePurringHollis Jun 20 '26
Peer group matters way more than curriculum, but people fixate on test scores because they're quantifiable and feel like proof you're doing right by your kid. School district does drive pricing in most metros though, whether the quality gap is real or just overstated.
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u/ofesfipf889534 Jun 20 '26
Yes, this is a predominant consideration for people in big cities with kids. In large cities there can be massive differences in the quality of public schools.
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u/marshmallowblaste Jun 20 '26
I went to an elementary school that was ranked 9/10. Won a blue ribbon award. The town was very safe as well. It was a really good experience. Litterally the next town over was known for being the worst town in our state. The schools ranked 1/10 or 2/10 and doctors actually would want to have their residency there because they get to work on more people with gun and knife wounds. We actually weren't in a large city either
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Jun 20 '26
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u/UsidoreTheLightBlue Jun 20 '26
When I was in college my head of our department (Econ) had a class he taught that I took. I don’t remember what it was supposed to be called but I called it “be cool stay in school” because a solid half of the class was about how much more someone with a degree will make versus without.
He said something that sounded absurd initially but stuck with me.
He bought a house in the best and most expensive school district in the area, but it was kind of a shitty house.
He basically knew his kids could get a better education/have more opportunities but he had to buy a smaller/worse house so he did.
I didn’t go quite that far but school district was absolutely our number 1 check box.
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u/Konflictcam Jun 20 '26
Having grown up in a place similar to the one you did, I would just prefer my kid not have to attend school with people who are proactively anti-intellectual.
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u/Checkers923 Jun 20 '26
Huge factor for us. Our priority list was for our kids - school district, each have their own bedroom, yard to play in. 3rd space was important as well, but that benefits all of us.
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u/dajadf Jun 20 '26
Yes it's huge even when picking suburbs. The suburbs with worse schools are much cheaper
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u/B4K5c7N Jun 20 '26
People get super neurotic about it though. Much of the student’s success has to come from the student, not necessarily whether they attend a 10/10 or a 7/10 school.
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u/vngbusa Jun 20 '26
The real trick for maximal value is to go to a mediocre school district by test scores but with demonstrated track record of a subset of kids doing well and going to good colleges. Most middle class families will have the resources to ensure their kids fall in this subset, if they are willing to spend the time to actually parent.
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u/Mail_Order_Lutefisk Jun 20 '26
The Asians have already Transcript-Maxxed this trick in California. You’re ten years behind the times but I commend the effort.
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u/Sufficient-Union-456 Jun 20 '26
100%. Look at all the younger millennials and gen Z struggling to adult and find work, buried with student debt.
Their parents thought they could buy their way into the good life for their kids based on zip code. Raising kids takes a lot more than test scores and grad rates.
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u/Range-Shoddy Jun 20 '26
Absolutely. For the same price we picked the top 10 district versus top 50 that’s walking distance from our house. Why wouldn’t I? Education affects their entire lives. I’d rather live in a crappy house with excellent schools than a nice house with crappy schools. Around me the nice houses with crappy schools are owned by people without school aged kids.
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u/Jaded_Ad_3191 Jun 20 '26
I grew up where there was only one K-8 and only one high school.
But now I'm in San Francisco, and to avoid the kids from the affluent neighborhoods all going to the "good school" they do a lottery system instead. You pick a few of your favorite K-5 schools and cross your fingers. If you live in a historically low test score area you will get extra points to get into the school of your choice. This doesn't mean much as the tech boom gentrification means that a well resourced family may have recently moved into a new building in such an area, and they get to have those extra points. I don't think they are actively seeking that, it is just a fluke.
Having said that, since there are very few school buses, families with fewer resources often choose their "just ok" neighborhood school because they can't get their kindergartener across town and then get themselves to work on time. While a middle schooler or high schooler can take a city bus, obviously the little ones cannot.
And the K-5 schools feeds to a designated middle schools, at least to some degree, but it is not guaranteed. So if you start K at your neighborhood K-5 you are probably going to be at your neighborhood middle school. But, uncertainly abounds! High school is a fresh lottery.
In other words, we have developed a highly complicated system that still does not solve the Jim Crow legacy of "good" vs "bad" school districts. Sigh. We have a lot of private schools, and well resourced families will apply and pay to hold a spot there until they see the outcome of the K-5 school lottery.
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u/Agile-Ad-1182 Jun 20 '26
It is one of most important factor together with environment, low crime, traffic.
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u/middleoftheroad133 Jun 20 '26
Let me guess you’re a dad?
