There's also substantial fraud to game the system to get into the few "good" schools.
At the high school level, it's VERY competitive to get into the top schools, and by all accounts, you don't want to send your kids to the run-of-the-mill highs.
As I have lived in NYC most of my life, and never lived in a suburb, I can't comment on what the ex-pats do/think. I *do* know several families who left NYC for CT because their kids didn't get into a decent private school here.
This really all boils down to the madness of government schooling linked to specific pieces of real estate.
But that is what the northerners moving to Charlotte are trying to do. Essentially, the large school district there doesn't make it advantageous to live in a specific suburb, thus the migrants are trying to change that. The irony that many on the thread are pointing to is that northern liberal politicians foisted this setup on the south, a situation that didn't exist in the north, and now they're moving down there and they don't like it.
However, I would encourage all the westsiders to stay and make the schools better rather than coming to New Jersey and voting for McGreevey!