I live and teach in a very low performing district. I get a lot of grief because I do not send my DS to this district. I've heard everything from "you must be a bad teacher if you can't fix things enough to make it okay for your own kid" to very very racist comments that I am afraid of my child associating with certain types of people.
It's all a bunch of baloney. I don't send my kid because they have said they cannot and will not meet his needs. Our ridiculous gate coordinator wanted to skip DS into 2nd grade at 4 1/2... fine(in theory) because that was close to his level. BUT she wanted to hold him there for two years so he could take the standardized tests raising their 2nd grade scores because that's where they are the worst. We are waiting to get into a charter school in our district that has agreed to meet his needs. I'm not opposed to public school but I am opposed to BAD school.
My personal teaching experience shows that the markers for a good school system are: parent involvement, solid discipline plans, high expectations and a low admin cost in comparison to in-class spending. If you spend 10K per child but 4K goes to administration, you will not get the same high quality education. This isn't to say that principals etc, should be underpaid. But you don't need 1 principal, 2 vice-principals, 3 counselors, one school resource officer (read COP!) and 3 other administrators plus office staff for a school of 500 kids... yet that's what my local elementary school has!
