[alistairSH]

There are many reasonable criticisms of modern public schooling, but the claim that's it's completely broken (and needs burnt to the ground, as many conservatives will claim) is hyperbole and unhelpful to making actual productive change.

And the notion that private schooling (in general) is better is hard to believe. When we looked at private schools for our son, test scores and college admittance were only marginally higher and much of the gap was simple selection bias (private schools are not legally required to take all students, so don't deal with disabled, disadvantaged, or otherwise non-exceptional students). The only time private was substantially better was hyper-elite, hyper-expensive schools (Sidwell Friends, DC vs Paul VI, Fairfax vs the publics in FCPS).