To the editor:

The Mehlville School District’s tax victory will not solve the fundamental problem.

Millions of low-skilled but high-paying jobs have disappeared. Most young home buyers have low salaries and heavy debt. Home sellers must reduce prices down to those low salaries. Declining school revenues will negate the 49-cent increase.

A low-cost solution: Wealthy parents often choose all-boys or all-girls schools for higher ACT, or American College Testing, scores. In coed schools, students waste half of every day falling in and out of love. But in single-sex schools, students stay focused on academics.

All-boys or all-girls public schools can make Mehlville Missouri’s No. 1 district for the highest ACT scores — a powerful magnet to high-income home buyers. Pair neighboring elementary schools, and pair the four middle schools: one school all-girls, the other school all-boys. Mehlville High: all-boys; Oakville High: all-girls.

If Catholic and Lutheran schools also become all-boys or all-girls, even more high-income people will buy homes in Mehlville and Oakville. Home prices, automobile and retail sales will climb.

Schools will have strong revenue.

A perfect ACT score is 36. Mehlville’s 2013 22.6 ACT average is mediocre. Further, 28 percent of Mehlville students do not take the ACT test. So Mehlville’s real average is probably only 18 — very weak. Few athletes get rich from sports. But every student with an ACT score of 30 can become a millionaire. ACT study should begin in kindergarten.

All-boys or all-girls schools are the easiest way to an ACT average score of 30 — and high-paying non-college jobs, college scholarships and lucrative college graduate careers.