How do renters or buyers judge the quality of the schools zoned to their prospective homes?
Often it starts not with schools or teachers or students, but with the real estate industry.
Two recent pieces of investigative journalism call attention to a prominent flaw with this system: Realtors and real estate websites alike share assessments that downgrade schools that serve higher percentages of low-income and minority students, while also serving to maintain segregated housing patterns by steering Whites away from districts that serve students of color.
For a series of articles published earlier this month, the Newsday newspaper in Long Island paired testers of different ethnicities and races and had them seek similar homes from the same realtors.
The newspaper found that realtors repeatedly steered White buyers away from school districts enrolling higher percentages of minoritized residents, typically using veiled language. For example, they told White buyers that one community was an area to avoid “school district-wise” or “based on statistics.” Yet that district’s 90 percent Black and Hispanic high school boasted a 96 percent four-year graduation rate and above-average performance compared to the rest of the county.
In a study of the areas investigated by Newsday, NEPC Fellow Amy Stuart Wells, a professor of sociology and education at Teachers College, Columbia University found that a one percent increase in Black/Hispanic enrollment corresponded with a 0.3 percent decrease in home values. In other words, a home worth $415,000 at the time of the study in 2010 would cost $50,000 more in a 30 percent Hispanic/Black district as compared to a 70 percent Hispanic/Black district.
Wells and her team compared two districts with similar housing stocks and socioeconomic backgrounds but different percentages of Black, Hispanic, and White residents. Although Wells said realtors discounted the quality of the schools of the majority Black/Hispanic area, her team found few differences when they actually visited and studied the district.
“There didn’t seem to be a huge difference at all in the curriculum and the quality of the teachers,” she told the newspaper. “So, they [real estate agents] do play an important role in steering people away from certain districts that are becoming more racially, ethnically diverse and less White, in particular.”
An internet-era wrinkle to these longstanding practices was documented and described last week in an article published in the education-focused news site Chalkbeat. The site’s analysis found that school ratings featured on popular real estate sites like Zillow and Realtor.com—ratings assigned by the non-profit corporation called GreatSchools—nudged buyers toward schools with higher percentages of White students by assigning lower ratings to schools with higher percentages of Black and Hispanic students. This happened even when GreatSchools’ own evidence showed that these schools were doing a good job growing the scores of their students.
Specifically, although student’s test score growth is also considered, it’s worth a much smaller share of a school’s “grade” than proficiency, a factor that greatly penalizes schools serving students with fewer opportunities to learn due to societal inequalities outside the realm of the school.
More than that, the GreatSchools algorithm is overwhelmingly about these test scores, largely ignoring other factors of school quality. Rather than assessing the degree to which all students are provided opportunities to learn, test results tabulate outcomes that are profoundly influenced by the unequal opportunities and resources offered to White students versus students of color.
Alternative approaches are available, but they require us to truly and deeply learn about the school. Superficial measures like those used by GreatSchools and its real estate customers must be set aside. One example of such an alternative approach is NEPC’s Schools of Opportunityrecognition program for high schools, which uses a holistic assessment of school quality. The application and evaluation processes consider how these schools are broadening and enriching learning opportunities, creating and maintaining a healthy school culture, and implementing a variety of research-based approaches that close opportunity gaps.
Yet it is the GreatSchools ratings that are viewed by 150 million users of real estate software per year. And there’s evidence that it’s having an effect: A recent study found that property values in areas with a high GreatSchools rating increased by nearly $7,000 over three years, furthering the discriminatory real estate cycle that has always existed in the United States.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Most Real Estate agents (from my experiences) do indeed promote segregation.
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as do endless TV shows: how many times in the last decade have I seen nonchalant comments made by White TV characters about choosing to not live in this or that neighborhood because of its ‘bad’ schools….
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“There didn’t seem to be a huge difference at all in the curriculum and the quality of the teachers,” BUT, there is a huge difference in the amount of PTA funds available in these “great schools”. Parents in wealthy housing areas pump enormous amounts of cash into PTA coffers (It’s cheaper than paying for private school!). The PTA then doles out that money for creative art programs, hands on science projects/experiments, field trips, special math programs etc. It gives the illusion that some schools are better than others, further pushing the real estate game. It’s all smoke and mirrors and really an unfair advantage that only money can purchase. Check out the redistricting nightmare of Howard County, MD and know that elitism and racism are alive and well in one of the most diverse, yet most segregated counties in the country. Our bumper sticker campaign proudly boasts the phrase”CHOOSE CIVILITY”, yet it is one of the most uncivil, uninviting places to reside. Can’t wait until the end of this school year when I no longer have a child in this “world class school system”.
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“It gives the illusion that some schools are better than others,” Once we accept illusion, does it not become a self-fulfilling prophecy? All these extras provided by an active PTA or other community resources produce better schools. Parents choose what is best for their own children. While that is understandable, it is part of the problem of under funding. The attitude becomes one of I got mine, don’t ask for yours.
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Except, looking at the numbers across the state, we are not underfunded since our county taxes (3rd wealthiest county in the nation) fund public education. We ARE underfunded by the wealthy land developers who pay the least in taxes ($ school construction costs and infrastructure).
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The wealthy school districts may not be underfunded, but the districts in more impoverished places have been doing without for years. Since leadership tends to come from wealthy places, we are forced to accept less.
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Is anyone surprised?
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Geographically based admission policies reinforce SES segrigation in housing. That is a good reason to do away with catchment areas within school districts and the high prices charged by school districts for out of district students to attend. If we seperate the choice of where to live from where children go to school, SES segrigation in housing will likely be lower.
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I taught in an excellent diverse school district in the suburbs of NYC. Our high school ‘Great Schools’ rating is always lower than two surrounding very white districts. Our high school has high levels of college attendance including acceptance at many excellent colleges. In fact, our school district has a superior arts program, and it is a consistent winner in mock trial competitions. Our students miss very little from attending a diverse, comprehensive high school, and they gain so much more that will serve them well in the real world.
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