@FearlessFly I agree. It seems to be a system that insures that poverty will be passed from one generation to the next because children are punished and their education undermined because of where they are born and live.

@dermot235 About 30yrs ago (then with 2 kids in elementary school), the school district (where I still live) had filed a major lawsuit. The basis of it was the disparity of funding between the tax-rich/poor communities. My community is very "whitebread" and locally very conservative (was not an issue for me at the time) and I think most would think it nice, WASP, upwardly mobile (perhaps) upper-middle class. Despite this, it is one of the tax-poor districts -- not major industry. Most predicted the lawsuit a winner. However, the MN SC ruled (probably correctly) that the issue should not be decided judicially, but in the legislature. Of course, nothing (that I know of) has changed.

@FearlessFly I would think that the courts will never solve this problem. Legislation would seem to be the only way to solve this. In Ireland we fund all our schools from Central Government. Schools receive a grant from central Government that is a fixed amount per student across the entire country. For schools in low income and disadvantaged areas an additional payment is made to give theses schools more resources than the average schools gets.

@dermot235 In a Michael Moore documentary he 'invades' a (Scandinavian?) country where private schools are DISALLOWED -- the idea being if rich folks want their kids to have a good education, they ALL need to be good.

@FearlessFly There is a point to that. But we do have Private schools in Ireland. They are a very small percentage of schools. Maybe 3% at most. If Public schools are good then Private schools will be at a very low level. I think banning Private schools is going to far. All of our 3rd level Universities and colleges are state funded and they compare really well internationally

Same here, he had a lot to offer.