Twenty-first century education reform shifted the pursuit of public education from democratic principles to the pursuit of private interests for individual benefit. Reasoning from an applied behavior economic theoretical framework assumes consumers seeking economic benefits from their public schools will seek public schools with more resources. This market approach to public education legitimized by education reform has fostered a demand for homeownership in close proximity of well-funded public schools. A review of the literature suggests a relationship between high property values and schools with more resources. There is a gap in the literature on understanding the type of public school information, and the sources of public school information that contribute to consumers decision making when seeking homes in proximity of well-funded schools. The research questions were exploratory and sought to answer: 1) What are common consumer public school inquiries made to real estate professionals? 2) What objective public school information sources do real estate professionals share with consumers? The aim of this exploratory study provided better understanding on consumer access to governed public school information during the homebuying process for future research about economics drivers of the growing relationship between high property values and public schools that are well-funded. The nature of this study was qualitative, exploratory, and nonexperimental. A single case study research design provided an in-depth look at licensed real estate professionals' experiences in disseminating public school information to consumers searching for homes in proximity of well-funded schools in Fairfax County, Virginia. Sources of data for this case study were a non-probability sampling of seven licensed real estate professionals with varied backgrounds practicing real estate in Fairfax County. Data for the semi-structured interviews was collected using an interview protocol, audio recording, and transcription services. A thematic analysis approach was used to inductively analyze the experiences of real estate professionals when disseminating public school information to consumers in the homebuying process. The main findings of this study are that public school information was not a priority inquiry in the homebuying process, and consumer private interests are contextual and driven by social factors. Furthermore, consumer inquiries about public schools were not consistent with existing literature on consumer private interests in public schools. Consumer public school information inquiries that did occur in the homebuying process prioritized proximity to programs, and consumers did not explicitly cite well-funded schools in their inquiries. The most significant result was how varied interpretations of fair housing laws limited real estate professionals' dissemination of public school information to consumers. This study is significant because it contradicted much of the literature about consumers' private interests in well-funded public schools. It did not provide more information about the overall research aim to better understand the relationship between high value properties and well-funded schools, yet it met a primary aim of exploratory research, which is to determine at an early stage if a topic is worth further study (Maxwell, 2013). The findings of this study still yields professional applications for real estate professionals, educators, and consumers as well as policy implications for public school information governance in education reform and an increased awareness for digital steering by search engine algorithms. Additionally the results of this study legitimized applied behavior economics as a theoretical framework to analyze education reform policies. Opportunities for further research suggest an exploration of a "return on information" and include investigation on the following three areas: public school information sources available to consumers online, available public school content published online, and the relationship between search engine algorithms and consumer information acquisition online.