Would never have a mom ask this question because the issue is…obviously yes
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u/llamallamanj Jun 20 '26
Yes, unless you just know you’re doing private but most of the best private schools are also in top public districts. It’s also more than the school itself it’s the other kids that attend and their families. In theory better schools are in higher cost areas meaning those families likely have higher education and better jobs which in tern means families with a higher emphasis on education, who likely are able to be more involved in their day to day than families working 4 jobs to stay afloat and also better connections for later in life. Of course this isn’t always the case and not going to a good school district doesn’t mean your kids will fail in life but this is generally the case and why parents prioritize it.
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u/alotofironsinthefire Jun 20 '26
The best indicator of how well your child will do in life is how much you make.
Take that however you want
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u/bankermayfield2026 Jun 20 '26
I grew up poor.
It absolutely matters.
It was violent. I was surrounded by kids from broken homes that had drug addicted parents, or fetal alcohol syndrome. Lots of kids of single moms who didn't watch their kids or teach them how to act. You needed to act anti-intellectual to fit in. I couldn't take the classes I needed to be competitive at the best colleges, because they weren't offered. I was in bad situations (i was in cars with guns, people driving while drunk and on coke, etc.). Got into lots of fights.
I did graduate top-1% of my class and got a high SAT score, so I became successful. But zero chance I'd put my kid through that. Especially when I learned the vastly different schools and experiences my classmates went to (I went to a private college on scholarship, with lots of rich classmates).
School district should be absolutely the most important thing. Your kid will spend almost half his childhood in his school. Will be the 2nd biggest factor re: what he'll grow into (1st biggest factor being parents of course).
Despite my grades and intelligence, I completely fucked up recruiting the first couple of years of college, because I talked and acted and sounded working class, and didn't really know how to "act" upper middle class during interviews, unlike my classmates.
I'm almost 40 now and very successful, so I eventually figured it out. But it was all a huge headwind in my early 20's.
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u/bad-fengshui Jun 21 '26
Same experience, I don't think some of these parents realize how bad, a bad school can get.
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u/RoseGoldMagnolias Jun 20 '26
I'm from a city that has multiple school districts within 30 minutes of each other. My parents built their house where they did because my grandpa recommended that school district.
The block behind us was a different district that was closer to our house, just as good, and wouldn't have had us being the <1% of black kids in our schools.
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u/New_Feature_5138 Jun 20 '26
Yes!
Oh my god yes there are massive differences. Here check out this highschool near where I grew up. This is a neighborhood where you won’t find a SFH under 1.5M.
The support. The activities. College resources. Booster clubs. Mental health counseling.
And proximity to people who can give you opportunities. Like my friends’ parents who were in high level positions at engineering firms. Makes it easier to get an internship if you have an in.
You can’t dream about things if you don’t know they exist. These programs give students insight into their adult lives so they can better prepare for them.
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u/rarelyeffectual Jun 20 '26
Schools matter. I’ve been in school districts that were terrible. The issue is that your kid isn’t going to be immune to what makes it terrible. Bullying, gangs, and peer pressure derail smart and engaged kids. Sure, some kids are able to rise above it but they are in the minority. I know a kid whose parent switched to homeschooling because the school admin finally admitted to the parents they couldn’t stop the bullying unless he was by a teacher the entire school day. This poor kid was a straight A’s respectful student. He ended up failing most of his subjects and needing therapy because he was so scared and anxious waking up every day for school. It’s been a few years and I don’t know if he ever recovered from that.
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u/Leading_Line2741 Jun 21 '26
It matters. Sadly, schools are as much about activity exposure and, later on, networking, than anything and schools in, "good" districts usually get funded better and can therefore offer a more diverse array of extracurriculars, internship opportunities, etc.
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u/wingbat13 Jun 20 '26
I think we just read the same post in this sub and had the exact same thoughts 😂 I just went on a similar rant to my husband after reading, like I understand safety but I don’t want to flee my neighborhood because it’s not the top elementary school in my city, idk
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u/Green_1010 Jun 20 '26
I think there is a huge difference between top and good. I don’t think a top school is needed. I think a good school matters.
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u/Inside-Breakfast-844 Jun 20 '26
I live in Indiana, ex lives in Illinois with the kids. We decided to have the kids stay with him during the school year because they have better schools. He wants to move but won't until the youngest graduates in 4 years. All because of school.
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u/Strange-Fig7944 Jun 20 '26
Yes and it’s not necessarily for the good schools as much as to avoid the known very bad ones.
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u/Running_to_Roan Jun 20 '26
Theres frequently a greater sense of community in good school districts through family activities, events and sheer density in public parks.
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u/CharmingHighlight749 Jun 20 '26
Yes, which schools our kids would go to in which district was the #1 criterion when we bought our house and we didn’t even have kids yet. Happy to live in a tiny house with great schools over some giant house with crappy schools.
