[_jasper]

I think there's a real possibility that the new Google employees and their kids would "make" the schools in their Kansas town better, through a bunch of different mechanisms. I live in an excellent school district in the rural middle of nowhere, and it's 100% because of the large state university that happens to be here.

[desas]

In the long term for sure, but for individual families considering to relocate they're looking at the short term. How long does it take to "make" the schools better, and how many of the ten or so years your child is in education before the level gets back to what they already have.

[brownbat]

Kansas City already has a mix of great and terrible schools, like every metro area, segregated mostly by the cost of living in that particular district.

They'd probably just move to the wealthier suburbs or send kids to high quality private schools.

Longer term, having a solution for schools that doesn't create such radical disparities between districts mere miles apart would be in everyone's interest, but that's a broader national problem.