I'm with you on a lot of your argument (there's a reason 3rd and 4th tier city real estate is inexpensive compared to big cities), but, sidebar: What do you me

I'm with you on a lot of your argument (there's a reason 3rd and 4th tier city real estate is inexpensive compared to big cities), but, sidebar: What do you mean by a "bad" school? As far as I can tell, most people mean one of three things: - The test scores aren't as high as I'd like, or - There are students who are more rowdy than I'd like - I disagree with the syllabus Plus a dollop of: - My kid is profoundly gifted and the school doesn't offer challenging enough material I empathize with this last one, at least, if that's what your situation is, but I know a lot of rich families that think their kid is profoundly gifted and actually they're just bog-standard moderately-gifted, which usually doesn't require nearly the same investment by the school as parents seem to think. The other three barely matter for your kid's educational attainment. They seem much more about parents being super invested in having a certain social class for their kids peer group. If so, fair enough, but I don't think that's a "bad school" so much as "undesirable peer group".