Comments on: School District Boundary Changes Can Affect Home Values

By: Steve Crossland

Steve Crossland — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 14:31:46 +0000

Hi Rich,
> from a value point of view, how much of a premium does having a school in your neighborhood within walking distance have on the value of your house.

If the school is highly sought after, the proximity adds a lot of value. I just sold a listing pre-MLS, with multiple offers, 2 blocks from a private school. Both buyers had kids in the school and wanted to live walking distance.

If you look at the neighborhoods in Westlake, such as Woodhaven, which is walking distance to the elementary, middle and high school, those neighborhoods are populated primarily by school families willing to pay a premium for the smaller, older houses close to the schools.

Now, I wouldn’t want to be across the street from a school, or suffer traffic problems, but a house within 2 or 3 blocks of a desired school is always going to attract buyers with kids, and they are often willing to pay a premium.

Steve

By: Rich

Rich — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 21:32:19 +0000

Steve, great blog post. I live in the SW Austin area.

I was curious -> from a value point of view, how much of a premium does having a school in your neighborhood within walking distance have on the value of your house (all other things being equal)?

For example, neither Travis Country, Travis Country West or Covered Bridge have elementary schools in their neighborhoods… And Muirfield, although a part of CC, you have to leave the neighborhood before you can get to Clayton and it is likely not “walking friendly”. But all have great value. If they had an ES in their neighborhood, what type of impact do you think that might have on their value? I assume it would be even more attractive even though they already are…

By: Steve Crossland

Steve Crossland — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 01:07:51 +0000

These kids need special attention, and they should get it. But my children’s education should not be watered down to help them.

And thus is the great debate of all society, not just kids and classrooms. It’s why some are against school vouchers, fearing it will drain the mediocre schools of the better kids, leaving only those who are “stuck”.

I still have a resentment against my Algebra II teacher in 11th grade, who encouraged me to drop Algebra and just take business math. And that’s what I did. I always wondered what might have happened if he had challenged me to do better instead, maybe offered to have me come in after school and work with me a little. I always felt like I was just one step behind, almost getting it, but still lost. And when offered the chance to give up, I did. It still bothers me today.

I guess he didn’t want me watering down the class. I can’t blame him. And I don’t want my kid’s in watered down classes geared toward the bottom third, or the slow pokes, either. But I think I also don’t want to leave kids behind who just need a small extra effort.

It’s a tough issue.

Steve

By: Michael @ The Stage Coach

Michael @ The Stage Coach — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 20:43:02 +0000

@Tim: I’ve heard the 10% argument before – being a transplant to TX and a product of a lifetime of Private Catholic Education, it’s no loss to me if my kids can’t get into TX State schools. We encourage them to reach for the stars – to go where they want to go. And if they want to make it to UT-Austin, that’s great. If they want to make it to the Ivy league or a small private college, that’s great as well.
If we’re not to abandon our schools, as you put it, are we supposed to stand by and watch politicians play the shells and nut game with their education? Our oldest daughter’s (fourth grade) talented and gifted program was cut in half due to poor performance on the Pre-TAKS test given to fifth graders. Are we supposed to stand by and say, “Well, it’s for the better of the school as a whole that Fifth graders should get these resources?” That’s not American – that’s Communism.
Regarding the last statement you made: shifting boundaries to bring up averages is not helping those on the path you mention. In fact, after nearly five years in RRISD, I agree with Bob: the problem is the Parents, and/or lack of any real Parenting at home.
Every troubled kid in my kids’ class has a “story”. These kids need special attention, and they should get it. But my children’s education should not be watered down to help them.
But, we have a “One-Size Fits All” educational system. As long as the bar is set at Passing the Test (read: Mediocrity), my children will excel, because that’s not good enough for us, as Parents.

By: Tim

Tim — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 18:59:10 +0000

>>You know what makes a school like Westlake (or other great schools, like Westwood) great?

A foundation that side-steps school funding regulations and allows a massive amount of money to be spent per student without having it captured by the robin hood system? I’m begin smart. I do think concerned parents matter. I just think that massive amounts of capital help also.

By: Bob

Bob — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 15:06:17 +0000

You know what makes a school like Westlake (or other great schools, like Westwood) great? Parents. Parents who worry too much about schooling and are all neurotic, obsessed and overly concerned. Parents who expect their kids will be prepared to go to college. The sheer number of parent volunteers at the top public schools is basically a continual auditing process. At mediocre and low performing schools the districts know they can hide their less engaging teachers behind cinder block walls, and parents won’t complain. Not so at the elite public schools.

