ANDOVER – According to sources including US News & World Report, WalletHub and World Population Review, New Hampshire students consistently score among the top ten states in the nation. On average, public schooling in New Hampshire costs roughly $20,000 per student per year. The cost of education per student is not remarkably more or less expensive in a wealthy zip code than in a poor one.

Being a teacher is not generally a very lucrative profession compared to jobs requiring comparable levels of education, such as legal and medical professionals. Like any other employees, good teachers are able to move to school districts that offer better compensation, if they choose to.

This amplifies the problem – good teachers tend to leave underfunded school districts, causing the perceived quality of that school to decrease. The public perception of the school’s quality (often based on test scores, whether they offer a broad curriculum including art, music or foreign language, or whether they have winning sports teams) influence home buyers who are willing to spend more on housing in districts whose schools have the best reputations. The property values in districts with low-reputation schools fall, eroding the tax base which supports the town budget, so the local voters are forced to increase the local tax rate in order to hire town employees, repair roads and perform all the other municipal functions, including operating the local public school. This causes a downward spiral in poor communities, and an upward one in wealthy areas.