Interesting question – I bet the details are different for different people, but here’s my take on it. My background is that I went to school in Del Mar, have two kids in the San Marcos schools, and I teach in a local college.
Question 1 – we’re still renting, but we definitely tried to get rentals in places with schools with high API scores. We’re in San Marcos, not Poway, because (as you mentioned) above a certain level we figured the schools were pretty equivalent, and it wasn’t worth the extra commute time and cost. We consider this to be a choice for our kids’ benefit, since less commute time means more time at home, and less cost means more money for college funds, travel, etc. Personally, some of the most useful classes I took in school were shop and cooking classes – I still use those skills today. I think generally, though, that even if people agree with you that school doesn’t teach a lot that you need to know, people will generally not choose to send their kids to weaker schools if they can afford to send them to stronger ones. Hard to look at your kids and say “hey, it’s good enough for you.” Many irrational parenting decisions are made based on this, I reckon.
Question 2 – I already admitted we paid attention to the API scores, but we know full well they miss important things. The comment above about school-provided services in Poway are a case in point. We basically used the API’s because they were available, and it’s really hard to judge schools (much like picking a doctor or dentist). And, yes absolutely, schools bend over backward to try to post good scores, because school funding (and now I believe even teacher salaries) are tied to the things. But, when it’s all said and done, I don’t think there are huge surprises in the API scores (just published in the NC times) – districts reputed for a long time to be good had high API’s, weak ones have low API scores. I have no doubt that API scores reinforce and perpetuate the “good” and “weak” reputations of schools, but before the scores these reputations were formed and perpetuated in other ways, so I’m not sure the API is doing anything new in that regard.