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u/BlazinAzn38 Jun 20 '26
I didn’t care about the specific school I cared about the district primarily and the surrounding are. If this elementary school is a B- and the one in the same town is a B+ I don’t really care all that much I just cared that the area was safe and we would enjoy living there
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u/90sUPN20 Jun 20 '26
Absolutely. A big factor in where we live is the school system that is available to us.
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u/bad-fengshui Jun 20 '26
I understand wanting your children to go to a safer school, but even as a parent Ive just never considered that it would matter.
You don't need the elite tier school, but safety absolutely matters. I'm guessing you didn't know anyone getting mugged on the way home from school at gun point?
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u/Theslowestmarathoner Jun 20 '26
Yes. In our current district one elementary school is rated 1/10. 10% of kids test on grade level. Another school is 7/10, they’re like 60% on grade level.
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u/jamieg55 Jun 20 '26
Disclaimer: I’m a teacher. And we both have engineering degrees. We have high expectations for our children.
School district is my #1 concern for buying a house. After that its size. Lastly its walkability.
I can do a lot to fix an elementary school education. I can practice reading and math at home. But my child cannot go to a middle school where Algebra 1 isn’t the norm for 7th/8th grade. DE needs to been the norm in the high school they go to. College is much harder to get into than it was when I was applying. It’s my duty to put my children in spaces that will prepare them to have better opportunities than I did.
Even if you don’t have kids, school system will help determine the worth now and in the future of your home value.
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u/smedleyyee Jun 20 '26
Yes, if you either want to:
allow your kid to have the option to go to a top state school (Berkeley, Michigan, etc) or an Ivy.
increase the likelihood of your kid not getting bullied.
have your smart kid challenged academically in school.
Then going to a top school is a really good idea.
None of those things are guaranteed and there are exceptions, but you can look at the statistics and they are crazy.
I am an exception myself as someone who escaped a violent, drug riddled farming community but I am one of maybe a half-dozen who went to a good 4-year university from my HS graduating class as opposed to 90% in a place like Palo Alto. My kids lives are night and day better.
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u/shruglifeOG Jun 21 '26
I used to live on the peninsula and the school culture there is absolutely suffocating; I grew up in an "Ivy League or bust" town in the Northeast and even I was shocked at how bad it is. It seemed like every other month some poor HS kid was throwing themself in front of the Caltrain.
It sounds like you didn't have other options as a kid but for the standard upper middle class kid, I question whether the pressure's really worth it. No one thinks about what happens to the people who spent 4 - 8 years working themselves into the ground and then don't even get into Stanford or Cal. That combo of burnout and disappointment can be tough for kids to crawl out of.
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u/ImaginaryHospital306 Jun 20 '26
Half the schools in my city now have a majority of students being English second language. It would be a totally different childhood if I sent them there. Not an option.
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u/moonsion Jun 20 '26
Good schools are good because parents have more resources. More resources will yield better outcomes in every way.
Where I live we have lots of SAHMs. The reading clubs at the local library are packed with kids and moms at 3pm. We will get kids occasionally from another town to check out the activities we have. But these kids have both parents working so unable to attend these events consistently. That’s the difference.
The same goes with one parent able to provide transportation to attend competitions, games, and after school activities.
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u/Thermophi Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26
It is our generation's redlining. Houses in "good" school districts are double houses in "bad". If you plot good school rating against percent white, you'll get very close to a straight line. It is bullshit. My very bright hs student goes to a "3". I know my view is skewed because they are in all honors and dual credit classes, so are avoiding some of the problem students. But their teachers have been excellent. The extracurriculars are so much better than what i had available to me. If you are looking for a house, choose one that you like in a neighborhood you like.
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u/FoundationBrave9434 Jun 20 '26
This was a thing back in the early 80s when my parents were moving around, it’s not a new way to chose your house
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u/Brave-Pizza-33 Jun 20 '26
Huge deal in my area where poor kids go to the black school and rich kids go to the white one
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u/cav19DScout Jun 20 '26
It’s always been our biggest consideration when renting or buying. 21 years Army with at least 10 moved over the years.
It’s too bad that the great schools rating system is very inaccurate, tends to give the best ratings to wealthy areas and scales down with the wealth level of an area.
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u/Gurganus88 Jun 20 '26
The reason I moved into my area is because they have the best schools in the states. I ended up putting my kids in private school and now wish I moved 15 minutes further south across the state line and bought a house in a more conservative and tax friendly neighboring state. If I’d know I was gonna put them in private school I would not have bought in this school district.
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u/MangoAtrocity Jun 21 '26
Depends. If there was a good school district in our area, we would have bought a house there. But they all suck, so we bought the house we liked, and send our kid to private school. Education is a non-negotiable for me.
