patrick.net

Here's the thing though: You don't have to pay a Million bucks for a 60's suburban rancher house to gain access to good schools. Truth be known there are TONS of other cities and states that have good school systems and housing prices that cost 1/10th that of Silicon Valley. For example, Nashville has consistently had good school ratings for years. Yet the median home prices there is under 200k.

I guess what it all boils down to is not necessarily the schools, but the parents, the kid, and a number of other factors. My whole family went to "normal" public schools in NC. The schools were rated decently but by no means perfect. We're all doing just fine and my Brother and I make fairly high incomes. We're doing every bit as well as those kids who's parents paid out the nose for a house in a "perfect" school district in Silicon Valley.

E-man says

The value is in the land. Also, it's a lot easier to make money here than in Nashville.

I don't know how many people are making money hand over fist, but I know quite a few people that are making money that easy, including some of my neighbors. Of course, I'm too dumb to figure it out, but I'm working hard on it. I'll get there, I'll get there. :-

But when the cost of living is a fraction of what it is here then there needs to be a re-assessment of what a dollar is worth relative to place. For example I have a friend who lives in Nashville. After college he got married to his girlfriend. He makes around 60k a year and she is a stay at home mom. They paid $130,000 for a 3 BR house. That same house would very easily be 600k-700k in the Bay Area and probably more because they live in a decent area. Thus their house cost Almost 7X's less. He would need to more than double or probably even triple his income to afford such a house in the BA. Also- there are zero income taxes in TN.

This has been mentioned several times. a 6-figure income in the Bay Area might as well be 50k elsewhere.

E-man says

Also, a $1M home in the Bay Area is still much cheaper than in homes in countries where we came from. No joke.

This is nonsense. Yes, maybe if you live where expatriate businessmen and ambassadors live, it would cost that much, but how many people who are recent immigrants to the US would really have lived in housing like that? Almost none.

mdovell says

Lawrence Ma has the highest spending per student in the state (14,000 a year)..and it has the highest unemployment rate in the state (16.2% which is double the state average) and 40% of the people there did not graduate high school!

At the risk of being politically incorrect, Lawrence has changed from the olden days when it was an Irish Catholic industrial town, although it still has many Catholics. It is now 73.8% Latino (big Dominican and Puerto Rican population), which correlates with the low graduation rate and the low employment rate (compare to say, El Centro, CA, for example). The median household income in Lawrence is far below US average, and being poor correlates well with low graduation rate and low employment rate in this economy as well. The industry has left too. Yes, this means that Lawrence spends a lot on education and doesn't get the best bang for its buck. Compare Lawrence to other former industrial towns of Massachusetts, such as Haverhill (pronounce "hay-vril" with a Boston accent), and you get a different story.

Done! says

Well you did ask about their demographic.

Education is a Liberal issue, they obsess with it. There aren't any upscale conservative gated communities known for their "best schools".

Yes there are. Orange county (CA) is full of such.

michaelsch says

Done! says

Well you did ask about their demographic.

Education is a Liberal issue, they obsess with it. There aren't any upscale conservative gated communities known for their "best schools".

Yes there are. Orange county (CA) is full of such.

Well, this was a throwaway comment by Trout, because it doesn't really jive with reality, but of course there are. In fact, most California liberals and other liberals actually don't want to live in "gated" communities. A great example is San Francisco, where it is not uncommon to have housing projects in your own neighborhood. They are even building one in Cow Hollow now (wow!). Many California liberals embrace diversity for the sake of diversity.

It is far more common for conservatives to live in gated communities that are largely white. Think Agrestic in Weeds.

Another example is Dallas -- some of the suburbs have gated communities. Yet another outside Little Rock, Arkansas, is Hot Springs Village.

Another one in California is Rolling Hills, CA -- it is a gated community that is an incorporated town and is highly conservative (and not just by LA standards -- it votes strongly Republican).

Orange County is an obvious one though. Land of Reagan.

edvard2 says

Nobody seemed to make that big of a deal over it. It was just public school.

We even listened to a classmate read a Bible verse over the PA system in first period homeroom, followed by a Christian prayer led by our principal--nobody collapsed. At lunch, we bowed our heads for a few seconds before eating. One assignment in English class during Easter week was to write a prayer--it didn't have to be mentioned that it was a Christian prayer. Someone asked what a Jewish student should do and they were simply asked to write it from that point of view. One day in 1957 as I was running an erand for my teacher, two Mexican girls were talking in Spanish as they walked by our principal, Mr. Bracken. He listened to them for a moment, then said "There will be nothing but English spoken in these halls!" End of discussion. When I started college, I don't remember the concept of remediation existing, college just seemed to be a seamless continuation of where we left off in high school. Now, I think the figure is something like 40% of freshmen arriving on campus require remediation in English and math before they can assume their college level studies, so parents would do well to obsess considering the high cost of college today.

The other aspect to remember is that residency is not really dependent on having a house. All it takes is someone to rent an apartment within that town and they qualify.

This is also why some affordable housing programs can be controversial. In Mass we have some programs on affordable housing called 40b. there has to be a given percentage per town. Well take a gander at this

Here's a set of shops that is upper to high end
http://www.thederbystreetshoppes.com/

A development might make 180 sets of condos right by there
http://articles.boston.com/2011-10-03/yourtown/30239067_1_affordable-housing-traffic-concerns-town-officials

So that can easily mean more children which means higher classroom sizes which means they will eventually need more teachers, staff etc. Sometimes local governments have to prepare for these things. The same with a casino.

I think that a fair amount of education can be helped with some online learning. MIT courseware with khan academy makes a good combination.

It's because parent's are way stupider than they used to be. Google something called "helicopter parents"

Public schools serve to teach the underclass rabble how to be obedient. I feel the factory floor of a smelting plant serves this purpose best but I see the side benefit of turning children into obese and pliant consumers of garbage. Like fat little anchors, they keep the pissant parents in line and at their proper station in life serving men of stature and merit like me.