I see things the exact opposite way. Giving the state (for the purposes of the majority of taxpayers) a monopoly on education produces schools that are uniformly <i>bad</i>, with terrible standardized curricula, insufficient institutional motivation to improve, and stifling bureaucracy. We have <i>insufficient</i> competition at the moment because the majority cannot afford to get into the good districts or uproot themselves every few years chasing them; a district with a good elementary school might have a bad middle school, or a district that was good when you moved in could go bad as your kid ages. This is simply too much trouble for all but the highest achieving and most dedicated parents, which only furthers the achievement gap that comes from exploiting it.<p>Instead, we could transition from a system of state run public schools to <i>state funded private schools.</i> Give each parent a tax credit that they can choose to spend on whatever school they like. Your school&#x27;s funding is directly tied to the number of students that chose it, not the neighborhood it&#x27;s in. Remove any restrictions on zoning or the number of schools allowed in an area. Remove the concepts of districts altogether. Get rid of mandatory curricula and give educators room to innovate.<p>I think the majority of parents out there care about their children and want them to succeed, they just don&#x27;t have the money or extraordinary amounts of time to ensure it. But with a tax credit system and an abundance of competing schools in every metropolitan area, finding the right school for your kid and actually getting them into it would be much more achievable for a much greater portion of society. Yes, the most dedicated ones that get their kids into a dozen extracurricular activities and help them with their homework and whatnot will always have an advantage over the latchkey kids, but it&#x27;d still be a significant improvement over the status quo.