Time to Buy Buy Buy!

As a mere speculator - someone making observations without a vested interest - might I suggest a house within the Kansas City, MO school district for your next purchase? That is, of course, if you have a job in the Kansas City area and Johnson County is not an option for you.

To be sure, real estate prices are continuing to plummet (oh woe be to we who already own price-inflated homes) along with the interest rates (oh woe be to we who are locked into 30 year mortgages over 5% - unable to refinance but just terrified that the next loan we take out will be at 14% when inflation hits). So now is a prime time to buy a house almost anywhere. (Please buy one in my neighborhood - I'd like to get some of the competition off the market in case I ever decide to sell).

However, I have been thinking that now might be the time to buy in Kansas City - because their schools are terrible. I don't know of a lot of big city school districts that you would say "do well." But Kansas City has big problems. Amidst a budget crisis common in these times, the district cut half the schools. Lights out. Go home. Not wanted anymore. It can't get much worse than this.

Which is precisely why it's the time to buy! Everyone knows that a school district has a tremendous impact on the value of a home - even if you don't have kids, if you expect to sell it to someone with kids, you want your house to be in a good school district. So why am I suggesting you buy a house in the worst school district for miles and miles? Because I think that the KCMO school district has hit rock bottom. And if the schools have, the housing prices are about to.

One of the reasons the district has been suffering is that those who could afford to have moved out of the district - to Johnson County or Independence, MO. Those left are those who cannot afford to relocate, and thus cannot pay increasingly high property taxes to support the schools. The quality of education deteriorated, and now people predict it will get worse because class sizes will increase and children will have to go to new schools.

But in every dark cloud there is a silver lining, and the KCMO school district is taking advantage of an opportunity to restructure things. Obviously kids need to be reshuffled to new schools, and teachers need better expectations in order to perform better. So the district has adopted a new educational philosophy that is starting to grow across the country - let kids move at their own pace.

There is a fear, of course, that this would "leave kids behind." Those who cannot grasp the material would never learn it. But I think just the opposite would happen. First of all, kids would be placed where they need to be intellectually. This means the faster learners would jump into more difficult subjects. Many behavioral problems actually come from children who are simply bored (read "Matilda"), and if they were challenged in their classes they would pay more attention and learn better, and school would be more interesting. Slower learners would not be distracted by these faster learners nor intimidated by them. They would have teach help, and we could minimize the collective sighs that happen when a child asks a question the rest of the class finds obvious. Let's face it, the American school systems generally cater to the lowest common denominator, meaning the children who get "left behind" are actually those who have the most unlocked potential.

In addition, there is pressure to advance children to the next grade whether they have mastered the material or not. One reason is so the child can remain with his friends and peer groups and not "feel" dumb. So to protect his feelings, we harm his education - if he did not get pre-algebra, how is he expected to get algebra, and so on? How can he keep up if he reads at three grade levels below his peers? Education builds on itself, so if we don't give children the fundamental building blocks, they will always be behind. This kind of structure minimizes social advancement because children will not necessarily be placed in grades with children of their own age. If they don't get the material, they don't move on. But they can move on in the subjects they do understand. This lets kids who excel at math continue upwards while they develop their reading skills at a lower level.

Ultimately, I think this may result in more kids graduating high school and entering college - perhaps even on time. So much of what we learn, especially in our high school and college years, is not relevant for its factual data but seen as a way to help us "grow" as individuals. So if a person completes 13 years of public education and passes his ACT's, why not let him go to college, even if he hasn't taken Chemistry yet? (There will be a college version of chemistry he can take). If he needed help getting through high school, he can start with community college before going on to university.

Even if you don't believe in this system, you have to acknowledge that the KCMO school district is attempting to restructure and fix a broken program. This attention to details and this effort will not be wasted. There's really nowhere to go but up for the city, so buy up now! Your property could be worth a lot more in a few years!