Residential assignment has long constrained student opportunities because it intertwines schooling and housing. All too often, access to a better public education depends on a family’s ability to move to a more expensive neighborhood.
In fact, the median cost of housing in zip codes associated with highly ranked public schools was four times higher than the median cost of homes in zip codes associated with the lowest ranked public schools, according to a 2019 report by the Senate Joint Economic Committee.
When the price of admission to a public school is built into the cost of housing, mortgages function like fees to
