> If you were to have it your way, and abolish public schools, what would you propose as the alternative if anything?

Yes, only listen to the history that the obedience centers have provided you to memorize. It is well known that such centers do not teach critical thinking, because for certain you will place John Taylor Gatto into the category of "conspiracy theorist" as evaluating anything you have not been provided for memorization will require critical thinking (even, you know, looking at those funny numbers placed in the text).

I'm not a central planner but I know that parents work to make certain their children are educated. I cannot tell you how USSR best converted its empty grocery stores and rotting field crops into stocked grocery stores and harvested crops other than to say remove the interference of the government and let people choose.

Developing nations commonly have privately funded schools operating on shoe-string budgets that outperform pretty much all of the "indispensable and irreplaceable" inner-city (and ignored rural) public schools.

Public schools are thick bureaucracies that reward employees for seniority and people who know how to follow orders and fill out forms. They have no accountability when they have a failing product (human beings!) and all employees get pensions and are nearly impossible to fire. The service is provided free of charge while taxing nearly as much money as desired.

They attempt to measure school results through standardized testing, which operates under the assumption that there is a standard person we are all supposed to be become. Then they teach to the test only, so despite where a child may have interests, the test is all that matters so the school can get better funding.

Teachers receive special training so that they understand how to have more influence over a child than the child's parent. They go to conferences in Florida to learn this wonderful skill.