Do I think you really mean that? No.

Do I think you don't see that that's what your approach means? Yes.

Make no mistake: I know that the education system is broken. But it's always been in fragments, so it's sometimes hard to tell whether the fragmentation is the source of the problem or not.

What you are advocating is to dismantle what we have before we have anything to replace it. In stark human terms, this means allowing those with high incomes to corner the market on the good stuff under the name of R&D, and letting those with little income, fewer opportunities and insufficient time and tools make due not with average (a synonym for "mediocre", btw), but with below average. High tide lifts all boats, you say. An increased number of sunken vessels in the bottom of the harbor will also raise the water level for those who survive.

If this were just another business, I could go along, grudgingly, with economic Darwinism. After all, we would be talking about adults. But we aren't talking about adults: we're talking about children. Not just any children, either, but children whose opportunities are already circumscribed by lack of resources, and in some cases, lack of stability. To take away the only educational opportunity they have without putting something in its place -- not by "letting the market find its own level" -- is to sacrifice their real lives to the vagaries of the market.

Believe it or not, some children learn to read in school. Some children learn to add and subtract. Some children get the only hot meal they have all day. I can't support the idea of taking away the institutions that make that possible because some other children (yours and mine) are bored in class so that the market can, eventually, make it better.

You're saying to me that mediocre isn't good enough. I agree. I'm saying that, nevertheless, mediocre is better than nothing, and nothing is what some of these kids will have. I can put faces to these statistics because I meet those faces at work. It makes me less willing to support what you suggest.