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I am looking for a new home and the real estate agent was telling me about the quality of the schools in relation to the house we were looking at. I asked her why is this school better than another. She froze. I asked again and she said she assumed it had better Teachers and a better Principal. (It has nothing to do with demographics and the motivation of the students and their parents.)
I asked her if the so called better school would increase the resale value of my home when I decided to sell it. She said yes. So it's that simple, hire better teachers and a great Principal and the value of my home connected with a particular school will go up. Sounds so simple, is it?
Is there a question in there? Is a Real Estate agent the person to ask about why some schools are better than others? Is it a secret that houses in better school districts cost more?
I think most people buy the best house they can afford.
That results in neighborhoods where families have similar incomes. If those neighborhoods have above average incomes, they usually have better schools as well. There is a high positive correlation between income and educational attainment.
Also, the parents in those neighborhoods generally are well educated themselves and have high standards and expectations wrt education.
So it's not as simple as just having better teachers and a better Principal.
I think most people buy the best house they can afford.
That results in neighborhoods where families have similar incomes. If those neighborhoods have above average incomes, they usually have better schools as well. There is a high positive correlation between income and educational attainment.
Also, the parents in those neighborhoods generally are well educated themselves and have high standards and expectations wrt education.
So it's not as simple as just having better teachers and a better Principal.
But the media tells us that if you get a better set of teachers and throw money at the school, everything will turn out great.
But the media tells us that if you get a better set of teachers and throw money at the school, everything will turn out great.
The media is wrong and you are falling for it. From what I've seen, the media is in cahoots with the privateers to make schools look like they are failing in order to pave the way for charters and vouchers. But that's a whole different thread. Anyway...
Your realtor is way off base and breaking the law. Realtors are not supposed to compare or trash schools. I realize many do it anyway, but it's illegal and uninformed. I live in a middle class to upper middle area with good schools - one of my daughters is at the local high school. My oldest who we fostered however is in an urban school with a high drop out rate. I can actually speak as someone who has experience in "high performing" and "low performing" schools.
Here's my experience - the teachers in the failing school are just as good if not better than the successful school. The urban school has more kids who are recent immigrants with little English, more kids living in poverty, and more transient kids. Those three things alone make the difference in "performance". However, my kid and many others are in accelerated honors and AP classes and are constantly challenged. Their past two valedictorians went Ivy League and plenty of kids go onto great colleges. But being a city, many go to state or community colleges for affordability reasons - why people look down on that reality, I don't know. Honestly, there are days I feel my oldest is getting a better education at that failing school than my child in the lily white school.
The problem is the realtor isn't really supposed to tell you if the schools are good or bad. But yes, there is often a relation between neighborhood and school quality, for a lot of reasons. When we lived in the west, the city had several independent school districts. In some of the districts the typical parents tended to be more educated than in other districts, and therefore valued education more (as someone above mentioned). The parents in those districts voted for higher school taxes and were willing to pay more for better schools and better teachers. Whereas those in the other districts voted for lower school taxes in their district.
Like in our case, the district boundary was literally across the road so we're talking similar houses with similar prices and similar economics and demographics, not inner city vs suburbs. It was purely a parental choice thing. So it was somewhat a self fulfilling prophecy that those who valued education and were willing to pay for it bought in the better school district. Not only were they willing to pay more for better schools, but also were the kind of parents teachers want -- involved in their kids education.
So yes, it is simple, in principle. Very hard to do in practice because while a lot of people want better schools, very few are willing to do what it takes to have them.
You could look at the data published by the state regarding each school. You could go visit the school(s) your child would attend if you moved there. You could enroll your child in private school. No tiptoeing around. No code. No BS. Problem solved.
I realize the OP is approaching this with a talk-radio mentality, but I'd like to throw in something with the hopes of informing her.
You can have a school full of kids who are already smart but it may not necessarily be a good school. Smart kids may be able to complete standard work, do well and maintain high scores, but are they LEARNING more than they knew last year?
If you really want to know if the schools are good, check the value-added scores that show not just how well they did but how much more they learned. Truly good teachers can teach more to kids who are already smart.
Of course, your agent may have meant something else entirely by "good schools." Who knows?
The more I think about it, the best way to judge a school is to simply ask parents of students or students who actually go that school. No test scores, no listening to people who avoided the school because of what they "heard". Just go to the school, see if you like it. Talk to as many people as you can who have actual experience in that school.
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