Better schools lead to higher house prices, which can price out lower income families.

Since the 1990s, state governments have introduced policies to encourage greater school choice, with one aim being that high-income families concentrate less on particular schools. In new research, Sylvia He examines the relationship between house prices and school quality in Orange County, California between 2001 and 2011. She finds that better schools are associated with higher house prices nearby, meaning that wealthy families tend to cluster around better quality schools. In light of these findings, she writes that school choice policies may face local resistance in wealthy communities, and that local governments need to do more to improve to foster school-community collaboration in low-income neighborhoods.