What exactly makes a “top” school a top school? People will say that the difference in education between Harvard and a community college is very little because after all, calculus is the same everywhere. Why does that not also apply to high schools? At least at Harvard, there is some selection process that is somewhat based on academics. For most public high schools, the selection process is pretty much, are your parents willing and able to pay for a house in the catchment area?
My parents spent a lot of effort trying to move from an average school district to a “top” school district (though they were unsuccessful in doing so because of the housing crisis). The educational reasons they gave for doing so were very vague and didn’t make much sense. When I compared notes with friends that attended “top” high schools, we didn’t find a whole lot of difference in our educations. Mostly it was poor overall. Personally I’m convinced that wanting to live in a “top” school district is just a politically correct way of justifying avoiding poor people and minorities.