but I don't know of a single case where that came to fruition, do you? The devil is in this detail: "cannot provide the appropriate learning environment." School districts regularly define "appropriate" differently than the dissatisfied parents. I believe there has been the occasional costly lawsuit to force the issue, but this is not something much exploited around here, mainly b/c the public districts certainly do not advertise this "right." It would be a real financial drag on the system, so I'm not altogether unhappy about it, but I do think that most people who want out, and want their district to pay for it, are in good-faith looking for a better place for their kids. Most of the time, public school is the best place for the disabled or learning-challenged child.

In the past generation an entire demographic of people (educated, middle-to-upper class, primarily white but not exclusively) have decided that suburbs were for squares, and turned their back on the decision of their parents. They decamped to the closest city and decided to stay if at all possible even when the kids came.

Thus, one of the greatest rearanging of the deck chairs is occuring within America. The Yuppies (or whatever the hell you want to call them.) have decided to push out the mostly poor, mostly minority, less privileged families and residents.

However, this process does not occur over night. It can take years - and decades - to completely displace a community, so the new residents (who occasionally - in a fit of irony that they did not know they possessed - refer to themselves as urban pioneers) are stuck with less than stellar schools. So, rather than moving to the suburbs where the squares live (although they frequently have to commute to these same suburbs for work), they torture themselves to find the "right" school, whether it be private, charter, magnet, or the periodic neighborhood school.

My criticism is not to forbid this shuffling of the deck from occuring, or to argue it does not come with some benefits. (e.g., more money in city coffers can assist remaining - but shrinking - poorer communities offer better municipal services.) Rather, I just wish people would be more honest with themselves. Affluent (or at least middle class), educated professionals want to be surrounded by people who share common values. In essence, they are perpetrating the same process their parents did. However . . . this new scenario is creating dislocation issues that did not occur in the past, and cannot and should not be ignored.

Could it be defined as comedy if the people who Ms. Loh and her ilk pushed out of their community ended up in her parent's home someday?

One of the main culprits of this evolving issue is that people have become consumed with the concept of living in the "city". You can actually develop relationships and live an enriching life regardless of your zip code. Plenty of narrow minded, uninteresting people have gravitated to the city because they feel it is the only "authentic" experience. It would not shock me in the least if in 10-20 years, the next generation believes city residents are dull and homogenous, and trek to more heterogenous communities in the 'burbs. (Crazier things have occured.)

To answer the question posed by the author of the article, once the urban renewal folks push the remaining original city folks out of their community, Ms. Loh will be able to sleep soundly at night.

One of the main culprits of this evolving issue is that people have become consumed with the concept of living in the "city".

A nice guy I know who loves animals and went to adopt a "mutt" from the "pound" just told me something unsettling that he learned: Apparently so many well-intended east coasters (He lives in Maine) are into saving "mutts," that breeders in the Midwest, like the Amish puppy mills here in Ohio, deliberately cross breed thoroughbreds to make mutts, to appease the self-congratulatory sensibilities of the politically correct. As it turns out, they're not really "saving" anybody; they're adding to the population.

Comedy, indeed.

Thanks for your post. I love straight talk.

I went to a famous private school in the midwest. Most of our graduating class went to ivy league schools or Stanford. I hated the school and I have no respect for anyone who graduated with me. Some of them are rich, most of them have never done a thing except hang out in their home city. I vowed never to send my kids to private schools. I now live I a place with several famous private schools. The kids drive Jags to school and live with a profound sense of entitlement. I sent my kids to public schools. They've all done well and learned to get along in lots of circumstances and with lots of kinds of kids. BUt you have to make up your mind ahead of time. If you know you are going to use public schools, then you have to live somewhere where the public schools are good, which means that you have to plan. The information is out there.

I ran a tutoring agency for 10 years. A lot of my clients were public-school kids. One of my students came to me as a 10th grader; at our first session, I saw that she counted on her fingers. When I asked her about it, she said "Oh, my teacher does it too."

Another child, also a public-school kid, came to me because her teacher was teaching in such a disorganized fashion, and confusing the class so much, that the child was actually evaluated for a learning disability. She didn't have one - her teacher had a teaching disability. This child was in 6th grade and could not solve a problem on the order of "If I have two apples, and you have three more apples than I do, how many do you have?" Basic, basic stuff. Once she got some real teaching, she went from D's to A's in no time at all; the problem was the teacher, not the student.

Then there was the kid who, in 8th grade, had a basic question about logarithms. She asked her teacher; the teacher didn't know the answer. The teacher called in another teacher, who couldn't answer either. Eventually, they all went to the head of the math department at the school, who couldn't figure it out either. I was an undergraduate student at the time, and I thought it was an easy question.

I could go on for pages and pages. I could write a book about my tutoring years. But I will just say that the problem with public schools is that, for the most part, they do not deliver an education that will enable a child to succeed. Yes, art and music classes are nice - but Ms. Loh would do better to see just what the math and English teachers are doing, and how qualified they are to do what they're doing. Music and art are all fine and good, and schools should offer them, but if the kids are still counting on their fingers by the time they're in high school, they'll be well-nigh unemployable.