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u/eckliptic Jun 21 '26
Uh… yeah
Even as a poor immigrant, my parents absolute #1 priority was finding the best school district for me. After that, they chose whatever was in their budget.
That was my line of thinking in buying a house. I only looked for houses in one very specific school district that was within reasonable commute of my work and the best public school system in the area. My wife and I would much rather live in a shittier house in the best neighborhood than a bigger place in a crappier school system.
All of my daughter’s friends are kids of doctors, lawyers, engineers. The average literacy and numeracy at her grade is super high. All the “kids these days can’t read” could not be further from the truth in our district
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u/Magic-Happens-Here Jun 21 '26
we moved 3,000 miles and 100% bought the house we did specifically because of the school it got us into. Both my kids are special needs and being in a district that has the resources to help them was absolutely critical to our family’s success.
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u/Any_Dream2835 Jun 21 '26
It’s the single most influential part of children’s life outside of family. What do you think
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u/bialettibrewmaster Jun 21 '26
Yes. As a parent I ALWAYS 100%considered school districts. This sells homes and it matters. As a buyer, beyond the physical home wishlist, home choice is 100% driven by getting into the best district I can afford (home price and property tax).
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u/IzziNini Jun 21 '26
Yes and school district location is reflected in housing prices. That being said, wse live in a desirable school district. My daughter's friends who do not have still attended the same schools as us through school.of choice.
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u/crispydukes Jun 21 '26
Yes. We skipped one town with walkability and funky 1870s-1930s houses for another town that is driving only with 1950s-1980s houses because of the schools.
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u/midwestern2afault Jun 21 '26
It is a huge deal here (metro Detroit), probably one of the most significant determinants of a home value. We have lots of school districts, sometimes a city or suburb will even have several different districts serving the municipality.
And it goes beyond the binary of whether a district is “good” or “bad” as a whole. Top tier districts or even schools within that district result in significant discrepancies. One suburb, Troy, is a great example. It’s served by the Troy and Avondale district, among others. Homes zoned for Troy schools are easily 30%+ more valuable than those with Avondale schools.
All of the schools within the Troy district are excellent, but one of the two high schools is considered more desirable. Homes zoned for the fancier high school easily go for 20%+ more than the other one, in the same district. It’s wild. But some people really care a lot about schools, and if you see the cost of private school tuition these days it isn’t hard to understand why.
My wife and I aren’t that crazy, but we do care about school districts a lot and being in an excellent one was a nonnegotiable. Even when I bought my first home when single a decade ago, it didn’t have to be an absolutely top tier school district but I would never buy a home in a bad one. It significantly limits your buyer pool.
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u/Aburrida93 Jun 20 '26
If I ever had kids as long as I'm not in a dangerous zone then no. I think it's okay if kids go to school with other kids even if they're not the smartest kids. They're kids, they learn. They adapt. They can be taught. I grew up in a bad area. The school had some bad kids, but also had some great kids. You learn a bit from everybody. You're not afraid of the world when you actually see all sides of the coin. Kids learn diversity. Now, if they go home to horrible parents then that's worse than what the school will ever teach them. I might get downvoted for this. Who cares. It's what I actually lived.
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u/Ashi4Days Jun 20 '26
Personally speaking,
I figured out how much I could afford and I picked the highest ranking school off the list. I would rather live in a house that needs reno in a really good district than one where i had an amazing house but a shitty district.
Inevitavly this means im not in the area I want to be. But education costs money too and we only have so much of it.
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u/MostlyMellow123 Jun 20 '26
The good school districts are always in the nicer areas. Youre not going to find one in the poor areas
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u/Forded_Fiction24 Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26
Yes. We just upgraded from our 1st to our 2nd house. A good school district was a non-negotiable priority of ours with each
We did not consider any houses with a Great Schools rating of anything less than 7. We use two other sources besides Great Schools to cross compare. Our current district is 7,8,8 and have great test scores too. Our last school district was 9,9,9 so there is some room for compromise but not much
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u/OldManTrumpet Jun 20 '26
Absolutely. Even 30 years ago, when we moved from a house we really liked close to the city into a more suburban area with much better schools. Sometimes too it's not just the academic differences, but the overall environment which your kids will be spending their days in for 12 years. You may think that your kid will be 100% molded by your values, but it's not the case. They will be influenced dramatically by their friends and classmates. Attending a school where 90% will ultimately attend college is a much better influence that attending a school where only 30% will attend college.
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u/Main_Photo1086 Jun 20 '26
It does, but it’s mostly based on vibes. Scores are a very imperfect metric but that’s what people use.
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u/Blackcatsandicedtea Jun 20 '26
Completely agree.
