My experience in middle class 90% white suburbs is the valuing of education is mostly surface level. It’s expected you’ll get a degree to get a career and it’s expected you try well enough to not get in trouble with your grades and such. But leisure and social life is much more valued. It’s never stated as such but it’s easy to observe. These families put on a facade and a lot of expectations of the school system, meanwhile their kids are likely on video games and social media much more than they read or study. Weekends are dominated by birthday parties, sports, and pool parties. Most kids aren’t being pushed like Asian cultures, there’s rarely any expectation of post-grad studies, etc. If you’re “good at math” in high school, you might go into Accounting because it pays well enough with a 4 year degree. Never mind the fact it’s just arithmetic with a set of rules and not really mathematical at all.
I agree; this is my experience too, I've known so many people just like you describe; it describes all the "best" neighborhoods in places like Tulsa, Oklahoma.
And that is why we're in no hurry to buy into that kind of neighborhood and don't see it as any better than decent inner city neighborhood -- in fact, based on experience the education is better in some Philly public schools than some Nice White Rich Suburb schools (although the food and the A/C sure ain't, but that's not what school is for), and the values is why.
That said I spent part of my childhood in Princeton, NJ and that is one sort of "white suburb" that breaks that pattern and actually seriously emphasizes education. Unfortunately the truly nice places like that are truly expensive. Although, to your point... Princeton had a huge Asian and Indian population, and plenty of the white kids had parents who were Princeton professors and such -- not a very common or average job, even among other people of the same race, class, and income.
Perhaps I just need to find an affordable very Asian suburb, somewhere near an H-Mart or something?
I’m in Dallas and grew up in a small university town, although more of a state school but I get what you’re saying. In Dallas, the rich mostly white suburbs top the “best schools” list but from what I’ve heard many entire school districts are now on an Ivy League recruiting ban list because of high rates of cheating. I don’t think it matters much to the parents out there, they want their kids to go their university or somewhere that has a good football team.
The emphasis on sports in Texas is a big turn off for me. We opted to live inner city “bad school” area and just send our kid to a private school. They have sports but it’s basically for fun, exercise and team building life skills. We don’t care about how good or bad we are for the most part (of course we celebrate the wins… but hope you see what I’m saying).
Cost wise, it’s expensive. It wouldn’t be feasible for an average income family but we can swing it with one kid.
