seeker let me tell you why my parents really value education. Its an Asian perspective that rings bells with many of my British-Asian friends. I think it might interest you since I think you are generally interested in education, yes?
My father is only a few generations removed from scratching in bins and scavenging on Indian streets for food. Real grinding poverty. And only a couple removed from domestic servitude (aka slavery). His great-grandfather however struck lucky - he was a houseboy (urgh, what a hideous word) to a family who were a little different from the Raj norm - they spotted his innate intelligence, and paid for him to receive an education through to college level. This was a golden opportunity that few could dream of, and he worked his backside off late into the night every night, making sure he graduated top of his class. Who would waste such a chance?
With that step up, he was able to secure a job as a clerk, since he could read and write in 3 different languages, including, crucially, English. He received a salary, was able to marry, and to raise children who also went to school. They all also worked their butts off to make the most of the opportunity education afforded and made it to University (or equivalent for Indians in those days), eventually becoming doctors, lawyers, bankers and teachers. And the cycle repeated itself with the next generation, and the next, each climbing a little further away from the dungheap with every exam passed.
Social mobility was what education promised - a door to a world that they otherwise had no hope of accessing. So that's one reason why my family at least value education, because we don't forget what it has done for our family. Without it, Slumdog Millionnaire could have been my real life.
So my family rates schools where children work hard and achieve amazing exam success with no distraction from those who just can't be arsed. We value schools where bullying and the misery of being alone is less likely to be a distraction from studying - because that's what school is for in my parents eyes. Social mixing, life lessons, etc - you do that outside school (albeit my school friends were so diverse we did it in school as well) - school was for studying and not for anything else.
I'm a bit less hardcore myself, but would still be very pissed off if my DD didn't work really reall hard to achieve her very best, and would absolutely look for a school where she isn't an outsider with no mates, because who can study and achieve when you are under extreme emotional pressure.
Will post about my mother's experience later - also offers an interesting but diferent reason why we value education.