If I liquidate enough assets I could theoretically afford a $800k home in a top school district, but if I have that much spare cash I would rather deploy it elsewhere!

Fundamentally, I don’t perceive academic benchmark as important as other immigrants do. Today I will focus on middle/elementary school level, though much of what I discuss here applies to high school too.

• Background — In U.S. individuals without excellent grades are given many more chances than in Asia (Jack He’s pointer.) but …
• Evidence — In Asia or other continents many successful individuals don’t come from top colleges, or have excellent grades in high school; conversely, majority of good students are mediocre in their careers outside the academic domain. (Even in science and literary domains, not everyone was a top student at middle school level.)
• Evidence — as discussed in my open blog, most top students in middle school fail to keep the lead in college. By international standardized tests, East Asian middle school students far outrun U.S. students, but years later, after leaving college, my U.S friends and colleagues don’t show any sign of weakness at all. Therefore, I believe there’s too much emphasis on middle-school level academic benchmarks.

Instead of benchmarks, my main criteria are a conducive learning environment and engagement. I don’t see evidence that most academically mediocre schools are inadequate in that regard.

I believe a large subset of these “average” schools provide a good environment, whereas some top schools may fall short.

Grades are not as important to me as other immigrant parents, but grades are still important as the main goal for a student. There are many options to improve my kids’ grades, listed in ##many options: avg学区 !=avg school #index None of them requires buying a coveted school district house. The most I would do is to rent there.