Education, Land, and Location

Because most children throughout the world attend elementary and secondary schools near their homes, where they live usually determines where they go to school. In the United States, the relationship between residential location and education has been especially strong given the dominance of local funding and local control of K–12 education. School quality varies markedly among the more than 14,000 school districts across the United States and within many of the country’s large urban districts. Housing prices reflect school quality; houses in better school districts or more advantaged neighborhoods of large districts sell at a premium. In other words, school quality is capitalized into the price of land.

The chapters in this volume explore the links between education, location, and land based on the proceedings of the 8th Annual Land Policy Conference of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. Three policy outcomes are the focus: academic achievement of schoolchildren; racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic segregation; and equality of opportunity, all of which have broad relevance to U.S. public policy.

The topics include the expansion of school choice, especially through charter schools and home schooling; the importance of cognitive skills for economic growth; the role of the property tax in school finance and alternative revenue sources; the structure of school districts; transportation to school; effects of school location; and housing policies that can unlink education and location.

This volume features the papers presented at the Lincoln Institute’s 8th annual Land Policy Conference in June 2013.

About the Editors

Gregory K. Ingram was the president and CEO of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy from 2005 to 2014.

Daphne A. Kenyon is a resident fellow in tax policy at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

Table of Contents

Preface, Gregory K. Ingram and Daphne A. Kenyon

1. Introduction to Education, Land, and Location, Gregory K. Ingram and Daphne A. Kenyon

Connecting Education, Land, and Location: Issues and Evidence

2. Is Location Fate? Distributional Aspects of Schooling, Eric A. Hanushek

3. School Quality, School Choice, and Residential Mobility, Eric J. Brunner

Commentary: Charles T. Clotfelter

4. The School Attendance and Residential Location Balancing Act: Community, Choice, Diversity, and Achievement, Ellen B. Goldring and Walker Swain

Commentary: Ansley T. Erickson

School District Organization and Finance

5. Not by the Hand of Horace Mann: How the Quest for Land Value Created the American School System, William A. Fischel

Commentary: Thomas Downes

6. The Future Role of the Property Tax in the Funding of K–12 Education in the United States, Andrew Reschovsky

Commentary: Ashlyn Aiko Nelson

7. Nontraditional Public School Funding Sources: Trends, Issues, and Outlook, Henry A. Coleman

Commentary: Leslie Papke

8. Transport Costs of School Choice, Kevin J. Krizek, Elizabeth J. Wilson, Ryan Wilson, and Julian D. Marshall

Commentary: Marc Schlossberg

Effects of School Location

9. Charter School Location: Evidence and Policy Implications, Robert Bifulco

Commentary: Maria Marta Ferreyra

10. Charter Schools and Minority Access to Quality Public Education, John R. Logan, Julia A. Burdick-Will, and Elisabeta Minca

Commentary: Douglas N. Harris

11. Admissions to Academy Schools in England: School Composition and House Prices, Stephen Machin and Anne West

Commentary: Parag Pathak

De-Linking Education and Location

12. Beyond “Accidents of Geography”: Using Housing Policy to Improve Access to Quality Education, Elizabeth J. Mueller and Shannon S. Van Zandt

Commentary: Deborah McKoy

13. Residential Histories, Geography of Opportunities, and Educational Achievement in the City of Santiago, Carolina Flores

Commentary: Keren Horn

14. Community Characteristics of Homeschooling: The Case of Virginia, Luke C. Miller

Commentary: Mark Berends