It's worse than that. Simply by operating shitty public schools 'for free', the ruling riff-raff is crowding out investment in private alternatives for the less

It's worse than that. Simply by operating shitty public schools 'for free', the ruling riff-raff is crowding out investment in private alternatives for the less than well off. With no public schools available and minimal to no regulation of private ones, every neighborhood would have private alternatives with plenty of eligible kids to fill them. I suspect well off neighborhoods would still in general have 'better' schools, simply due to having more resources, but even the poorest of parents would have at least some competitively exposed, hence at least decent, options. If nothing else, charity, churches and such would help out the neediest of kids. As it stands now, a poor parent in an inner city (even more so in one as much at war with religious anything at all as Oakland), is pretty much left without viable alternatives to the local public indoctrination institutions.