I'm shocked at your jingoistic appeal.

My children have always attended public schools and the parental participation at those schools has always been at or near 100%. The PTA or whatever they call it these days is a joke. Parents have zero input into the system. Try disagreeing with the school board and see how much your participation means.

I don't have any great insight or strong opinion on this issue but I hear vouchers are popular with minority groups. As for most of the schools being faith based, I'll bet that would change if there were a voucher system.

The best way for public schools to insure their continued existence is to stop worrying about the problems you cite and focus on teaching kids to read and cipher. I have a kindergarten grandson attending a highly regarded public magnet school and another attending in an Episcopal school. They are about equal in ability but guess which one is reading at the higher level. My baby daughter is a Public HS freshman in the honors program. She has very little homework and non-core classwork often consists of watching a movie.

I have never failed to vote for local school taxes even in the face of questionable management but schools reflecting the community is BS. If they do their job right the community will reflect the school.