If you wish to keep your child away from the bootless and unhorsed, private schools are certainly the way to go.
However, if the bootless and unhorsed were ever to find their way into the private schools (which, for various reasons, they will not), the supposed advantages of private schools would cease to exist.
Much-ballyhooed private school teachers would be predictably clueless in dealing with the general population. Also, without public schools, there would be no place to put all our kids. Wealthy, tax-cut craving right-wingers who cry endlessly for vouchers are well-aware of this, and would not hesitate to dump the undesirables out on the street. It makes good economic sense. NYC could be the next Bombay or Rio, and tax-cut savings could be used to erect tall fences.
Why not? Their kids don’t attend public schools anyway. Rudy Giuliani wanted to force welfare recipients to work in public schools, reasoning that people chronically unable to find work were adequate role models for kids like mine, who attend public schools.
All things being equal, this study shows little benefit for private and charter schools other than de facto segregation. Those who don't wish to hear the results, like the government that commissioned the study, can simply ignore it. That’s what GW’s government tends to do with inconvenient facts anyway.
Shame on this country for turning its back on public education for so long. Shame on politicians who promote vouchers, knowing full well they don’t give a damn about kids like those I teach.
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