Test Scores and Housing Costs by Motoko Rich Essay - 80

Test Scores and Housing Costs by Motoko Rich - Essay Example As the paper highlights schools that do not perform well on state tests will likely have a cheaper cost of living in the surrounding areas. This is because the demand is not so high for these schools and so house prices remain relatively low in order to encourage people to buy houses. Other factors of course play a role, such as poverty, but poor quality of housing is a major contributor towards academic performance. This paper declares that in looking at the reasons why housing prices and education are linked, there can be two ways to describe it: either low cost housing contributes to poor academic performance or low education results in cheaper housing. The most obvious choice would seem to be the first one, but studies say otherwise. Jonathon Rothwell, a senior research analyst in the Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings, mentions that it has been proved that when students from poor backgrounds attend schools with students from more affluent backgrounds their educational performance improves as a result. This suggests that academic performance rests solely on the performance of teachers and not due to economic background. However, teachers likely choose to teach at schools in close proximity to where they live, so the better teachers will prefer to teach where the standard of living is higher.  In looking at the reasons why housing prices and education are linked, there can be two ways to describe it: either low cost housing contributes to poor academic performance or low education results in cheaper housing.