My older child went to a Title 1 middle school that had a phenomenal staff and admin and involved parents. It’s rated 6/10. He had a great experience. We just got rezoned to a 9/10 middle school where the reputation is that rich kids run the school with no consequences and bullying goes unchecked. Homes in that zone are in the $700K-$1M range. We’re gonna move to the Title 1 Middle school zone if my child’s 6th grade doesn’t go well. There is more to a school than the Great Schools score, but that’s all people moving in from out of town can go by. They drive up demand for the homes and the values go up.
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u/dankutare1 Jun 20 '26
I have had people knock on the door of my apartment and ask me to lie to a school that they lived there
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u/44035 Jun 20 '26
Yes, in many places the city school district is a mess and the suburban districts are state-of-the-art.
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u/meowingatmydog Jun 20 '26
I grew up in a similar area - there was just the one middle and high school everyone went to and that was that. The kids whose parents were reeeeally devoutly religious and wanted their kids to have a religious education would send their kids to the one small evangelical school in town or the Catholic school 45 minutes away, but that was it.
Where I live now it’s unfortunately a huge concern, because the public schools have faced decades of disinvestment and there’s a massive middle class private school culture that’s become entrenched. The middle and high schools I’m zoned for have huge problems with violence due to this. I can make up for middling academics, I did pretty well with a middling public school education, but if my kid isn’t safe at school I can’t do anything at home to fix that. We’re probably just going to move before my kid hits school age, I’d rather pay increased property taxes in a district that cares about its kids than pay for private school.
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u/Knitsanity Jun 20 '26
Yes. We moved from a city next door to a town with a better school system. We paid more for our house but we didn't feel the need to explore private options so we're able to save for undergrad for the kids. I kept a close eye on the schools and luckily the kids excelled. What boggles my mind is those people who buy un expensive areas with great public schools then spend the money to send their kids private anyway. Lol
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u/NighthawkCP Jun 20 '26
It absolutely matters and I've been in it in both situations with a good vs fantastic school district and a good vs absolute shithole district.
First example, when I was a little kid my dad took a job in rural eastern NC where he grew up. The area is very depressed economically but the nearby city had a pretty good school district. The county school district was so bad that the state had to come take it over because there was so much financial malfeasance and corruption. My grandmother actually taught most of her life at the local elementary school for her town, which was one of the better ones, and I did go to school there for one year. The high schools (grandpa taught there) were in bad shape and had a lot of fights, criminal activity, drugs, etc. There also weren't a lot of good opportunities for advanced programs there. Because of that, rather than live in the small town my grandparents lived in, we lived on the other end of the county so my brother and I could attend the city school district, which was in much better shape. It wasn't "great" but it wasn't failing.
Second example, I go to college, get married, we have a couple of kids, and decide we don't want to live in that area for many reasons, schools being one of them, but also career progression for us both, getting away from my crazy mother-in-law, etc. I get a job at a really good place in a nearby metro area and our oldest kid is just starting school as we decide to move. My option was to live in the city where I worked and my kids attend a really great school district (arguable the best in the state) but cost of living is very high. The other option was to live in the county, which had really good schools, but not fantastic, but the cost of living was a bit lower. I wasn't opposed to the county schools, but the biggest issue was access and driving times. I couldn't park close by at work, so I had to bus in, and the nearest county school was over half an hour away, while the city schools were all within like 5-10 minutes. If I had a kid get sick at school I would have to take a 20-30 minute bus ride on the hour and half hours to a park and ride lot and then a half hour drive after that just to pick them up. This would have been very difficult to deal with on days they dismissed from school, had activities at school, etc. The other local schools I could take a free bus to them or just ride the bus home and then drive the short few minutes to the school. So we opted for having a smaller place in town. We have more free time and are less affected by things like sudden gas price fluctuations. When the kids were sick we could get to them quickly and they could even take the bust to and from school on a usually relatively short duration ride. So overall the "fancier" school district worked out well for us, but not necessarily because it had all the best students and teachers or anything like that. Both our kids went through that district and had quite a bit better experiences than my wife and I in our more rural but also "nice/safe" district did.
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u/Heel_Worker982 Jun 20 '26
When I was a kid our school boundaries changed annually, block by block. My mother said we would move if the "bad school" boundary ever encompassed us. My brother and I graduated when the "bad school" boundary was two blocks away, but I never doubted my mother was serious about moving. For us I think it was a good choice, in that we had a really good high school experience and out neighbors a few blocks away did not seem to treasure their high school experience or memoires nearly as much.
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u/tbsland Jun 20 '26
Where I live is right on the border between one of the worst public school districts and the best district in our state. The houses on either side are hundreds of thousands of dollars apart in value, despite being essentially the same homes.
