What Loh is saying is true about ANY school, public, private, rich, or poor. When the parents are engaged and involved, amazing things can happen. When the parents check out, the kids know it and act accordingly, with or without money.

In Freakonomics (my favorite book) the author did a fabulous study on the Chicago public schools, on the subject of the "good" schools and the "bad" schools. Chicago has a completely open system--anyone can apply to any school, and either gets in or not. Which provides an excellent large data pool for a statistician to play with.

So the question is, what happens to those kids who got in to the "good" school, and those kids who didn't?

He ran all the numbers, for thousands and thousands of kids. Take two essentially identical kids (similar families, parental education levels, income, etc.). One goes to the "good" school, one goes to the "bad" school. And the outcome at the end? Statistically?

THE SAME. The kids come out the same, regardless of school.

The author's conclusion was that the home life makes far more difference than the school. Parental expectation and support is what's important.

Grad Student, do you really think this is a recent or coastal development? Sorry, but YOU are the one with a pretty glib view. The problem of the fear of public schools and the tendency to send kids to private has been going on since the 50's.

I went to a suburban high school in the 60's. It was the first suburb my family had lived in. I was shocked to find out that many of my schoolmates had grown up in this burb and never been to the art museum, the symphony, or even in downtown Cleveland, even though there was a public bus that went straight to downtown (which I hopped on a dozen times before school even started.) The prevailing opinion was that as soon as you entered downtown you would be mugged, kidnapped or converted to the life of a streetwalker, or worse, rock musician with a needle in the arm. By the early 70's anyone with some money to scrape up sent their kids to the parochial schools if they couldn't afford the suburbs. Things haven't changed much since then and you can find this situtation all over the country, big cities and small.

I found Sandra's interview fascinating and I look forward to reading her book. I'm part of the baby boomer cohort that she blames for this shambles, but I feel no guilt, since my husband and I managed to navigate two children through our city public school system and we all lived to tell the tale. Not only did my kids survive, they were in plays, played instruments, made friends, went on field trips, all the while learning to read, write and add well enough to go on to college. Not too shabby.

I agree with the author that many boomer parents sometimes don't know how to cope if they can't buy their way out of a problem. I saw many instances, especially in high school, where parents would buy supplies, costumes, lunches for the teachers, you name it, in an effort to get their son or daughter noticed, and possibly to jack up a grade. I think sometimes it worked, but most of the time, thankfully, it did not.

I would advise any parent who think they are "stuck" with public education to get off their high horse and get to know their kid's school, principal, school secretary and teachers. Go to the conferences, plays, festivals, what have you, not as a consumer demanding results, but as a parent willing to help the staff and your child get the best results. Let THEM tell you what they need. Stop reading main stream media crap and opinion (what the hell do they know, since they send their kids to private schools?) and look at the evidence or your own and your kid's experience. And be prepared to do battle when you have to, but then that's life isn't it?

I wanted to say, too, that I generally reject this kind of framing: I think both sides of the debate would benefit from talking to the other side, because in Amy's original article and in most of the responses, there was no such tribalism going on.

Who are the two sides? Why the binary thinking? Personally, I respect the choices of all my neighbors and friends and relatives and am not threatened by whatever they choose to do with their kids. Most thoughtful people look at the options and choose what's overall best for their family. I know a woman who secretly gloried in the transfer of a local family's kids from a private school to the public; she admitted that she felt satisfaction that the more elite opportunity had ended in failure. That's just small.

It's foolish to suggest that all public schools are the right choice for all children; in fact, it's one of the overwhelming blind spots of teachers' unions and advocates. I'm a huge advocate for the public schools in a very public way; I vote for all the levies here in Ohio and support the teachers in every way. But they can improve, and nobody should sacrifice their particular child who has a particular personality and learning style, at the alter of the concept of public schooling. One can advocate for them even as one makes use of something better for their very own children. Hopefully at some future point, they will serve everyone well.

Again, there aren't "two sides." There are only concerned parents and individual children looking for what's right for them.

...Those kids are harder than %#&! to educate.

Americans don't have to choose between the two, that's my point. Your words:

"Many, many people go through schools of education because they had trouble in schools themselves and want to "pay back" somehow, or because they couldn't cut it in other, more difficult courses of study."

How many people do you know to whom this actually applies? I would hope that it is very few, if any, regardless of occupation. Can you imagine a doctor going through medical school to "pay back" the doctors who messed him or her up? I certainly don't know anyone who lasted longer than a year as a teacher who was not both knowledgable about subject matter and loving. But those who were only knowledgable quit in the first week. Knowledge alone can get you very far in fields where you don't interact with people, but in teaching people skills are an absolute must, and to insist on knowledge and advanced degrees (if there are teachers out there who can afford them before they start working) as a measure of teaching ability is to do yourself (as an administrator) a deep disservice.

And cliches exist for a reason.