PROPERTY LEFT BEHIND: AN UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCE OF A NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND “FAILING” SCHOOL DESIGNATION

Under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), schools receiving Title I funding that fail to meet adequate academic performance targets for two consecutive years are deemed “failing.” This broadly defined, but often misunderstood designation has exerted a negative and unintended effect on low‐income neighborhoods—the same neighborhoods NCLB was originally intended to help. Specifically, we find that “failing” designations significantly decrease home prices. This property value response is observed even after controlling for a myriad of traditional test score measures and school‐level student demographics. Additional analyses suggest that this home price effect is largely due to strong perceptions of poor school quality or social stigma surrounding a “failing” designation.