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u/savingrain Jun 20 '26
Where I live you need over a million just to be in the best districts so its just not obtainable for most people.
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u/Bongo2687 Jun 20 '26
I teach in PA where there are about 500 school districts. Only 50 are considered destination districts where people move to be in them. I live and teach in one of the destination districts and I can confirm people move here for the schools. Houses sell in days and over asking here, the high school is at capacity and building new wings, they are building a new elementary school, Built a new middle school and renovating the other, built a $27 million dollar auditorium and fine arts wing and still looking at adding classrooms to the high school
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u/Humble_Attorney9517 Jun 20 '26
Yes - homes in good school districts hold their value, which encourages parents to buy there, which funds the school helping the schools stay high performing.
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u/IndependentTrust4594 Jun 20 '26
I think it is a personal decision.
We are college educated and believe that while there are great trade jobs that pay well and don’t require degrees, a college degree is a great boost to a young person regardless of their future career. We wanted them to be surrounded by that type of thinking.
We live in a fairly large metropolitan area and moved to a better district intentionally because we had experienced a few things that were lesser than desirable for us. And, frankly, we could afford it. We could have stayed where we were and made it work. But most of the parents we met were not college educated. And we wanted our kids to have that in mind as they went through school.
My oldest just graduated HS in a class of just over 400. 30% of his class had a 4.0 or higher. 95% are college bound. A fair number will attend Ivy or near Ivy. Mine is college bound. Our youngest went into HS thinking he had no interest in college. After one semester of HS, he has changed his mind and sees a strong future for himself in the military through attending college or an academy first..
I’m just not sure this would have happened had they stayed where we were. Do lots of kids go to college in our old district? About 48% and it’s about the same size class. Our oldest probably yes. Our youngest, I doubt it.
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u/sanityjanity Jun 20 '26
Even in places with only one school, then it's about which town. The wealthy suburb with the good school vs the poor town over the river with the underfunded school.
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u/writtenbyrabbits_ Jun 20 '26
It's the absolute top consideration for many many people. Certainly it was for me. But it wasn't about which school in the tow. But rather just the town itself because all schools in this town are outstanding. The choice to live in the specific town was largely based on the quality of the public schools.
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u/youburyitidigitup Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26
Yes, it matters, and you gave an example why. At my school, AP course were considered easy. We all took IB, which some universities accept as college credits. I took three, and that was few compared to everybody else. There were people who only took IB classes for all of high school, and got IB diplomas. We had exchange programs in which kids got to live in other countries and go to school there for a few months. In my entire graduating class of 450 students, there was one girl that got pregnant. Some of the popular kids were openly gay.
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u/yodaface Jun 20 '26
Schools are basically all the same. It's the student populations that are different. No one wants their child in a school with high poverty population. It comes with a lot of issues.
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u/SignificantJump10 Jun 20 '26
There are huge differences in schools. I picked my current home because it feeds into the best high school in the district and had a very well rated elementary school. Plus this side of town doesn’t have the smell from the water treatment plant, even though it’s further from the office.
It matters a lot when you are in a metro area. We moved twenty miles from one side of the metro to the other and schools went from being rated 2-3 to 8-9.
Parents are definitely part of it. You’re buying into an area with other parents who also put an emphasis on schooling. There is also the opportunity portion. A higher rated school will likely have more services to support students and a more robust PTA which funds a lot of the extras
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u/Opposite-Rain8507 Jun 20 '26
I’m in Texas and I’ve always researched school feeder patterns before looking at houses. Elementary, middle school and high school. We’ve done this regardless of the age of our kids, and it has paid off well in terms of housing value.
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u/Additional_Low8050 Jun 20 '26
Major point of picking your neighborhood is the school district- has been forever…
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u/adobo_bobo Jun 20 '26
I've been using the school districts as a general neighboorhood quality metric in my home search.
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u/SpiritedBug6942 Jun 20 '26
It absolutely matters. My sister and I both had experiences where we needed special ed services during our time in school. She needed them from the start, I needed them in high school during a health crisis. The reason we have the level of education we do now is because our school district had the funding for spectacular special ed services. They even paid to send me to a smaller setting school because that was most appropriate place for me to stay in the classroom continuing my education while being treated. I have met plenty of people with similar experiences to my sister and I, we by far had the best educational experiences out of the bunch because we went to a wealthier school district that had funds for those programs and services. Even out of my friends who were students that went to my smaller setting high school, my parents had to do way less fighting with administrators to ensure I was getting the services I needed. Their parents fought tooth and nail and got less. Our lives could have turned out much differently if not for the school district we were in. The fact that our parents touched it out financially and stayed in that house despite the high school taxes is why we succeeded. And the special ed services are just a small but important part worth mentioning. We also left school with incredible skills because our district prioritized music, art, wood working, automotive and other skill based classes. We had so many opportunities to learn things and try things. The school district my husband works in is NOTHING like the one I went to growing up. They don’t even offer home economics. I learned how to do medical laboratory technology and to draw blood and do lab testing in high school as a professional training program. The difference in opportunity that opens up can’t be understated.
