>Private schooling and homeschooling are options that I view as opting for the privilege to be above or separate from the community that I live in

I'd wager that you're speaking from the privilege of living in a community where you don't have to worry about your kid being knived, shot or raped at school, otherwise you might have a different opinion. Not everybody has the income to support living in a safe community, and for those who don't, private schools are the only option to ensure their child experiences a reasonable level of safety.

> I'd wager that you're speaking from the privilege of living in a community where you don't have to worry about your kid being knived, shot or raped at school, otherwise you might have a different opinion.

Not that it makes a huge difference, but I'd wager that, outside the USA, that's almost unheard of in the developed world .

I know that doesn't make a lick of difference to an American who is in that situation, but surely it's a reflection of American society and culture, not the concept of public schooling in general.

There is a lot of violence in public schools in developed countries outside of the US.

I went to a public school in Australia in a relatively wealthy area and saw multiple gang beatings. One guy beaten so badly that he was knocked out cold for over ten minutes with people jumping on his head.

I know for a fact it's worse in less wealthy areas.

Australian public schools don't have shootings but there is enough to fuck up kid's development. They always descend into honor culture violence. I'm speculating but I do wonder if it's significant part of the problem that poor Black communities in the US face. These young boys thrown into a pit in a status game where they have to prove themselves and become brutalized in the process.

One solution to that is private schools where the staff are accountable to paying customers who won't stand for this violence. Low tier bureaucrats who can't get fired in public schools just don't care or can't stop it.

There are exceptional public schools with no violence, often they're selective, but they're rare.

Maybe? Some criminals swap guns for knives in countries other than the US (though there's still plenty of criminals with guns too). The main difference is the culture though. Violent crimes are at least an order of magnitude less common in a lot of non-US countries. I'm all for gun laws but I don't think the weapon really changes the equation much.

Schools are the same. I don't think I've ever heard of someone being knifed in an Australian school. Even though theoretically anyone could do it. There's no security or anything, it just doesn't happen as often as in the US.

As an American, I think the tolerance for violence in American society is astonishingly high. I think that our high urban crime rates and our documented problems with police brutality are symptoms of the same disease. Certainly widespread gun ownership and latent racism are confounding factors, but I don't necessarily believe they're the driving force because they are a poor explanation for the violence we see in places like Baltimore and Chicago.

I've come to believe that there is something very wrong with our attitude towards violence, and yet it's not clear to me why we are different or how we got here, let alone what policy changes could address it.

For what it's worth, the USA is very commonly perceived overseas as an incredibly violent society.

It is and it isn't, it varies heavily on where you live. Most people never see or experience violence outside of schools. For all the talk on the news, I've never seen or met someone whose encountered violence lately.

It's certainly less common in Europe as well but not unheard of. I feel like we're slowly going towards the US, with the UK leading the way, but we're still quite far away.

Where is this level of brutal violence the expectation of public school? That sounds far more like an 80s movie.

At risk of oversharing and personalizing, we attend school in Brooklyn, at a school that prioritizes inclusion of non-native English speakers and kids on food assistance. A large percentage of our classroom's kids live in public housing. It's a safe room and building.

And, please don't kid yourself about private school buying your way out of the potential for traumatic experiences. Elite boarding schools don't have the best histories wrt sexual assault.

Raising good kids and protecting their mental health is contributing to the community. Throwing them to the wolves so they can become messed up is not.

"you're not really invested in your community."

Even if I accept this conclusion without questioning, not being invested in your community is perfectly OK. Some people are not particularly 'communal' by nature, some hold views very different from the local standard etc.

Imagine that you are a pacifist in a community that holds militaristic views and they seep into the local school system.

I would agree with most of that. I'm not a collectivist, and have no interest in sacrificing my children's well-being for collectivist goals. I will do everything in my power to give them an advantage in life, equity is explicitly not my goal.

Interestingly, people involved in homeschooling tend to be very involved in volunteering. I myself volunteer more hours than I care to think about. However, they tend to be involved in sub-communities, not the public community as a whole. Based entirely on anecdotal experience, I would bet that they do more for their own communities than the general public on average, it's just focused outside the public sphere.

This kind of closed minded, judgemental stuff is why people don't even bother trying to explain themselves and do what's right for them be it private or home schools.

I'll happily not be part of your community.