I apologize for a slight high jacking of the thread.
House_of_cards,
You have made a few references to the quality of schools, and forgive me if I am assuming here, but I am not sure if you are aware of the dark side of the schools you think highly of. Just because a school looks good on paper, doesn't mean it is as good as it appears. I will give you my opinion, and the €2 it is not worth, but I hope you find the real life info relevant.
The Villa Park schools do have the not great areas feed into it. Kodiak street, (which is around the way from the Baldwin property), feeds into Vila Park. I do not know you, but I wouldn't want for you to drive down Kodiak at night, whether I knew you or not. I wouldn't be concerned with the quality of the school, if I knew who my kid was walking home with. This is something to highly consider. Are you going to be able to pick up your kid or kids from school everyday? If not, then think about who will be around them when you are not. There has been, and will always be, politics at VP. Especially with regards to sports. A lot of sports related families have lived, or are living in the VP area. IIRC Bret Boone still holds the record for the most homeruns at VPH. You should check to see how many of the coaches are teachers. When I was there, there was a lot of favoritism going on. VP also has "old money", (old for Cali, but not east coast old money), and it has new money. This makes for a lot of superficial ideals, and a lot of money sloshing around. I grew up thinking the LV bag came standard with the Mercedes, and it is a joke to this day amongst friends. With money comes drugs. High quality, and easily available drugs. There has never been, nor will there ever be, a shortage of quality drugs at VP. In the late 90s there was a high profile cocaine drug bust, that involved a VP kid. Granted, the dumb ass behind it all (not the VP kid), drove around in a new Ferrari every week, but none the less a VP kid was involved. VP has had it's share of crap go down. Google the Hamberian family, to see what I mean.
Sunny Hills, or aka Scummy Hills, has had it's share of crap too. If you haven't seen <a href="http://www.betterlucktomorrow.com/">Better Luck Tomorrow</a>, then I recommend that you do. It is loosely based on <a href="http://www-personal.umich.edu/~froomkin/texts/366.html">the Stuart Tay murder</a>. Scummy hills has had, and continues to have gang issues. BLT touches on the subject, but these gangs are the real deal, and should be feared at the highest degree. Wah Ching is feared, but the Triad connections make it worse. And, the Korean gangs can be nasty too, especially with the jopok connections. Again, being in the worst area of the district could mean your kid/s will be around the people from that area. I am sure there are plenty of good kids in the area, but more likely they will be a negative influence.
IMO, there are schools to avoid, but even the ones that look good on paper have their faults. Personally, if I had kids I would want them to go to Irvine schools, and I would still be skeptical. I have several friends, who graduated from Irvine public schools, and they all can relate to the above. I would rather my kid/s go to <a href="http://www.lilaschool.com/">LILA</a>, <a href="http://www.materdei.org/pages/sitepage.cfm?page=147870">Mater Dei</a>, or my favorite <a href="http://www.ocsarts.net/">OCHSA</a>. I really wish OCHSA was around when I went to high school. And, they have their issues too.
So there is my €2, if it is worth that. I think it has more to do with the whole package as to how a kid will do in school. I do not think the school is what makes the student successful, but the surroundings are just as important, if not more.