I think one tragedy that has occurred in our nation over the last two or three decades is the gutting of public education. The alleged strength of charter schools is that they allow children to avoid state indoctrination. We need a degree of “state indoctrination,” though, to have a society that is uniform enough to remain intact. 

The substandard quality of education in public schools is not something inherent to public education, (nor have they always been substandard) but is the result of a self-fulfilling prophecy. If we neglect public schools because we see them as unworthy of support, they become exactly that. Look at the pay and treatment afforded to public schools. Look at the removal of programs and curriculum items, made necessary by reduced funding. In the public schools in my area, we had to pay a fee for basic classroom supplies, that were already present in schools when I was young. These used to be paid for (rightly so, in my opinion) by tax payer money. Education is a public good, so should rely on public resources. 

If we treated our public water supply the same way we treat public schools (and there are indications of a trend in that direction), the only drinkable water would soon be only that which is purchased from corporations, for profit. We would have a two-tiered system of water—in which people with means can drink clean water, while the rest have to go with unregulated, unprotected water of uncertain quality. This is what has happened, and is happening, with public education. We have lost the understanding of the value of a common public sector. Society depends on it. 

When we make education a matter of denomination and merely personal interest, and correspondingly deemphasize common, public education, we fracture a unity essential to society, and deprive a significant part of the population from what has, in the past, been considered a basic human right: the right of children to nourish their minds, and become informed citizens in a great republic. As a result, individuals suffer, and society suffers, as part of a vicious cycle.