> I personally put that above them attending a good school, and I've read about lots of parents on HN choosing to purchase more expensive houses only because they were closer to good schools.
Peer. Group. See the thread the other day about rich kids vs. poor kids prepping for the SAT. Their peers set their norms, which determines what they'll actually do (you can tell them to do otherwise all day long—it'll barely matter). For all the talk about funding and such, the people in and related to a school—students, parents, teachers, roughly in order of importance—account for about 90% of what distinguishes a "good" school from a "bad" one. Norms set by parents at a young age (you can try to break out of your normal behavior for your class/SES to adjust your kids' experience "up", but it'll be damn difficult) and peers throughout school are THE most important factor for later outcomes. You can buy (improved probability of better) peers with money—spent on either housing or the right private school, or, failing that, carefully chosen extracurriculars and summer programs. It's kind of worse than if the problems with schools were just funding-related, actually, but that's how it is.
Agreed about the books being important, though. I was just starting a to-ebooks transition intended to replace at least 2-3 hundred of my books, then we started having kids, and I thought about what it would have been like to grow up with such a huge selection of excellent books right there in my house. Trend halted and reversed immediately, haha.