On the teacher thing, I was under the impression that private schools could hire and fire credentialed teachers as they saw fit, plus could generally afford to

On the teacher thing, I was under the impression that private schools could hire and fire credentialed teachers as they saw fit, plus could generally afford to pay better to attract better teachers, whereas public schools are handicapped by powerful teachers unions. Granted, my knowledge of the subject is pretty much limited to this paragraph :) On the curriculum thing, it sounds like they just have to offer instruction in the same branches of study, which I'm assuming is things like Math, Reading, Science, etc. Not sure how that equates to the "same curriculum".