[gruez]

>or maybe the people with education and resources decide to volunteer and fix their own community?

The prototypical wealthy person is a small business owner or a well paid professional/executive. It's likely that they're very busy, and the prospect of them spending Wednesday afternoons volunteering at their schools is... unlikely.

>if all of the greedy, self-interested, disengaged people decide to leave, how is that not an improvement?

It's a huge problem if they leave and take their tax dollars with them.

[mannyv]

In reality, stay at home moms in wealthy communities are literally and figuratively drivers of public (and private) education.

Our PTA raised two orders of magnitude more money than the one four miles away in a poorer area. And the classrooms were filled with parents doing teacher gruntwork - and they also kept an eye on all the kids.

It's hard to overstate how much a good PTA (and good parents) contribute, at least at the elementary school level.

[nothercastle]

The stay at home moms in those families have lots of free time and are often similarly capable and educated to their no-lifer dads. They just choose the mom job

[matrix87]

In this case less wealthy are worth the same in terms of headcount. The only advantage wealthy have from a tax perspective is if they move and pay property tax elsewhere