People hate it when I point out that putting their kids in government schools they are feeding at the public trough, just like the people who move into government projects.
People who put their kids in government schools are having their lifestyles subsidized by others just like people on food stamps or taking WIC checks are. But they hate to have that fact pointed out and really hate to face it.
Look, I’m not a fan of public schools but that’s because public schools are for everyone and I didn’t want my children being exposed to well, that. It was simply a mandatory that for 8 years of their life they would be in Catholic schools with a 90% Catholic student body because I wanted them to develop a strong sense of community identity that they will need when they get out in the world and have to deal with non-Catholics. When I did send some to private schools that were not run by the church I picked schools that still had large Catholic student bodies. That’s just me. I didn’t want my children going to schools where they would have had classmates from Evangelical Protestant religions as well as the kids who might have atheist or agnostic parents (as rare as that would be here) but that’s just me. Other parents might want their kids exposed to that kind of background
However, we do need to have public schooling to remain economically competitive and also because we’ve had it for 150 years at least in most parts of the country and it has become a time honored American tradition. Now, I support charter schools and the like but ripping up the public schools is a bad idea. It’s not like a gun is cocked to your head and you’re forced to go or anything. It’s simply that many parents don’t want to make the financial sacrifices to send their kids to private schools but I have seen more than a few kids at my kids schools be picked up in 30 year old rusted out cars so I know there are people who make the sacrifices.
Suburban sprawl has been fueled by access to tuition-free government schooling. Developers know that once a suburban development is built, tuition-free government schools will soon follow ( with no cost to the developer, of course.)
And...My husband and I like to ski. Countless times we have followed the big yellow prison ( oops! “school”) buses up narrow mountain roads to pick up the children living in multi-multi-million dollar homes on fragile alpine slopes.