Steve – that would be a great blog post. Somewhat on the same topic, as a NW Austin resident I wonder about those very nice AISD/Anderson attending homes well to the north of 360, west of 183, south of Oak Knoll. Do folks ever buy up there not realizing that the elementary school 4 blocks away is actually in an entirely different district (Davis is a great elementary school, but its across the highway)? How much value does having a “neighborhood” elementary and/or middle school add, versus being in the same vertical team of schools, but not being within walking distance?

By: Steve Crossland

Steve Crossland — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 23:49:38 +0000

I worry about “chasing the scores” also, but I have to admit I’ve done just that by choosing Westlake High School over Bowie, which is the district in which we live. For my daughter, it’s worked out very well, but of course I have no way of knowing that she wouldn’t have done just as well at Bowie. I think Bowie is a good school also.

But when we decided to go only through 8th grade with private school, and I visited Bowie, Dripping, Austin, and Westlake, I was simply blown way by what I saw at Westlake. Someone different may have come away with a different point of view, but my mind was made up when I walked out of the parent orientation. I called Sylvia and said “these people know what their doing, and they know how to get a kid ready to succeed in college”.

But I also worry that we worry too much. Many of our friends with kids worry too much about schooling also. We’re all neurotic, obsessed and overly concerned, probably.

But the buyers we work with are the same way. And, thus, school boundaries and ratings affect demand and value. I’m not sure it will ever not be that way. I’ll run some stats and post them in an upcoming blog, about the cost of housing in Austin if we only consider exemplary rated elementary schools. It’s not cheap.

Steve

By: Tim

Tim — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 23:16:50 +0000

Yeah, but your neighbors will have the last laugh when your kid can’t get into a state school because of the top 10% rule.

The abandonment of our schools in pursuit of some mythical “excellent education” for our children only, would shock our grandparents and is anti-ethical to the American ideal.

We’re paying for it in any case. Every kid that drops out of school and becomes an unproductive member of society is a hit to our paycheck. Ever think there might be a correlation between Texas’ #49th in Education ranking and #3 in property taxes ranking?

By: Michael @ The Stage Coach

Michael @ The Stage Coach — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 20:10:09 +0000

To speak to the principle of Steve’s article: we faced a similar middle school situation last year. We can see the middle school from our back yard – living close enough to it that RRISD says our neighborhood is walking distance. But they wanted to switch our neighborhood to a lower performing school. Dr. Chavez even admitted that it would help bring up scores at the other school. But don’t get me started on Gerrymandering School Districts to improve test scores…
As a result, we considered selling our home – the market range for our home was about $10k less than we paid for it back in 2002. We are not independently wealthy – we could not afford to send our kids to private school… So, would we flush $10k of equity down the toilet in order to get our kids into the best school track we could afford?
HECK YES! And I would peel out in the moving truck with the window down, flipping the bird to my former neighbors while doing it!
It’s a small price to pay in the grand scheme of things to ensure our children get the best education they can.
Sorry, Neighbors… Is it fair to my neighbors that I would sell for a loss? Nobody ever said life was fair – it’s no more or less fair than the foreclosure situation in our neighborhood.
Personally, I think local ISD’s make this problem for themselves. If Walgreen’s, CVS and Chase Bank can spend millions learning where growth is going to be, all the schools have to do is watch where they are building to get an indication of population expansion. The School Districts tend to have a reactionary approach, as in, we’ll wait until over population at the schools is so bad, the citizens won’t be able to say “No” to a Big Bond Package.

By: shireen

shireen — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 01:49:39 +0000

Travis Heights Elementary is now rated “recognized” ! I have to point that out because I live in that zone and tried to sell my house in 08 when it had (for that single year) the unacceptable ranking and I think it was was one of many factors for why we didn’t get any offers. Around 10 5th graders failed science at THES in 2008 and that gave the whole school the dreaded ranking even though anglo kids there score just as high as anglo kids in Casis, Barton Hills, Mills, and Kiker!

Highly mobile students and low economic status are hell on test scores! Becker should probably be closed and the kids sent to Travis Heights (bigger, better building) and there is room but it will never happen! The new superintendent wants to close schools, I wish her luck!

