Why public schools are bad for inner-city kids

Previous generations of parents had three options to meet the legal requirements of educating their children--public schools, private schools (including parochial schools), and home school.  Because both home schooling and private schools tend to be income restrictive for many families, public schools educated most of the children until another the internet made another option possible.

The first option was sending their children to traditional public school.  In the suburbs this was a neighborhood school and the children attended classes with their friends.  This type of school worked because all of the children knew each other and played together after school.  They grew up together and developed lifelong friendships.  Stability in the community was important to maintaining good schools.

Inner city children, though, never had the same advantages that suburban children did.  The inner city schools always had either too many kids or empty desks in the classroom.  The transient nature of the inner city makes it hard for children to develop connections with other kids or teachers.  In some cities, such as Cincinnati, Ohio, inner city children cannot even walk to their "neighborhood" schools.  A bus picks them up every morning to take them to school in another neighborhood in an effort to desegregate the classroom.  The effect is generally just children who are too far from home for their parents to easily be able to get to them in an emergency if they do not own an automobile.  Alternatives to neighborhood schools are very important to families in this situation.