[jtbigwoo]

Not to mention that there are magnet high schools that do very much like the perceived prestige of having PhD level instructors. Your typical public high school wouldn't care, of course.

That's not true everywhere. Where I live, there's nearly unlimited public school choice and school districts must reimburse each other at a state-mandated rate for transferred students. Especially in poorer districts, this rate is generally higher than the per-student funding the schools receive for in-district students. (I've heard it's up to $1500/year more.) Individual schools that can recruit students by offering specialized programs (languages, music, science, etc.) can increase their funding quite a bit.