Behind it all is this sense of a fast-crumbling "community". Hey, this is what you wanted! Diversity, all-inclusive blended cultures, with no regimented "values"! The unfortunate part of it is, we can't just create something better by throwing everyone together at will, in one person's lifetime. It is a true paradox: to achieve real diversity, we must have "segregation", otherwise, we achieve confusion in people of an impressionable age. Ms. Loh, an admirable character, already inadvertently shows just how much "class" distinction we have already achieved . disigny

. . . is entering late middle age on the arm of Lou Reed.

You go to college, don't get married, don't have kids, become Laurie Anderson, make all this money and sing your song. And then our 30s came along, and reality set in.

Sandra got a guitar player too, and probably one with a better personality.

First of all, I am so delighted Amy Reiter is back--yay--you are back, right? Second, I could just substitute Sandra Tsing Loh's name with my own. All of it, from Laurie Anderson to the ignorant fear of public schools to the Costco comparison, rings 100 percent true.

I had one disagreement, though. It is not true that when you write a check to private school your work is done. Far from it. My sons went to parochial school (until I woke up and sent them to public) and my husband and I were on an endless marathon of volunteering, canned forced socializing and fundraising. Nothing, and I do mean nothing, was too much to ask. Gift basket donations for the gala, manning the snack shack at games, teaching after school classes and digging deep into the pockets...The list was endless and the demands relentless.

I had the same absurd fear of public schools, as though I had failed my children somehow by not ensconcing them in a Friends Day School with farm animals and a babbling brook on the campus for science projects. When I walked into the elementary school in our neighborhood--for the first time!--I was greeted by Central Casting's Perfect School Secretary and so began a lovely change in my son's life. He left Catholic school mid year and never looked back. He said, "I didn't know school could be FUN."

Ouch.

Great article, great topic, great interview.

I'm ready for some live Yo-Yo Ma and $10 Glenlivet now. Good job with the tomatoes, though.

The destruction of public education is no accident. The elite want a uninformed public that does not question authority and that is exactly what we have. It is too late America. We had a chance when we had a chance and we blew it. It's too late. The youth are lost and so are the parents. Blind cannot lead the blind and the media is too powerful for a few well meaning souls to overcome their global influence. Try snapping America out of its brainwashed, consumerist, government-fearing state and see how far you get. Game, set, match people. Maybe next time Americans will listen, if there is a next time which I highly doubt. Enjoy what's left of your lives. We have already fallen off the cliff so there is no going back.

The third page was the best. Parents need to be involved with their kids' schools; parents and educators need to respect each other and the valuable work each does in raising the next generation of citizens.

Public school educators and staff are overworked, underpaid, hampered by federal mandates and local budgets. But most of them are dedicated to their work (they would have to be, given the economic and social status of public education).

They are also professionals, not hired help who are waiting to be ordered about by high-strung parents (and, on the flip-side, parents have the right to ensure their kid isn't slipping through the cracks).

The beauty of public school is that it's public: everyone who pays taxes or attends the school has a "say" in how things operate. It takes time and effort, but it's well worth it.

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.

Your letter is a poignant description of how hard it is to teach in certain schools. It also makes the case for parents who opt out of said schools.

I think it's pretty clear that schools vary all over this country, and they are unevenly funded. I'll point again to Jonathan Kozol (Savage Inequalities), who, to the question, "Do you think we can just solve the problem by throwing more money at it?" says "Hell, yeah."

There are so very many points made throughout this thread that resonate with my personal experience, and they are not all lined up "in favor of" or "against" public schools. It's a mixed bag.

Furthermore, goals matter. For example, is each LW looking to improve America? or looking for a good education for a particular child? Great if both goals can be accomplished at once. This is not always the case. Your own description of your own experience is as likely to send salon parents running to private schools as it is to make them feel sorry for you and want to do more in a general way to improve education in America.

As for my remaining a substitute, there are myriad financial and family reasons for my decision, none of which concern anyone here. But please don't shoot the messenger. My experience is real, and it's valuable information. I have mentioned ad nauseum that it's not necessarily representative, and in fact is not what I see at my own children's suburban public schools. (Back to the unfair funding issues.) But at almost every school I've been involved with, compliance is king. This is not so much a topic for public vs. private but for schooling in general. A topic for another day...