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So, let’s try to address all of your point is in a single response.

“Godless and Socialist-entitlement institutional schools”. Which religious doctrines are we to teach? I myself am Roman Catholic. I assume that we probably have some major differences of opinion on biblical interpretation. Father Cantos from St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox church would probably have disagreements with both of us (we can’t even agree on what date Easter is!). So which of us wins? Wouldn’t it be better for the children to learn specifics of THEIR religion from their churches and parents, rather than at school?

As far as your statement that children in …”the godless government schools are were not forced to think and reason godlessly.”, I cannot presume to think to speak for the millions of students in over one hundred thousand public schools. I can speak, however, of my children, and they received their religious eductiona at their local parish and their home.

As far as the Socialist-entitlement is concerned, I asked my kids about this at their schools, and they assured me they weren’t required to read Das Kapital, and Lenin’s birthday was not a holiday. You would have to be more specific about what Socialist-entitlement means for me to determine if our local public schools included this in their curriculum.

As to your point that it is UNKNOWN (your caps) if government schools are effective or not, this point is true for all types of education. It is equally UNKNOWN whether private schools/religious schools/home schooling are effective or not. Are we to simply trash all types of education because it is UNKNOWN if they are effective or not? Give me one type of schooling that will pass your effectivity test.

In terms of your comment “How do you **know** that it was the teachers who taught the math?”, again, if I use your own test, how do I **know** that they didn’t learn from the teacher? I will say, with 100% confidence, that they didn’t learn it from me. It strains credulity to expect that my kids could have learned it solely on their own or from other students without input from their teacher.

You said that I was putting up a strawman of 100% success, and that you did not state that 100% success was your goal. Fine. What is your success criterion? How do you define public schools as a failure, and private/religious/home schooling as a success? I will remind you that “public schooling” is not a monolithic entity across the country. There are nearly 100,000 public elementary schools across the country, and a concomitant amount of middle and high schools. The fact that some are failing doesn’t mean all are failing. I can only speak from my own experience, and that says my local schools are doing their intended job of educating our children, and preparing them for higher education and life. The fact that the Detroit schools aren’t isn’t a reason to close my schools.

Oh, by the way, you can’t denigrate my kid’s degrees as being only important to a secularist, and then brag about your kid’s degrees. They’re either unimportant or they’re not. Consistency!

So, it appears that you think public schools are failure and should be closed immediately. My question is, what do you replace them with? Most of the arguments you use against them apply equally to any institutional setting, be it run by the government, the church, or private institutions. Are we to immediately close ALL institutions of learning and replace them all with Home Schooling? If you think the public schools do a poor job teaching inner city youths, why do you think their parents are going to do better? How is a high school drop-out parent who may be a drug addict going to teach their own children at home?