Education, Land and Location: 8th Annual Land Policy Conference June 2-4, 2013

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., May 31, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The relationship between land values, real estate, and the provision of education will be explored at Education, Land and Location, the Lincoln Institute's 8^th annual Land Policy Conference June 2‐4, 2013 at The Charles Hotel in Cambridge.

The three-day gathering of scholars, researchers and practitioners will consider the use of property taxes as a funding mechanism for local public schools, the role that school quality plays in household location decisions, how the perceived quality of schools affects real estate values, and the growth of new alternatives such as charter schools and homeschooling.

"The nexus of real estate, land policy, and education deserves greater attention," said Gregory K. Ingram, president of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, who will welcome the gathering.

Laura Perille, Executive Director of EdVestors, a nonprofit group that provides strategic private investments in urban schools, will lead off the forum on Sunday evening, followed by a keynote talk Monday morning, "Is Location Fate? Distributional Aspects of Schooling," by Eric A. Hanushek, a fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and a specialist in school funding

In the first session, considering the nexus of location, education, Joan Youngman, senior fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, will be joined by William A. Fischel from Dartmouth College who will present "Not by the Hand of Horace Mann: How the Quest for Land Value Created the American School System." Thomas A. Downes of Tufts University will provide commentary. Ellen B. Goldring and Walker Swain, from Vanderbilt University, will follow with the presentation, "The School Attendance and Residential Location Balancing Act: Community, Choice, Diversity, and Achievement," with comments by Ansley T. Erickson from Columbia University.

A discussion of financing local education will then be led by Amy Ellen Schwartz of New York University, with Lincoln Institute visiting fellow Andrew Reschovsky from the University of Wisconsin‐Madison, and discussant Ashlyn A. Nelson, Indiana University ‐ Bloomington, addressing the role of the property tax in the funding of K-12 education in the U.S.; and a look at non-traditional school funding sources, with Henry A. Coleman of Rutgers – The State University of New Jersey, with comments from Leslie Papke of Michigan State University.

Robert McMillan of the University of Toronto, Robert Bifulco of Syracuse University, and Maria M. Ferreyra from Carnegie Mellon University will lead a session on emerging choices and alternatives in education, beginning with a consideration of charter schools, and concluding with the locational implications of homeschooling with Luke C. Miller of the University Virginia.

Emmanuel Y. Jimenez from the World Bank will begin the second day focusing on the international dimension, with presentations by Carolina Flores of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, with comments from Keren Horn from the University of Massachusetts Boston. Stephen J. Machin of the University College London and Anne West from the London School of Economics will examine the school assignment plans in England and their relation to performance, class composition, and housing values with comments by Parag Pathak of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Thomas Nechyba, an economist at Duke University, will chair the session on residential location, mobility, and schooling, beginning with "School Quality, School Choice and Residential Mobility," by Eric Brunner from Georgia State University, and discussant Charles T. Clotfelter of Duke University, followed by a look at transport costs of school choice, with Elizabeth J. Wilson from the University of Minnesota, Kevin J. Krizek from the University of Colorado, Julian Marshall from the University of Minnesota, and Marc Schlossberg of the University of Oregon.

The discussion of school quality, diversity, and location will be led by Roslyn A. Mickelson from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, beginning with "The Impact of Charter Schools on Segregation and Educational Disparities across Racial and Ethnic Groups: 2000‐2010," with John Logan of Brown University and Douglas N. Harris of Tulane University; and "Affordable Housing and Educational Opportunity," by Elizabeth J. Mueller of the University of Texas at Austin, Shannon S. Van Zandt of Texas A&M University, and Deborah McKoy from the University of California, Berkeley.

This is the 8^th year of the Land Policy Conference. The papers and discussant commentaries are compiled in a conference volume published each spring, most recently Infrastructure and Land Policies, based on the Land Policy Conference last year. Previous topics have been:

Value Capture and Land Policies (2012)
Climate Change and Land Policies (2011)
Municipal Revenues and Land Policies (2010)
Property Rights and Land Policies (2009)
Fiscal Decentralization and Land Policies (2008)
Land Policies and Their Outcomes (2007)

The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy is a leading resource for key issues concerning the use, regulation, and taxation of land. Providing high-quality education and research, the Lincoln Institute strives to improve public dialogue and decisions about land policy.

SOURCE Lincoln Institute of Land Policy