Linder does have some great teachers, and the community, parents, faculty and staff at THES moved heaven and earth to shed the label of unacceptable. But if you go in and read the TEA data charts, you will find that thanks to the way that they handle dropouts, and other factors, the results from one year to the next do not correlate! (One year’s test measures oranges, the next apples, the next apples and oranges!) It is maddening!

By: Tim

Tim — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 21:18:51 +0000

To provide concrete examples, I should also point out that Linder in my neighborhood of South East Austin is a great example. To my knowledge they’ve never been academically unacceptable even though they’re almost 100% economically disadvantaged and are almost exclusively coming from those 30+ year old apartment complexes. The reason is that they’re at 120% capacity and so averages are working heavily in their favor (I’m sure they have some pretty dedicated teachers and administrators too).

Travis Heights elementary about 2 miles west has been academically unacceptable even though it has a much more diverse mix of students, but smaller classes.

By: Tim

Tim — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 21:15:26 +0000

greatschools.net seems like a good idea, but it’s really a pretty horrible site to make your decisions on. Averages are great at simplifying metrics into meaningless numbers. Just like the average sold price in Austin. Sure it’s an interesting number, but it has no relation to what the majority of buyers are spending on a house. But because people are looking at these meaning less metrics they do have meaning for the value of your house.

greatschools.net is always going to favor overcrowded suburban and inner city schools because they use averages. Even though pretty much all research on the subject shows that smaller class sizes are better for kids, when looking at these metrics the schools with smaller class sizes are going to look worse. An overcrowded school with 4 classes per grade can have nearly an entire class fail without negatively affecting their metrics. An undercrowded school with 2 classes per grade can only afford about 4 students.

We need Steve to start crunching the school data the way he crunches the real estate data…

By: Bob

Bob — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 17:34:56 +0000

You can surf greatschools.net for all sorts of information. Test scores are important, but as you note the variance in scores year to year can be fairly wide. You can also get the % economically disadvantaged – and while maybe politically incorrect its an interesting number. There are plenty of Austin neighborhoods where the homes look great, but if the local school pulls a bunch of 30+ year old decaying massive apartment complexes, the school may suffer. To that end, a school that is firmly middle class, but solely single family homes may be more desirable than a school that pulls half from high dollar custom homes and half from apartment communities.

By: Tony

Tony — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 17:15:22 +0000

politically people think in terms of fairness. The best thing to do is to impact everyone. If you have 2 full schools and one at 50%, take 25% of the kids and teachers from each of the full schools and put them at the 50% poorly performing school.

That will load up the poorly performing school with a ton of good students and the best ranked teachers, keep kids with peers that they know, give room to grow in the hot areas and impact everyone in some way so it is perceived as more fair.

By: Tim

Tim — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 16:43:55 +0000

I don’t envy their decision though. My kids track into Linder Elementary which is horribly overcrowded, but AISD is doing nothing to alleviate the overcrowding because they believe (and rightly so in my opinion) that due to the many lakeside condo projects and proximity to downtown the area within the next decade will shift to being more young urban couples than small families. It’s a difficult thing to sell, right now since they have a school at over 120% capacity. At the same time they’re going to have a hard time talking to voters if they approve a new school and within a decade have two schools that may need to be shut down.

But I think the biggest problems for AISD are:
1) The transfer system (how exactly do you plan for school locations if you have 50% of neighborhoods transferring to other schools)? It messes up the value of real estate since home prices in Austin don’t really reflect the schools. Everyone buys assuming they can transfer if there’s a problem.
2) Test scores. Especially in Elementary schools since test scores use averages they can easily paint a school as “bad”. Overcrowded schools actually look better on paper since they can have more children fail the tests without upsetting the averages. So South-West Austin schools are a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. It doesn’t really matter if they’re “good” as long as they’re crowded. If you have a small inner ring school with 2 classes of 15 students. It takes only a couple extra kids failing to take a school into an unacceptable rating.

I’m curious what a realtor’s take is on the test scores. Is it better for you since it makes it easier to say which are “good” schools and which are “bad”, or is it harder since it knocks out entire sections of the city as “bad”?

By: Miguel

Miguel — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 14:06:27 +0000

So it’s a “huge, egregious disruption” if relatively few kids (most of whom are dropped off and picked up by their parents) who live at homes with higher property values are forced to move schools, but it is low impact if you close the entire school of the poorer kids (most of whom actually do walk to school or use the bus)? That’s an interesting theory.