Analysis · Education · Inequality
School zoning is sold as a principle of republican equality. In reality, it does exactly the opposite: it reserves the best schools for families who can afford to live in good neighbourhoods. Access to quality education is rationed by rent price — not by the child's merit.
They tell you public school is free. Technically true — but accessing the best public school has a very real price: you must live in the right zone. And that zone costs money. Rents incorporate school quality: the better the school, the higher the price per square metre. This isn't a coincidence — it's the mechanism.
The concrete result: in major French cities, the annual rent surcharge for being in the right zone often exceeds the fees of a good private school. The "free public" service therefore costs more than fee-paying private schooling — but the cost is hidden in the rent rather than itemised on a bill.
School zoning is defended in the name of equality. But look at who actually benefits. Working-class families renting in a poor zone have no exit: they can't move, they can't choose another school, and they can't pay for private schooling. They are locked in place.
Affluent families have always had two exits: move to the right zone (paying the property premium) or switch to private school. School zoning has never trapped the wealthy — it only traps the poor, while presenting itself as a shield against inequality.
The boundary between two school zones can run along a single street. On one side: a well-funded school, experienced teachers, motivated peers. On the other: an under-resourced school, high teacher turnover, a socially homogeneous disadvantaged intake. Same walk to school. Vastly different life outcomes.
This boundary has a documented market value. Economists Gabrielle Fack and Julien Grenet compared, street by street in Paris, the prices of apartments on either side of school zone boundaries. Result: just a few hundred metres apart, the same apartment costs on average 17% more on the right side — a difference explained only by school zoning. SeLoger (2023) confirms this gap across all major French cities.
In 1992, Sweden abolished school zoning and introduced free school choice for everyone. After thirty years: parental satisfaction sharply increased, test scores remain stable, and social mixing didn't collapse — contrary to the catastrophist predictions of the time.
The Netherlands has practised free school choice since 1917. Belgium since the 1950s. Denmark, Germany, Finland all allow families to choose their children's school in the public sector — and their PISA scores are better than ours. France is the exception, not the norm.
Every time school choice comes up, the same objections appear. Let's see what they're actually worth against the evidence.
School zoning set out to guarantee equal access to education. It produced the exact opposite: a system where your child's school quality depends on the price of your rent. Meanwhile, affluent families cheerfully bypass the system — through moving, private schools, specialist streams. This is not republican solidarity. It's educational apartheid dressed up as equality. The solution is not to better manage the assignment — it's to give every family the choice that only the wealthy have today.