Reply to About to switch to private and about to lose some friends

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm OP and I can't believe it but I'm back.

So people read it as an insult to their own parenting if I put my kid in private? Would I offend people if I moved to a neighborhood different than the one they chose or bought a different car? It seems like unless people are unsure of their own decisions they should not be offended. If they really think their school is better they should pity me for throwing away my money on something so ill informed right? I don't hear pity though, I hear hostility.

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OP,  how do you feel about the political argument.  By leaving public you are withdrawing all of your resources, and you are one small piece in a larger trend that creates public school disinvested (because they aren't a priority to the middle class and wealthy parents who don't use the schools) with an overrepresentation of kids who need more resources to succeed?[/quote]

OP here. Yes the political argument does trouble me a little. [b]It is a classic "tragedy of the commons,"[/b] i.e. a case where every individual acting rationally adds up to an outcome that is contrary to the best interests of the group. However, I simply can't make a choice that is worse for my child in the interest of the group. Part of me is truly sorry about that. In the meantime, I have been active in the kids' PTA in public elementary and I have put in a lot of volunteer effort making the school better at this level. It will have to be someone else's turn for middle and high school. [/quote]

I don't think the tragedy of the commons metaphor works in this case, which make the argument that free access and unrestricted demand for a finite resource ultimately reduces the resource through over-exploitation because each individual is motivated to maximize use of the resource to the point in which they become reliant on it, while the costs of the exploitation are borne by everyone else. Many people who do not have children in public schools ( or don't children at all)  support the public school system by paying taxes, voting for bonds, electing school board members, etc. These individuals support the resource without using it at all, which is not what the tragedy of the commons illustrates.[/quote]

Interesting, thank you. So it sounds like it's not a tragedy of the commons. Maybe the phrase I was looking for was vicious circle.[/quote]

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