[WalterBright]

Caltech freshman physics dispensed with 2 years of my high school physics in about 2 lectures. After that the piano fell on me, and I was in deep doo doo, with 2 years of physics required for graduation. My "honors" high school chemistry class fared even worse.

While I had a fine time in high school, hanging with my friends and mucking about with muscle cars, helpful in college it was not.

[burgessaccount]

Okay, well I had the opposite experience, and found that my public high school had made me over-prepared for Yale, to the point that writing 20 page papers was easy. One individual, anecdotal experience proves nothing. That is why I pointed to the overall statistics on high school graduates. Perhaps some public high schools do not make some people fully ready for Caltech (I wouldn’t expect them to??) but that doesn’t mean they aren’t a net economic good. Public schools set a good floor that the best private schools can expensively surpass; public colleges should set a good floor that the best private colleges expensively surpass; public health care should set a good floor that private health care can expensively surpass, etc. that is a more effective system for balancing quality and cost than the current unchecked subsidies for private systems

[WalterBright]

While I only attended one high school, as an Air Force brat I attended many public elementary schools. They were all the same low quality.

I'm sure there are many quality public schools. But I don't believe they are the norm.