Happy Election Day! Today, we’re featuring a personal education story from a staff member:

When we first moved to our town, we had dreamy ideas of schooling. Having children seemed far off as we bought our first house, and there was a school nearby that we imagined biking our kids to every day. Or at least, we thought that would happen. But as we became more acquainted with our town, we realized almost no one in our neighborhood went to the nearby school. In fact, a teacher at the school told us he would never send his children to the preschool where he taught. It was a low-performing, struggling place. So, as our first baby grew, we began to ask better questions of our neighbors.

Some people went to private schools. But others took advantage of the intradistrict (within the district) and interdistrict (between districts) transfer options in our town. Options! This sounded promising. Private school was not in our budget, so we started our research. Here’s what we found out: If someone lived in the city, they could fill out paperwork to apply for a spot at a different city school than where they were assigned. But the school system actually has the choice of whether to fulfill the request.  Nothing was certain. The intradistrict transfer depended on a certain number of spots in the school, and of course, good schools are in high demand.

“But,” a friend explained, “if you live in the county instead of the city, it’s EASY to get into the good city schools.” 

I was shocked. How could this be so? I pay taxes in the city. I wanted to live in the city. Why would I be treated better by my own district if I did not live here? The answer was simple. Children in the county who transfer in pay $180 to transfer into the city. “Interdistrict” students with a high likelihood of success were almost always accepted. Not to mention the school received payment from the county/state, increasing the value to the city system of enrolling an interdistrict student.

With this in the back of our minds, time moved on, and eventually, we were thinking about moving. We had different needs with two kids than when we purchased a home with no kids. We wanted to stay close to our downtown area, but it was also hard not to consider schooling. And that was when we found it. A house in a neighborhood where half was zoned for the city and half for the county. 

On one side of the street, you could pick your city school for $180 and on the other, you were most likely stuck in your assignment. As you probably guessed, we bought a house barely in the county. In fact, the home was barely 3 miles from our previous address.

Looking up the two addresses in Raj Chetty’s Opportunity Atlas, his maps denote the future opportunities/income for children by neighborhood and demographic. Our 3-mile move predicted that my child’s future income was likely to go up by $7,000 just by moving a few miles. It would have been even more if we had moved into the neighborhood zoned for the best school.

I don’t know about you, but it’s hard for me to believe that kids could live so close together and have such different opportunities. It also frustrates me that only those with the ability to finagle the system (like myself) can end up at quality schools in my town.

Wonder what this map would look like if every kid had access to the same school quality? Now consider what hoops you’re jumping through for a good education. Does it feel a little crazy? It probably is. It should not take moving out, paperwork or special circumstances to receive a quality education. To learn more about a better system, continue reading here.