Talk about high stakes testing...

School Basics: Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, Real Estate

New York Times, June 18, 2007
by C.J. Hughes

LIKE the number of bedrooms or proximity to parks, quality of schools is a factor that can make or break a decision on whether to plunk down a small fortune on a house.

Not surprisingly, then, towns with blue-ribbon public school systems — like Greenwich, Fairfield and West Hartford — have consistently commanded some of the higher home prices in the state. (CT)

But prices within a town can fluctuate, even by neighborhood, based on the strength of the local elementary school, according to a new study by seven professors and students at Trinity College.

The study examined the relationship between grade-school test scores and home prices in West Hartford’s 11 elementary school districts, and found that as one climbed, so did the other, in specific and predictable increments.

In fact, every 12-percentage-point difference in scores on the Connecticut Mastery Tests, the standardized exams that students in Grades 3 through 8 take every year, is worth $5,065 to those buying or selling a home, according to the study, called “School Choice in Suburbia: Public School Testing and Private Real Estate Markets.”

New York Times article here

Hmmm.... Maybe these children should receive bonuses for increasing the value of the homes in their communities...