Magnet Schools and the Differential Impact of School Quality on Residential Property Values.

Abstract. Previous research has concluded that public school quality is capitalized into local house prices. This result is reasonable if residents are assigned to local schools and have no freedom of school choice. The magnet school concept gives parents some degree of freedom of choice for schools within a local school district. The availability of magnet schools should thus reduce the capitalized value of school quality within a school district. This hypothesis is tested using data from Wake County (Raleigh), North Carolina. The results show that school levels where the magnet program has been most extensively implemented have lower capitalized values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]