in article e62lom$r7k$1@news.Stanford.EDU, mtfester@netMAPSONscape.net at
mtfester@netMAPSONscape.net wrote on 6/6/06 10:28 AM:

> Ernest Schaal <eschaal@max.hi-ho.ne.jp> wrote:
>> in article 1149544130.588780.127290@u72g2000cwu.googlegroups.com, John W. at
>> worthj1970@yahoo.com wrote on 6/6/06 6:48 AM:
> 
>>> mtfester@netMAPSONscape.net wrote:
>>>> Sigi Rindler <srindler@da2.so-net.ne.jp> wrote:
>>>>>>> I may do just that.  But, our daughter was accepted at a private school
>>>>>>> so my first order of business tomorrow is to go to the bank and furikomi
>>>>>>> a year's worth of tuition.  It empties the bank account fast.
>>>>>>>> CL
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> how can you be sure a private school is any better than a state school i
>>>>>> wonder?
>>>> 
>>>>> And now let me ask you this one: Why are private schools better than
>>>>> public
>>>>> schools in the USA and in the UK?
>>>> 
>>>> Are they?
>>>> 
>>> Of course they are. They can legally have an agenda whereas public
>>> schools have to dance around a lot.*
> 
>> Like all generalizations, the generalization about public schools versus
>> private is true, but not. There are bad private schools and there are good
>> public schools, but there are many cities in the States where the public
>> school system is a disaster.
> 
> One could say the same about many private schools ("Evolution is just a
> theory")
> 
> BTW, "disaster" seems a bit overstated; certainly, the Chinese immigrant
> students who attend many of these "disaster" school systems seem to have
> no problem picking up a proper education.

It all depends upon which schools they get into. For instance, in the San
Francisco Public School system, there are a few magnet schools with high
reputations, but the rest are pretty bad and concerned parents either try to
get their children into the better schools, or they go to private schools,
or they move to a school district with decent schools.

Back when I lived in the San Francisco Bay area, there was a controversy
because there were apparent quotas on how many Chinese-Americans could be in
the better schools. Charges of discrimination were frequent, and the
response was that diversity was more important. I don't know if that changed
or not since I left for Japan. That was almost five years ago.