Maine beats Marin: best schools aren't always found in priciest areas

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And gorgeous too!

EPodunk: The Power of Place

Falmouth, Maine, cheap housing and good schools?

Jenny Pisillo's On the Block article yesterday paired good schools with good home value. Indeed, pure logic correlates highly sought-after school districts with highly sought real estate. This truth sometimes leads to logic that correlates wealthier regions with better schools. While the reasoning for this logic seems sound, in actuality, wealth does not always trump all other factors in school district success. And according to ZipRealty's Zipcode blog, some of the more moderately priced real estate in the U.S. offers some of the best schools. That's right: Are you listening, Marin County? You've just been beat by a town with a median home price of $350K.

Zipcode was reporting on a Forbes study completed with help from GreatSchools.org, one of the most recognized and exhaustive public school tracking and rating websites in the country. Working with GreatSchools.org, Forbes.com studied school districts in areas at four median home price points:


1) Homes $200,000-$399,000
2) Homes $400,000-$599,000
3) Homes $600,000-$799,000
4) Homes $800,000 and up

Interestingly, though the districts in the $800,000 and up areas perform well-- so yes, Marin schools and those in places like the East Bay's Lafayette and Orinda do well-- they don't over-perform the $200-$399K areas. In fact, the small town of Falmouth, Maine is the only area to score 100 points on the study's quality index; and that town's real estate, with a median home price of a little over $350K, is among the least expensive in the batch.

So if not rich residents and corresponding home prices, what's the secret here? Like all the towns examined for this article, Falmouth enjoys an unemployment rate less than the state average. It also pays its teachers well, better again than the state average. Falmouth outspends on teacher training and assessment than less productive areas for use of funds. The district additionally boasts very low turnover among instructional staff. As a result, the district scores higher on national testing, parent approval polls, and student reviews than any other district studied.

The numbers

Here we show you the least expensive, followed by the most expensive areas in the study. To see all 4 regions, go here.

Homes $200,000 to $399,999

Zipcode/Zip Realty

Homes $800,000 and Up

Zipcode/Zip Realty

The best lesson here is clear: good schools are found among real estate at every price point.

________________________________________________________- Read more about how to find the best school districts here.

Posted By: Anna Marie Hibble (Email) | September 13 2011 at 09:00 AM

Listed Under: East Bay, Marin County, National news