vanblah

Such as?

Private school? Boarding school? Home-schooling?

The "affordable" private schools in my area are not much better than public schools--and I can think of one that is worse (in my opinion).

The nicer private schools (around here) all have some religious agenda.

The secular private schools that actually have decent academic programs have tuition that is around $20,000+

Home schooling requires that either me or my wife stay home. I would love to do this for our daughter but it's not really a possibility these days.

My daughter is in public school. It's actually not a bad one as far as public schools go around here. However, my wife and I stay very involved with the school and with our daughter and this makes a huge difference. She has just started second grade and her mother or I (both sometimes) sit with her for the ENTIRE time she is doing homework. We don't just sit her down and say "Do your homework." We are trying to teach her "how to learn." This will change as she gets older.

The other thing about the particular school she is going to is that it has a slightly different curriculum than most of the others. Students don't just sit in their chairs all day ... even in first and second grade they go to different classrooms for certain subjects.

Another point I'd like to make is that we really can't place all the blame on public schools. I do agree that the entire goal of public schools is to produce "happy little workers" but from what I can see the most damage comes from parents. The children around my daughter have no interest in learning; they have no desire to find out more than what is needed to keep the teacher happy--and some don't even care enough to do that. These are first and second graders I'm talking about. They have not been "broken" by the system yet. They arrive already broken by uncaring and neglectful parents.