For me, stories, articles and/or discussions that combine real estate and public schooling are almost always pregnant with racism and/or classism.  In some cases, that racism and/or classism is more obvious than others.

Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal points to a “study” (a very loose term in this case) done by the folks at Trulia.com.  This “study” combined real estate data with data about public schools and yielded a list of 27 neighborhoods in the suburbs of 9 major cities that offer “the best education bang for your buck.”  Like Newsweek’s and now the U.S. News & World Report’s ranking of high schools, this list is largely a proxy for white affluent school systems.  I’d bet the ranch that if you looked at the demographic data from these 27 school districts, you’d find that they serve largely white, affluent families.  As one example, Ridge HS is the high school that serves Basking Ridge, NJ (the “best” neighborhood in the NYC suburbs).  That high school serves students that are 83% white and 13% Asian.  Less than 1% of the students in that school are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch.

When my family moved to Richmond, VA, I knew that I wanted a house in Henrico County because that county embarked on one of the earliest and largest-scale laptop programs in the country.  For the last 6 or 7 years, every student in grades 6-12 in the county gets a laptop.  Furthermore, we bought a house in an area served by a high school that is considered the lighthouse school for technology in a technologically-progressive county.  My son is not yet 3, so rezoning could change things, but I couldn’t worry too much about 10-12 years from now.

So, I’m calling for a “study” that locates neighborhoods that offer “the best educational technology for your buck.”  This would allow real estate agents to “steer” buyers to districts and schools that are forward-thinking and relevant.  Now, how do we get the right data???

Tags: classism, education, racism, real estate, research, technology