This wasn't what I hoped it might be. I could see a defense of not sacrificing the wellbeing of someone you're responsible for to appease your conscience and b

This wasn't what I hoped it might be. I could see a defense of not sacrificing the wellbeing of someone you're responsible for to appease your conscience and benefit some abstract common good. That you have a duty to your own children above and beyond what you have to other people is worth exploring, but the author focuses on whether public school, as it exists, is worthwhile, which is a boring question. The thrust of the original article was that the pressure valve of the private option meant that those most likely to actually change anything in public education are those most likely to have already abandoned the system. Of course public education is terrible - all the richest left. I feel like the HN hivemind underestimates the value of institutions - it's the same concept as company culture. There is "a way things are done" that people buy into that isn't explicitly defined, and it s just as real as what's on paper. The rich sending their children to their own schools, and leaving the rest to fend for theirselves is very, very new (at least at the primary level) in the history of America.