I have a fundamental, deeply felt objection to buying [1] in top school districts, but the overwhelming convention wisdom among my Chinese/Indian fellow parents is something like “any school district below 8/10 is a dangerous thing you could do to your kids.” Paul said “They deserve better.”

[1] Renting? a bit of reservations too

That’s why I need powerful, convincing justifications:

• income level — ours vs theirs
• psf level has gone up from 5 year ago
• Unlike my peers, we have Singapore as a fall-back plan if our kids don’t cope well in an average school
• commute – my tolerance of long commute is significantly lower. I’m not ashamed.
• property investment – I already have some including Beijing (partial), so my dependency on this SD prop investment is lower
• most SD homes are oversize, leading to 300k-500k premium, in addition to pTax. Some key rationales for tiny-investments preferences are exactly about school district homes.
• Look at the important choices and opportunities listed in ##have options: average学区 != bad school