> I thought, what an ignorant and privileged position to think that, yes, a single mother working two jobs to make ends-meet has the time and energy to go to PT

> I thought, what an ignorant and privileged position to think that, yes, a single mother working two jobs to make ends-meet has the time and energy to go to PTA meetings! What a smug and condescending attitude! Poor schools are a very hard problem. Your friend's point certainly only capture's one aspect of a many-faceted problem. However, her point is borne out, to some extent, by performance of inner city parochial schools: https://www.nytimes.com/1991/11/20/education/where-children-learn-how-to-learn-inner-city-pupils-in-catholic-schools.html https://www.nytimes.com/1991/11/20/education/where-children-... "...a growing number of researchers who have found that poor, minority children do particularly well in Catholic schools compared with their public school peers. ... Public school defenders insist that the comparisons are unfair because only the most motivated parents and children, however poor, choose Catholic schools..." Rather than calling out your friend's privilege, how about assuming good faith on her part. If you assume she would like poor schools to improve as much as you would, how would your response have been different? Maybe you both could learn something.