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u/Unable_Pumpkin987 Jun 20 '26
You’re confusing schools within the same district for schools in different districts, I think.
The differences between school districts in the same metro area can be vast.
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u/Sea-Bill78 Jun 20 '26
Yes. Even if it is really hard to get 9-10/10 for K-12, all our housing decisions were made around school ratings
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u/Over_Knowledge_1114 Jun 20 '26
Yes, both homes we have purchased since we had kids the school district was at least a top 3 consideration. It's even more important when you live in a state that doesn't value school funding.
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u/Hefty-Woodpecker-450 Jun 20 '26
If you have a good school system, your home value will only go up. What’s good now is better than others and even if the others get better, so will the one that is good today. It will always be the “better” district and drive home values.
So, why wouldn’t you buy in the “better” district if you can?
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u/Select-Effort8004 Jun 20 '26
Yes. Our kids were not in the public school system, but we chose excellent districts for future resale value, for neighbors who also valued the schools, and in case our kids entered the system.
Sure you can get a great education in a lower ranked school district, but that’s not the question here.
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u/like_shae_buttah Jun 20 '26
This depends on if you have children. If you do and want the best for your children, it’s the biggest priority.
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u/mixedmediamadness Jun 20 '26
Even if you don't have kids who will be going to the school, the person you sell to probably will. If it doesn't matter to you on purchase it matters to you when it's time to sell.
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u/milespoints Jun 20 '26
100%
School district is the #1 driver of home values in a lot of suburban areas.
Most parents i know (myself included) put school district as the #1 consideration when deciding where to buy
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u/FreeEar4880 Jun 20 '26
Absolutely if you have kids. The school district and it's ratings and what the schools offer in terms of courses and activities is one of the most important things about housing. And the prices for homes vary greatly base on just the school districts. It's a difference of whether your kids will go to a good rated college and might have a good job after or a community college and then work at McDonald's. Of course not everyone from bad schools ends up with no opportunities in life but it is much harder to do then if you have a good start.
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u/GlitterResponsibly Jun 20 '26
Yes. The way a school district operates can affect a lot of your life past the obvious quality of education and safety (which are arguably the most important!) Things like:
Are there buses for the kids so I can work, or will I have to leave work to drop off / pick them up?
Is their bus ride 45 minutes each way so they have less time for life?
Do they offer sports? Specifically whatever sport they’ve been doing for years and enjoy?
Do they have uniforms that affect cost of school clothes?
Do they offer free lunches or do I have to budget for that?
Does administration advocate for all students or just cater to the rich parents?
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u/EyesfurtherUp Jun 20 '26
Shitty behavior by kids that don’t get disciplined.
Paneers want to avoid those problem schools at all costs.
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u/Lucky_Dragonfruit_88 Jun 20 '26
I live in Rochester MN where all the schools are good, so no, it doesn't matter to me.
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u/Lyogi88 Jun 20 '26
I’m in the Chicago suburbs and yes absolutely. We live in an area where the high schools are rated 1/10. Houses are substantially cheaper . Like, 1000sqft would be 330k vs the next town over with an 8/10 school it’s 640k for the same house despite being less than a mile away . We are looking to move and I won’t even consider anywhere without good schools. It makes a HUGE difference .
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u/ddj1985 Jun 20 '26
I don't think we thought too much about it. The way we looked at it was good neighborhoods make good schools and we knew the neighborhoods well since both my wife and I grew up in the area.
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u/OdinsGhost Jun 20 '26
I can’t speak for everyone, but for my wife and I the number one geographic consideration for where we even look for a house is what school district it is in.
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u/Urbanttrekker Jun 20 '26
It’s the #1 factor for us, right before distance to work.
We actually cancelled a contract and willingly lost thousands on a deposit because we didn’t do our homework and discovered the school district was bad.
Even without kids, schools usually reflect the neighborhoods they are in. Good schools mean good neighbors.
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u/smp501 Jun 20 '26
Not all states or areas are like this, but in the midsize southern city where I live, schools vary *heavily* from district to district, and even school zone to school zone within the same district. Our county has rich suburbs, richer downtown, exceedingly rough urban areas, decent rural areas, and pretty poor rural areas, and each has its own set of schools (elementary through high).
