As a parent with young kids moving to a new city a few years ago, we based our house hunting process on being near the best public schools (based on academic achievements; not much else to go by), and paid quite a bit more for our house than we would have otherwise. I know it sounds selfish, but our concern is that if our kids are mostly surrounded by other kids who don't have high academic standards (through no fault of their own, just their environment doesn't support that or it's not even a goal), then they will have a hard time bucking the tide, so to speak.