[Shelacious]

I am a proud product of the public school system. I went to a pseudo-private public school (on a military base), a neighborhood junior high and a sr. high school across town. Having said that, I am not a public school teacher, but if I were, I would probably send my child only to public school at the school in which I taught, or to the 3-4 out of 40 public schools in the city.

It seems to me, at least in Cali, that we have constrained public schools to the point that most cannot provide an effective teaching environment.
1. Public schools are tasked with educating ALL children in the area--with all kinds of emotional, physical, mental and behavioral problems. If little Johnny is majorly acting up and disrupting the class, it can take at long as 6 months to get him out of the class/school...meanwhile, he's also ruined or disrupted the learning experience for the other 20+ children plus the teacher. Public schools have to fund other classrooms and schools for little Johnny, which is why public schools are always short money. Another reason, IMHO is the way we've set up the promotional infrastructure: the only way, outside of seniority, to be promoted as a teacher is to move into administration--as a result, we have a lot of top heavy school districts, with the best teachers earning good $ in admin while new teachers are teaching. There are no "uber teacher", "master teacher" levels that would reward you for being the BEST teachers (with more $, regardless of seniority by testing and other methods).
2. Because classroom sizes are so large, teaching to the slowest student in class is a real challenge for public schools—one student could be a grade below the class, and the kids performing at a higher level are stymied. It is un-American to admit that students should be “tracked” based on testing to certain classes, so most teachers are left with 3-4 ones unprepared for the classwork, 8-12 at grade level and 3-4 above grade level, but not necessarily G&T.
3. Safety: A student is not going to perform at his/her highest level when they are more concerned with the local dealer/violence than arithmetic. Safety is a factor in private schools too, but it tends to be easier there to round up the trouble makers.
4. Academics: As a product of public school, I have noticed that it is difficult to be "smart" in a public school. It's even worse for black boys. Most of the kids at the average public school act like they are not interested in benefiting from an education, and mock you for doing so...therefore, I've seen many supersmart black boys and girls succumb to peer pressure and devalue their intelligence and desire to learn in order to be with the "in" crowd. I want my children to attend schools where everyone's trying to get into college (or some post secondary education), and studying after school is not a "nerdy" or "square" thing to do.

Having said that, I would not carte blanche send my children to any type of private school either...there are a lot of bad private schools out there, and can be worse than the public school experience for children. A private school must meet with my values, objectives and goals before they get my $.