Public education filter: if you went to school in a good district, a not-so-great district, or an in-between district, how did it affect the quality of your education and your success later in life?

 

The husband and I have been having a debate (not entirely academic, since we're in the process of moving) about the importance of school quality in producing a well-educated and successful child.

 

He was educated in one of the top-rated districts in the state, with lots of money and mostly professional families; I went to school in a middling-to-slightly-subpar semi-rural district, with mostly blue-collar families. We both excelled in school and got into the same Ivy League university, both did well there, and I consider us approximately equally well-equipped by our respective educations. Naturally, he places a lot of stock in the importance of "good" schools, while I'm more skeptical, assuming we're not talking about absolutely abysmal schools (violence, rampant crime, etc).

 

He feels that since good school districts are better funded, can afford better teachers, more enrichment activities, more varied coursework, and better facilities, that must make a difference in kids' education. 

 

I contend that a bright kid with involved parents will do most of his/her learning outside the classroom anyway-- if you're reading interesting books and having intelligent family discussions and taking the odd university class, then why does it matter whether your classroom has a SmartBoard or your school sponsors field trips to Europe? In addition, I worry about the small-fish/big-pond effect of attending a district where all the students are super-successful and motivated; I knew a professor, for instance, whose daughter got into no top colleges despite having an awesome GPA and activities at one of the most prestigious private schools in the nation, simply because all her classmates were equally successful and there wasn't any way to distinguish herself from the pack. 

 

Finally, maybe I've just watched too many showings of Traffic and My Super-sweet 16, but I wonder about the character issues associated with wealthier, high-achieving communities. Poor communities have their problems too, but it seems as though it'd be easier for a nice middle-class kid to get sucked into materialism/cliquishness/shallow hypersexuality/whitecollar drugs than meth use or cow-tipping, or whatever. 

 

By way of broadening our knowledge-base, I'd love some additional perspectives on this (some useful answers here, but that question focused on private v. public school). Did you love or hate your good (or bad) public-school experience? What factors really do make a difference in the quality of education a public school district provides?