The Crazy World Of Public Schools

...So, given that it’s mid-August, let’s discuss another sprawling government program, due to pull in waves of children across the country over the next few weeks. I’m talking about you, public schools. You might be the craziest government program of all.

Here’s the thing: People love public schools, or at least they love the idea of them.
But when you grow up with something crazy—your dad fires your cat out of a cannon every night; your brother plays the bagpipes in the bathtub; your mom wears a T-shirt with Jimmy Carter on it—you tend to think it’s normal. If you were to explain our country’s educational system to a moderately bright space alien, however, they would look at you as if you had three heads.

With so many oddities in the public school system, it’s hard to know where to start. Across the country, arbitrarily drawn school district lines radically distort real estate markets. Anyone who has shopped for a house in the United States knows one sad truth: Better school districts command a steep premium. (The other truth, it seems, is that you probably won’t like the kitchen.) Despite our government’s lofty rhetoric of free and equal public education, the fact remains that better-off families can buy their way into better schools...