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[quote=Anonymous][quote=ntek87ntek]My wife and I had our first child last July and are trying to figure out what our real estate buying strategy will look like as our daughter grows up. How are folks here in a similar situation approaching buying real estate and picking a school district? Has anyone else gotten advice like what I'll list below? Given how expensive home buying is, we all need to start planning and saving for this NOW, and this topic has taken up a lot of my mental headspace recently.

[b]Our particular budget/goals:[/b] $750k-$800k. We have no interest in sending our kid to private school. We're people of color and don't want to be in a district where our kid is the only one who looks like her in the classroom. Our kid is too young for us to know if she will have special needs. We're perfectly fine if she ends up going to an average public university or trade school rather than getting in the high achievement elite college admissions rat race.

[b]Advice I've heard: How true is it?[/b]

[b]Don't buy into a district with "good schools:"[/b] Over the course of a child's 18 years in school, school district boundaries can change, the characteristics of student bodies can change, and the quality of teachers and administrators can change as they turn over. It therefore makes zero sense for families with small children to buy a "forever home" on the basis of the school district's reputation.

[b]Quality of elementary schools and middle schools matters less than quality of high school:[/b] The idea here is that you can buy a more affordable home in a district with mediocre elementary/middle schools, save up money, and then move to a district with a better high school. At the elementary/middle school level, parental involvement matters much more as long as the kid's school is clean and safe. But with high school, things like extra curriculars and AP/IB classes make a big difference in college admissions or preparing for future vocational career paths.

[b]School rankings are not a useful metric:[/b] There's a lot of media reporting about how sites like GreatSchools measure how wealthy the parents are in a school district rather than how effective a school district is in educating children. How true is that for the DMV area? Are there more reliable metrics we should be looking at? Or is it true that the quality of a school district is so idiosyncratic that broad assessments make no sense at all:

1. An academically talented kid could succeed in any school / a kid with mediocre academic abilities would struggle even at the best school 
2. One bad teacher/one bullying problem/one bad set of friends can erase any benefits of going to a "good" school
3. Outcomes for kids with special needs depend much more on quality individualized support than how well-funded or "good" a school is.[/quote]

[b]Don't buy into a district with "good schools:[/b] Disagree, buy the best you can afford. The extent to which boundaries change is not applicable to all school districts so you can’t make a blanket claim. Home values can be reinforced by the quality of schools.

[b]Quality of elementary schools and middle schools matters less than quality of high school:[/b] Disagree, your kid is learning critical thinking skills and study habits. I think it’s challenging to throw them in a significantly harder high school if they haven’t been performing at that level previously. But yes, AP/IB classes matter plus extra curricular.

[b]School rankings are not a useful metric:[/b] Recommend digging into the ratings you care about in GS - test scores? Equity? Year over year improvement?

It’s a trade off, buy what you can afford, figure out what you might need to supplement, and trust in your kid they’ll figure it out with your support and help. I’m sure all well-meaning parents want the best for their kids, but it’s really expensive in this area.  [/quote]

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