Kids need more sleep than adults, that's a fact.  Kids go to school earlier than parents go to work only to accomodate their parents' schedule.  I'm a firm believer that some kids are permanently left behind due to just this fact.  By the time their biological clock is awake, they've already zombied through two classes.  

I hated school. I can honestly say, I ditched school at every level all the way through graduate schools, whenever I could...just so I could sleep.  In fact, I also worked hard just to never have to wake up early again for a job.  The world has a bias against nocternal people.  When I started my own company, I stocked the company fridge with beer and I never gave anyone a hardtime not showing up early.  World is too uptight and too intolerant of people who just think differently.

Back to gaming, the first thing something goes wrong, everyone points their fingers at gamers.  It's ok to read about David vs Goliath, et tu Brute?, but the minute it's FUN in a video game, it's teaching violence.  Schools teach you to accept everything it establishes as accepted bahavior and brainwashes entire generations of people against TV, Video Games.  And force feed classes after classes of useless knowledge, not to enhance a kid's life, but to help ensure the scientific community reigns supreme.

public schools are definitely better. public schools have a much more varied education lineup with the best teachers. A lot of teachers in private schools aren't even certified, or at least not certified in all the areas that they teach.

You should look into statistics for Cornerstone Schools in Detroit. They use a lottery system to accept the same poverty-striken kids that the public schools do.

Despite taking the same kinds of kids from the same backgrounds, they graduate >90% of kids vs. 35%, and still manage to cost about $5,000 less per student. You're correct that most private schools can pick who they want, but they're not all that way. In the case of Cornerstone, its the same kids. The big difference is their teaching methodology and parental guidance. They force parents to care about their kids' education, which results in higher scores from the same kinds of kids.

They're all good, or all bad, based on a wide variety of factors ...

I've known people who home-schooled for a variety of reasons who have been very successful, a couple people who've sent their children to private school and had great results, and many people who have done well in our local public and Catholic school systems.

If you have a good public school system and your children are "average" than it is a very good choice, but if your children are gifted or have a learning disability it will not be that good of an option. If you have the cash and a good private school your children may be better off in one of these schools, but many people lack the cash. Finally, when done well, homeschooled children often perform far better because they get far more attention from someone who is focused on making them perform well, but few parents are willing or able to make the kind of changes in their lives necessary to homeschool their children.

What the hell? Because you have the money to pay for something better, that's unfair? Look buddy, if I have ten bucks I can force the vendor to sell Halo 4 to me. I gotta be happy with Angry Birds, see? It would be unfair with the developers and unfair with those who could pay more if the case was otherwise. Suck it up and accept it as a fact of life. Even if you could have half the populace to agree with you and come up with the perfect nanny state and somehow avoid bankrupting the country, it would lead to stagnation for there wouldn't be a reason for people to stand out and no more reason for Halo 4 to be different from Angry Birds. Again, suck it up and accept it if you still think that's unfair. Life is, after all.

Phew.

OT - home schooling as long as there's still a way for the children to come into frequent contact with one another and develop social skills. 

Selective public schools

Well, congratulations. It looks like you successfully managed to miss my entire point.

Of course people with more money should have exclusive access to more expensive things in life; people who work more or have more prestigious jobs deserve extra cash. When it comes to kids though, it is completely unfair to limit their possibilities by their parents' wallets. Kids don't choose where to be born. In a perfect world everyone would have the same options and then fully deserve whatever education and, later on, job/paycheck they choose to work for.

I would argue that it isn't lack of money that is hurting these children, it is that they're stuck in a school system with shitty teachers and awful parents ...

A woman I dated for awhile had recently moved from teaching in the public system to a private school. She earned less and worked more hours, and the school didn't have money for a basketball program (which she used to coach); but she had smaller class sizes (around 22 compared to 30), all the materials she needed, she was surrounded by good teachers who cared about what they were doing, well beahved students who tried in class, and a high level of parental involvement.

A few weeks back I was reading an article by a teacher who worked on the Native Reserves in Northern Canada about his experiences there. According to him, by the time a child is in grade 3 (about) the only time parents become involved with the school is to accuse them of racism if they fail and/or discipline the student, there are huge discipline problems in the school, and (while there is a massive budget) a large portion of their budget goes towards fixing what the students break. By the time students are in junior high school there is a massive truancy problem, a large portion of the students who show up to class are high (often from huffing gasoline) or drunk, the students (on average) are far behind their grade level in basic skills, and the handful of students who want to be in school are being constantly disturbed by the majority of students who don't. Needless to say, the only teachers who stick around are not interested in making a difference and are mostly going through the motions; and in many cases are stuck doing the job because they're not a good enough teacher to work elsewhere.

While I think that is a very dramatic/unusual example, I think it demonstrates many of the problems that exist in failing public school systems. Washington DC pays $29,000+ per student in their school system and yet has the lowest graduation rate across the country; and this is several times the cost with far worse results of charter schools and private schools. The act of signing your child up for a charter school, or paying for a private school, demonstrates an interest and dedication to education that pushing your child into a failed public school system simply doesn't; and, no matter how much is spent in that public school system it is only going to fail because the parents and teachers in the system are unwilling to make the changes necessary to put it on a successful track.

my kids would learn more quicker with a thorough, rigorous home-schooling curriculum than moving at a snail's pace in public school to keep pace with the lowest common denominator.

Private schools are better, but they're expensive.

In some possible cases, private may be cheaper but you have you to pay the lot up front, most people can't afford it. At least with public education, everyone pays for it in there taxes and thus it is less for a single person to pay. And unfortunately, whether it is private or not, the quality of education really varies between each school. Also, if your rely completely on the private sector, then there is bound to be gaps missed by them that public schools have to fill anyway.

It may be a bad stereotype, but i see private schools to be like this~http://www.etoncollege.com/Home.aspx