Personally, I see these API scores as expressions of average IQ’s of all kids attending the school. And those are well correlated with IQ’s (and pocketbooks) of their parents. I don’t think that quality of education matters much. So it’s really not the issue of “Poway school district has great scores therefore houses are expensive”. Causation goes both ways. Rich and smart people settle in expensive and well maintained areas, their kids do well in schools, scores go up. Scores go up, area becomes attractive to parents, they compete for houses in a good school district, houses appreciate.
I agree that, above a certain threshold, score differences does not matter for most people. If you compare a house in Serra Mesa (bad schools) and a house in Rancho Penasquitos (good schools), the house in RP will be more expensive because the school district is better. But if you compare RP with Carmel Valley, causation goes in the opposite direction – CV scores are higher because houses are more expensive.
