Alexandria Among Country's Least Attractive School Districts

Alexandria is among America’s least attractive school districts for parents, according to an analysis of 2010 Census data by real estate services firm Trulia.

A report about the firm’s findings was published Tuesday on the Wall Street Journal’s Developments blog in a post about how some families move to areas with better schools once their children reach school-age. 

Trulia compared the ratio of families with school-age children (ages 5 through 9) versus families with children not of school age (ages 0 to 4) in school districts across the country.

Alexandria’s ratio of school-age children to non-school-age children (0.64) was fourth lowest among the districts examined.  

Hoboken (N.J.) City School District had the lowest ratio at 0.39, while Saratoga (Calif.) Union School District had the highest at 2.38.  

The districts with low ratios tended to be densely populated areas popular with young professionals, yet have high real estate prices, according to the blog post.

“We can see it in the migration trends of what 30-39 year olds are doing. You may see a fair number of these people in this age group in the centers of cities, but there’s a substantial outflow of these people when their kids reach school age,” Kenneth Johnson, senior demographer at the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire, told the Wall Street Journal. 

Parents also choose to purchase homes in areas with attractive school districts because the homes held their value during the recent housing downturn, according to the article.