[jmaistre]

I hope we can agree that inequality of opportunity is an intrinsically bad thing.

If parents are allowed to invest in their own children, then inherently, you have inequality of opportunity, since parents have different means and will invest different amounts.

while at the same time worrying about a system that allows Harvard attendees like Mark Zuckerberg to do that but provides virtually no opportunity for students at Orr Academy High School in Lawndale to get to Harvard

If Harvard accepted 10X as many students, it would not be Harvard. If Harvard accepted students based on a lottery, it would not be Harvard. Other than increase financial aid even more, it is not clear what additional actions Harvard could do to increase equality of opportunity, that it is not already doing.

[mabbo]

Where I'm from (Ontario) there are not very many private elementary or high schools- some, yes, but not many. A good friend of mine went to one, and his parents paid something like $20k per year for him to have that extras opportunity. He's a smart guy, and maybe his schooling was part of that.

But the reason there aren't that many is that the public sector schools are pretty good. Not perfect, but pretty good compared to what we see in many American states. Teachers jobs are hard to get because they're paid well (and yes, they have a strong union, but let's not derail this point into an argument about their merits). As a result there are very diminishing returns on private schools for kids, and so they aren't so common.

What this means is that most kids are being given an equal opportunity, the same strong education, at the cost of slightly higher taxes. We accept that, generally.

The choices when it comes to left or right leaning policies come down to how much society in general invests in children's future vs how much each parent must invest in their own child's future. When you push too far to the right, the entirety of the child's future is based on how much the parent can invest- and when that happens, we have inequality of opportunity.

[microcolonel]

There are 230 private primary and secondary schools in Ontario, most of them are lakeward.

I attended four TDSB schools and I must say, they were pretty awful.

Thankfully I got out of that system before high school. I might have gotten involved with the gangs and hard drug trade associated with my nearest high school.