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Comment by sedachv | Hacker News Reader

> I'm ashamed to admit that I like private schools, but wow, have they been good for my kids.

Nothing to be ashamed about. You want the best for your children and private schools get more money.

The problem is not that private schools are better, but that public schools are so much worse. The people feeling shame should be the politicians who have worked and continue to work to dismantle the public education system (in large part motivated by religious fundamentalists seeking to replace public education with voucher-based religious schools), and the people that vote for them.

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>in large part motivated by religious fundamentalists seeking to replace public education with voucher-based religious schools

This can't possibly be the reason. Otherwise the bay area would have the best schools in the nation because religion here is borderline illegal.

What is the relationship between proportion of non religious people and quality of schools? There a few factors of bad schools, and along with it a less than ideal group to classmates. Wealth seems to be the primary problem, as it creates unstructured homes and poorly funded schools. Another problem is religious parents who want to teach children that lack of evidence is a good thing. The fact that the latter want to divert taxpayer funds for their own agenda is also a cause for bad schools, as it diverts funds from public schools.

FWIW Bay Area public high schools are ranked some of the best in the nation.

> in large part motivated by religious fundamentalists seeking to replace public education with voucher-based religious schools

This is preposterous.

Public schools have been neutered by deep budget cuts by politicians of all parties who, along with their boosters, can afford to send their children to private schools. School budgets rely heavily on taxes (which politicians cut for political gain), state/federal grants, and programs like state lotteries.

The wealthy alumni of private schools, denomination be damned, bankroll candidates and in return the politicians push programs to force kids out of public school. They also fill the curriculum with inferior text books based on handshake agreements with publishers and drop standards to maximize the number of "successes".

TL;DR - adults fail to value the education system, watching those who can afford it send their kids to private schools, so people want more money in their pocket (less taxes) to pay for private school or demand "options" - like vouchers.

> This is preposterous.

There is overwhelming evidence that this is exactly what the current United States Secretary of Education DeVos' motivations are:

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/01/betsy-devos-chri...

I think the difference is not that public school systems are being dismantled but that a higher percentage of private school parents value education and are engaged in their childrens' learning.

> a higher percentage of private school parents value education and are engaged in their childrens' learning

It's just not true.

Higher income families can afford to take more time off, especially salaried workers, and are often two-parent households. This gives those parents time that hourly-based workers, poor, or single-parent households literally can not afford to spare.

They don't love or "value" their children's education any less, but they are in a situation where being as involved as those more fortunate than them is so much more difficult.

Malcolm Gladwell has written about this - https://www.amazon.com/Outliers-Kimberly-McCreight/dp/006235...

Wrong link, you're partially agreeing with the parent (they ARE less engaged), and I don't really buy that all parents at all socioeconomic levels believe in the power of education equally. I came from lower to middle socioeconomic levels and most of my peers came from families that DEFINITELY did not value education highly.

California public schools seem to be, on average, much worse off than non-california schools.

One obvious reason is that, relative to cost-of-living, the per-student funding is incredibly low in costal Revenue Limit[1] districts (this distinction applies to 95% of districts statewide, but only ~65% bay area).

This makes it hard to retain teachers. It is made even worse off by the fact that the wealthy school districts tend to be so small. Where I live, there is a school district with ~15 K-6 schools in it that is funded as a Revenue limit district. Less than a mile away from there are two separate districts each with only one elementary school each, and no secondary schools. Both of those schools, of course, are Basic Aid; one has per-student funding of double the larger district and the other has per-student funding of more than triple.

This doesn't explain all of it, of course. California has had to deal with more ESL students, for longer, than most other states and those students are very uneavenly distributed as well (Aforementioned school district with 15 schools has only one neighborhood school with less than 80% either hispanic or non-hispanic).

1: In california there are two ways that schools are funded. The state has a limit of around $6k per student that it will guarantee each district gets, if the property taxes cannot cover that amount. This does not include Federal funding, or state funding that is earmarked for specific purposes, so districts budgets are a bit higher than the $6k.

If school district has revenue in excess if the ~$6k limit they only get the special-purpose state funding, but can keep the excess. Thus small wealthy neighborhoods have a strong incentive to have as small a school district as possible, to increase the per-student funding there.

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