It seems to me that the public education system is so broken that it would essentially have to be torn down to the studs and completely rebuilt to be usable. I am inundated by teachers among my family and friends so I understand a lot of what you are talking about. But the rot is so deep and so extensive I’m not sure I see a process for renovation and maybe just bulldozing everything and starting over is what’s necessary.

So in your opinion how do we fix the current system? Do we abolish the Dept of Ed and make school districts entirely the purview of state and local governments? Do we make educator’s unions illegal? Does anything we do with the school system even matter since from what you say most of the problems are from things outside the school’s control like poverty and a shitty home life.

Doesn’t the current system of funding public schools result in the exact same concentration of resources you are worried about occurring in the private sector? It’s just applied to communities rather than families in the current system. Schools are funded in large part through property taxes so even now the more wealthy kids in the burbs are getting better schools than the kids from the hood. What is a better way to fund schools?

I very much see where you are coming from when you describe the cultural and societal issues that are adversely effecting students. I also understand the concern that a completely privatized system would leave a large segment of students behind. But in the current situation everyone is pulled down by the lowest functioning students. Currently many of our public schools are not fulfilling their duty for any students. So maybe a system that fulfills it’s duty to 50% of the students is a reasonable answer.

In many ways in a local context I agree with you. Simply abandoning public schools usually isn’t the answer. But that’s easy for me to say. I live in a rural area with small schools where a few people who actually care and are driven can make a huge difference. I live in a conservative county and state which makes change achievable. But at the same time I recognize that such change is simply impossible in many areas and as you pointed out the votes of the kids in the crappy public schools elsewhere will vastly outnumber my kid’s votes. So maybe burn it all down is the least worst option. I cannot think of any perfect solution that will provide high quality education to every single child in the US, but maybe a system where at least some of the children are able to get a good education is a start or a step in the right direction.