DaybyDay, good on you for investigating early. We looked at school track records and made our decision to select Kyrene from there. I would not chose differently if I had the choice. Our child was getting ready to start the 6th grade when we moved out here. Middle school here looked bad, as did the High School. The lower grades appear to be improving with the High School still having troubles.
Our child starts High School next year and we are happy with our choice. Did our child get cut off from friends/schoolmates because of the distance? Yes. Is our child excelling at a higher potential than would be possible in Maricopa? Definitely.
The kids are going to say they don't want this, or they do want that. Just keep in mind that you are looking out for their education. You (not the child) have to make the decision.
And don't buy into the guilt trip that will be placed on you if you decide to school outside Maricopa. It's nobodies business but yours. Maricopa still gets the Tax $$$.

Good Luck. It's a difficult decision. 

Do the local tax dollars continue feeding into the local school district? I was referring to our property taxes resofcopa. I'm not concerned with how much they get from the Feds.

Problem is, parents like Devil Dog keep hearing the "Sky is Falling" in MUSD and take their kids to KESD (Yes, it's Kyrene Elementary School District, not Kyrene Unified), taking the $4000 per child money with them (I wish it was $6000). As a result, those kids who could easily raise the levels of MUSD schools to "Highly Performing" or "Excelling" are doing it for Kyrene's bottom-of-the-barrel schools.

Not only do we need to close our borders, but also our school district boundaries. If you move to Maricopa, unless you want to pay for private education, you attend Maricopa schools.

Ha Ha Ha... N75194. You should get paid for your Stand Up comedy. We lock down Maricopa school boundaries  and you can add this one liner to your repertoire: Maricopa has now incorporated the new tag line for it's School District - All children left behind!

Will I get a refund from the government for counselling and body armor?

N75194... some of us DID try MUSD before moving on. We came from a Scottsdale excelling school where my daughter was in the gifted program, to Santa Cruz. Lesson learned. My daughter is in Legacy now, so we are still in Maricopa, but if Legacy were not here, we would have been going to Kyrene, or more likely, the Catholic school in Casa Grande. It sounds noble to say "send your kids to Maricopa schools", but in reality, unless things change, it's not a wise idea for many kids. There are exceptions, of course. Pima Butte seems to be a fantastic school. We all hope that the future of the district is positive, but for the time being, keeping our excelling kids in MUSD hurts our kids, and as a parent, you can't fault any one of us for making decisions to benefit our kids. We chose to have them, and in our particular case we feel that our children are our responsibility until they graduate from college. Waving a victory flag over a 3% raise in test scores is pathetic, and the kids in Maricopa deserve better. If they have to go elsewhere to get it, so be it. I'm not raising the next manager of Taco Bell.

What is so laughable is that N75194 really seems to believe that bringing back the Kyrene kids will increase the averages enough to make MUSD excel! I am pretty sure that it's not only smart kids outsourcing for quality education.  Perhaps the children that are already here need to be taught to a higher standard for those increased scores?

My son went to Lagos for first grade then we decided to try Legacy for his second grade.  He is ADHD and we choose not to medicate because its not that bad he can be guided by a great teacher.  Long story short Legacy did not work he is in Maricopa Elem and next my son and my kindergartener will both be going to Lagos.  As for friends we joined boyscouts up in the Lakewood Comm so that he would have activities with the kids he goes to school with in addition to all the kids we know here.  Its the best of both worlds and I like the enviroment much better at kyrene schools.

How dare she want something better for her children!