ANOTHER LOOK AT EDUCATION AND INEQUALITY.

It's one of the most stubborn ethical and personal dilemmas many affluent, politically progressive families face: The decision on whether to send one's child to public or private school. There's very little discussion in the American press of how families' decisions on this matter affect their communities and society at large. So I was heartened to see the Times of London attribute the rise in urban inequality, at least in part, to wealthy parents' choices, en masse, to enroll their offspring in independent schools costing an average of £11,000 annually, or $22,532. In the London boroughs of Kensington and Chelsea, about half of all children attend private schools, but almost 40 percent are in poverty. And of course, there is almost no overlap between those two groups. Last week when I participated in a TPM Café discusson on Daniel Brook's The Trap, I was ridiculed for suggesting that educated people might send their children to the Washington, D.C. public schools in order to avoid the temptation to leave jobs they love in exchange for an enormous paycheck. Many of the public schools in D.C. are troubled, and they are certainly not the best choice for all families living in all neighborhoods of the city. Yet quite a few wonderful, progressive, intellectual parents I know have their children enrolled in public schools here, all the way through high school. There's a disconnect between the fears of what will happen to the average privileged child in an integrated public school, and what actually does happen. Indeed, decades of research shows that children from affluent families have similar academic and life outcomes whether they attend private or public schools, segregated or integrated. Poor kids, on the other hand, are much more likely to land a good job after high school if they graduate from an integrated school. In other words, we shouldn't be content with the assumption that rich, mostly white people in Washington, D.C., London, New York, or any other city will send their kids to private schools, while most public schools continue to look as they did prior to the civil rights movement. Last year in the Washington City Paper, Ryan Grim reported on a group of upper middle class parents in Dupont Circle who vowed together to send their kids to the neighborhood elementary school. After myriad frustrations with the school and its administration, most families backed out. But attempts like that to engage parents in the public schools are to be applauded. Public schools need to do more to offer something to all families in a district, and parents need to meet them halfway by seriously considering a public education. In the end, it's the children educated among diverse peers who benefit. --Dana Goldstein