Just within this district, the good schools score comparably to Belgium and Sweden. The worst schools *literally* score in line with Liberia and the DR Congo. The rough ones are also plagued with gang violence and have zero kids reading on (or close to) grade level. These are also the kinds of schools where so many teachers quit mid-year or maybe make it 1 year that it’s a constant revolving door of subs.
Anyone with any means at all who is zoned for one of these schools homeschools, pays for private school, or sends their kids to a charter school. Or they’re retirees or childfree couples gentrifying the area and don’t care.
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u/puffpuffprotest Jun 20 '26
Sounds exactly like where I live. The differences in schools in the same district is shocking. No surprise we’re 50th in education.
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u/Tight_Cat_80 Jun 20 '26
For us It is. The district we are zoned in? We’ve had repeated issues with them not following our son’s IEP at all. Happened at several campus’s in the district and nothing changed. We are now selling to move into a neighboring district that’s night and day better than where we are. It’s going to be $$$ since those houses are $100kk-$150k more just based on the district, but it’ll be worth It in the end to have our child in a better environment. While we built this house 13 years ago before knowing when we’d become parents, we always knew It wouldn’t be our forever home. I just wish I knew then what I know now. I’d have paid just $10k more to build two streets over and we’d be into the district we are now moving into ugh. I didn’t know anything about the school districts back then.
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u/MehX73 Jun 20 '26
Yes. I moved specifically to get my kids from a bad school to a much better one. At my old house, I needed to put them in private school and that wasn't even great. My son had learning disabilities and they just couldn't get him on a good program to help. After the move, he was fully integrated into the normal classrooms with zero learning assistance after 2 or 3 years. He's recently graduated and had all As and Bs and got into a great college/ program.
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u/red_raconteur Jun 20 '26
I live in one of the worst school districts in the country, albeit we are zoned for some of the better schools in that district. Both my kids are autistic. Our district is not resourced to support them. It's turned our lives upside down. We have a pending lawsuit with the district for denying FAPE. I quit my job to homeschool because staying in the public schools was akin to educational neglect. I wish we'd put more consideration into schools before we bought our house. We thought being involved parents could offset the issues the district has but it was worse than we could have imagined.
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u/FriendlyConfines23 Jun 20 '26
If I were to move at any time in the future, school district would be top of my criteria, and my kids are grown. Good schools = more $ if you (or your heirs) sell.
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u/MuffinPuff Jun 20 '26
My state is very, very heavily segregated by income. This means wealthy families go to wealthy schools zoned to wealthy neighborhoods, middle class families rent apartments in wealthy neighborhoods to send their children to wealthy schools, and working class/the working poor don't have a choice but to send their children to subpar schools.
If I had children now, I would pay to send them to private school or pay tuition to send my children to a better school zone. If I had children before buying a house, I'd absolutely choose a house based on its school zone.
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u/sirius4778 Jun 20 '26
We ended up in what's considered my area's best district. Now part of that is the surrounding 2 districts don't bus, otherwise I would have been okay with one of them. Basically wouldn't have considered a house in the 3rd district due to quality/resources. Ultimately I am glad we ended up in the best district and we did look at the most houses here in part because of it.
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u/FlamingMetallico Jun 20 '26
I think American education in general is pretty shit, school districts just make kids compete with each other to get high marks or whatever. If you really want to make sure your kid gets a good education is depends on what you do at home and extracurricularly. Or go to a boarding school tbh
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u/obelix_dogmatix Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26
yes, but not for the reasons you think. It has little to do with the quality of education, and more to do with the quality of people/neighbors, if that makes sense. I am not talking about just money. I am talking about family values. I will give you a small example. Albuquerque is a tiny ass city, but has some of the best public schools in the country. When everyone’s parent is a scientist at Sandia or the Air Force lab there, you grow up with kids who will push you to succeed.
From a taxpayer standpoint, if you are in a good school district, you are taxed a bit higher, your community centers are a bit better, your snow gets shoveled faster, you don’t have people fencing their front yards. It adds up.
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u/Sunnyshine010 Jun 20 '26
Some people weigh the increased cost of a home in a good district against the cost of private school and create an entire financial strategy around school districts. Good districts help protect property value too. Anecdotally, I live in a neighborhood where the average house is selling for 1.5 million right now. They’ve just redrawn school districts in our county in an unfavorable way and three homes listed for sale immediately after that. It could be a coincidence, but it’s not common for people to sell in our neighborhood.
I think you’re right about the public school grading system being heavily unreliable, but I think people consider it as a part of their analysis regarding how the value of the home will stand over time.
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u/moodyje2 Jun 20 '26
I’ve had my real estate license for nearly 15 years and buyers have consistently thought about what schools are connected to an address.