Parents don't owe you a dime for YOUR wedding.

In the United States, middle class people like Loh generally have decent, even very good schools to send their children. Perhaps L.A. presents unique problems like New York city might present to the middle-class. However, the reality is that most middle-class people will be able to send their child to a good public school full of other middle-class children. Do we really need a rallying cry for that?

The real problem with public schools occurs at the poor end of the spectrum. Poor people generally have access to the least resources and this extends to schools. Sadly, their children will present the highest needs creating an enormous imbalance in which the "haves" continue to have and the "have nots" slip further behind. Until the day that our state and federal governments gets serious about meeting the educational needs of all children, this will continue to happen.

You're correct about private schools not taking special needs children. I love the way some parents think a private elementary is excellent and yet, get this, their children must take a test (and score well) to get in. As a teacher, I know that this is simply skewing the numbers so as to prevent challenging students from entering through those pricey doors.

However, you are quite wrong about special education students sucking up money from public schools. The mandates ensuring ALL children a Free and Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) are federal law. IDEA and NCLB are federal mandates. So, let me know (I'm just a special ed teacher): Where are the federal dollars ensuring that all interventions can be supported by funding? The federal government has never picked up more than about 18% of the cost of special education despite the federal mandates.

You wrote:

"Another thing about Special Ed

Most people don't realize that if a student has a severe disability and his or her zoned school cannot provide the appropriate learning environment, the school system has to pay for that child to attend a private, specialized school. Some private schools know and play this game well."

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No, this is really a game parents play. Many parents want a particular type of special education program NOT mandated under FAPE. They then sue their local school board claiming ineffective instruction. This avenue of legal redress has changed since 2007 and it is harder to fight a school district's educational plan as a parent.

Howver, IF a school clearly lacks the means to provide a Free and Appropriate Public Education for the severely disabled student, the parent can send their child to a private school- but not just any private school. This school must have the ability to meet the educational needs of the child. In my experience, most parents who have sought out this option were parents of Autistic children. This area of special education is finally catching up in public school systems. Schools now are providing extensive supports in speech and occupational therapy and are setting up appropriate behavioral interventions. This has meant that parents are not able to sue as easily under FAPE.

You're key problem is that you have failed utterly to account for what makes most public schools succeed or fail: students, families and communities. Give me any middle-class community and school population and I will give you mostly successful students with good achievement scores. Give me many poor students with challenging home lives and a dangerous and unsupportive community and I will have to work five times harder just to teach the same concepts.

This is the crux of why private schools APPEAR so good, they have the easiest students to teach and the most supportive parents. And when push comes to shove, they can always throw the kid out for poor behavior. How many children come into private schools with Emotional Behavioral Disorder? Try teaching these children without additonal, costly resources. Most private schools don't even bother. I am a special ed teacher in Philadelphia and I don't have any choice. I take what walks in the door, no matter what the learning or behavioral problems are and I must teach them.

Please people, look at the research. In the United States, achievement scores are most strongly correlated to socio-economic status. If you want to know if a school is doing a good job of teaching, look at achievement scores that are nationally normed and have information on comparisons to similar cohorts. Take a look at that private school's achievement scores are ask how many ESL students are in the population? Homeless children? Special Needs children?

It's easy to look successful when you aren't actually dealing with the problem. Public schools deal with the good and bad of every community across the nation. Private schools deal with, basically, the cream of the crop. Not exactly a challenging teaching job there.

The Phila. School District has the largest charter school experiment in the nation. How has it done? Not too well. Some good schools, some bad, some school leaders clearly violating laws amidst lax ethical guidleines.

The bottom line,however, in our NCLB world is this: Do charter schools drive achievemement better than public schools in Philadelphia? The answer is NO. Surprising? Not really. When charter schools are required to educate the same challenging population as the regular public school, they face enormous obstacles as well. That isn't to say change can't happen. However, it takes a mentality that looks beyond blaming teachers and unions and demands that real change happen in curriculum, teacher/student engagement and school climate. These changes can occur whether the school is charter or a regular public school.

As a note for those who are interested, one of the biggest agencies to take over schools in Philadelphia, the Edison group, just lost the control of several schools due to its inability to raise scores, promote a safe environment (a boy was raped by another student at Stetson Middle School), or to control costs.