A WSJ article about how housing in areas with good schools has held its value better – and the desperate attempts by parents who can't afford homes in these areas to get their kids into these schools. Yet one more way that affluent folks have school choice that is denied to low-income parents:

It's supposed to be a buyer's market. Yet, for parents determined to buy in areas associated with top schools, those bargains may be harder to come by. When housing markets go south, "areas with exceptional schools tend to hold their value better than the market overall," says Michael Sklarz, president of Collateral Analytics, a Honolulu-based firm that specializes in real estate data analysis.

…All of this comes as no surprise to the real estate agents who work with education-obsessed parents. "Schools have a huge impact on home values," says Kathy Beacham, a real estate broker in Raleigh. When schools in her own well-to-do neighborhood were redistricted three years ago, the value of her million-dollar home dropped more than $150,000. "A good education has always been important but I don't remember looking at the numbers like parents do today," she says.

…Glenn Hasslinger, the student placement manager for the Bellevue School District, wears many hats, but enforcing the district's enrollment policy could easily be a full-time job.

The state of Washington allows students to cross school boundaries, provided there's space. Because most of Bellevue's best-known schools don't have spots to spare, families enrolling their kids in those schools need to show proof of residency and actually reside within the district four nights a week. "Some people will argue over the semantics of what it means to reside," says Mr. Hasslinger. Others get creative. They rent apartments in Bellevue for a couple months prior to enrollment, craft stories about the kids going to live with grandma and grandpa and broker deals with residents in order to come up with the proper paperwork. Paying for someone's utility bill is a popular ruse.

The truth, says Mr. Hasslinger, usually comes out when neighbors tattle, school mail gets returned or kids inadvertently spill the beans. During the last school year alone, Mr. Hasslinger investigated 35 cases of questionable residency. "I'm guessing we're just scratching the surface," he says. "There are probably two or three times as many cases."

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