"If the parents don't like it, they always have the option of private school."
Spoken like a true liberal: government takes your money, educates your kids any way they want, then - when it goes against the values you are trying to instill in your children - expects you to come up with the extra thousands to put them into a private school. The fallacy of your argument is that probably most parents - due to financial reasons - do not "have the option of private school."
My parents did it. Sometimes you gotta work with the situation as it is, not as you want it to be.