Housing prices and school quality: A quantitative exercise using Greater Boston housing data

This article provides a roadmap to explore the relationship between school quality and median single-family town-level home prices, school, and neighborhood characteristics using a unique dataset consisting of 152 towns in Greater Boston. Before the session, we ask students to read a well-known paper exploring the relationship between school quality and home prices. We discuss the paper in class and provide students with a new dataset containing similar information. As part of the class session, students consider how to use what they learned from a published paper to practice hypothesis formulation and testing with new data. We conduct simple and multiple regression analysis, interpret results, and estimate alternative model specifications. A goal of the exercise is to encourage students to create theory-driven regressions, rather than looking for a “right” answer. The topic and the dataset are appropriate for students who have taken introductory statistics and can be used in courses that include content related to educational achievement and financing, differences in socioeconomic status, and economic opportunities. Based on the topic’s broad appeal and accessibility, instructors could use the dataset to practice interpreting results of regression analyses without additional prework or context. We share the new dataset and accompanying material online.