I alluded to it in my previous post - the district we lived in previously didn’t have some basics in the elementary schools - art, music, librarians, PE and foreign language were all missing (or horribly piecemeal.)
The district we moved into had 11 kindergarteners in a class. That small class size is such a huge difference alone. Add in a music teacher, PE teacher, art teacher… etc and suddenly all other schools in the area pale in comparison.
At the high school level the difference is even bigger. Class sizes average about 20 kids, and for an English or history class that difference in class size is remarkable. It wasn’t unusual for my kids to be assigned 6 papers throughout the term (and not 3 or 4 page papers either.) The English teacher has time to give meaningful feedback to each kid and that results in some finely honed writing skills going into college. The history teacher can assign in-depth projects complete with an entire period of presentations required from each student- which helps hone those presentation skills. The English teachers would frequently review papers for the history and science teachers to keep continuity on the review of the kids’ writing skills.
The funding for a school like that requires more than the bare minimum funding levels from the state. So not so shockingly, the really good school is in an area that few people can afford. Parental education is high as is the expectation that kids will go to college.