There have been court-ordered busing programs within large American cities to try to deal with racial segregation in particular, though not without controversy.

There have been court-ordered busing programs within large American cities to try to deal with racial segregation in particular, though not without controversy. (Riots in Boston in the 1970s, for instance.) However, these are going out of style, and even when in style were usually confined to a single school district (generally, that means a single town or city), in part for legal reasons (Milliken v. Bradley). And they were only intended to address racial segregation, not economic issues. And there's pretty clearly an effect. There's a large house price premium for schools in a "good" school districts. Here are some (2006, but still relevant) numbers for school districts in Silicon Valley: http://www.cupertinoschoolscores.com/News/Home_Buyers_Pay_Premium.htm http://www.cupertinoschoolscores.com/News/Home_Buyers_Pay_Pr...