Is top school worth the cost?

Editor's note: Despite the skyrocketing prices of properties located near best schools, many parents are willing to spend the money and get their children admitted to the top schools. Is going to the best schools worth the money? Forum readers share their opinions.

Gayle (US)

There is a similar issue in the United States with unequal funding for schools. Schools in the US are funded by local property taxes, which are based on the value of the houses people live in. Rich people in wealthy neighborhoods have much more valuable houses, so therefore they pay more property tax and their schools have more money. Poor people pay less property tax, or none if they own no property, therefore their schools are much poorer. In some poor areas of the United States, especially in the inner cities, schools are shockingly inadequate. The rich often send their children to private schools, which are intended to be elite schools, no one pretends differently. But in spite of the very unequal funding of public schools, it is not supposed to be intentional. It is just a problem no one wants to solve because the obvious solution is to average out and equalize the funding, but the rich fear that they would be losing, so they block such measures with their influence.

[Jiang Mo/China Daily]