Quote Originally Posted by JLC
It's VERY hard to get a really good idea of what schools and/or districts are best in an area you are unfamiliar with. Your best bet is to talk with someone who's lived there for a long time and has an interest in and familiarity with the local school systems. But...to do some comparing yourself, here is a site that helped me:


http://www.psk12.com/rating/index.php

Also, google the Department of Education for the state you have in mind and you may come up with a site like this one for AZ...

http://www.ade.az.gov/srcs/find_school.asp

That one was very helpful for me when we moved to Tucson. Hopefully other states have something similarly useful.

I try to narrow down school districts I want to get my kids into and then look for real estate within those neighborhoods...rather than falling in love with a house that happens to be attached to crummy schools.

I've never really done a cost-of-living comparison because we don't get to choose where we move to. But here's a great site for finding virtually any available real estate listing in your area, with very customizable search features:

http://realty.com/ That's my favorite site for browsing for homes in a new area.
That definitely helps. I don't know ANYONE in this area, but this 'promotion' keeps coming up. It's NOT where I would like to move, but like you sometimes I don't have a choice.

I'll start there and see what I can find. THANKS!