I have a lot of experience with various K-12 school settings and systems, as a student and a parent. As a student, I attended the best private schools in Hawaii, a mediocre public school in Hawaii, and a fundamentalist Christian private school in the panhandle of Florida.

My oldest daughter attended "good" public schools, was homeschooled for three years, and ultimately attended and graduated from a "bad" public school that was a Title I school and only 17% white at the time.

My youngest daughter attended "good" and "bad" public schools, and is now homeschooled, taking classes at a homeschool co-op that we pay to attend.

My personal philosophy on education is that high-stakes testing is bad for everyone, that educating kids should be about lighting a spark of interest and giving them the tools to explore those interests, and that every kid is totally different in terms of learning style.

I took my oldest out of public school when I walked into her 1st grade classroom one day and saw that her desk had been placed at the far back corner of the room away from the other students. She would finish her work too quickly and then bother the kids around her.

I knew what it was like to be unchallenged and bored and have a lack of impulse control and then be labeled as the bad kid forever and ever. I didn't want that for her, so I decided to homeschool her. But I let her go back when she asked to in 5th grade.

She wanted the common experience of going to school in her neighborhood, and she got that. She was bullied and harassed and terrorized for the next few years, with zero help from teachers or admin, but she never wanted to quit. School is not a safe place for girls.

Things were better in high school. When she told kids from her old middle school that she was transferring to a Title I predominantly Black high school, people would ask her if she was afraid that she'd get shot or stabbed. But it wasn't like that at all. Those were good years.

You could see the funding disparities between the schools, though. The resources the schools get is supposed to be equal here, but the wealthier schools had Foundations to raise money for extra teachers and other stuff. And parents with free time to volunteer.

I can't even begin to imagine the disparities in states and districts where the funding is based on taxes raised in your zip code. White flight affected our schools that are equitably funded; it's got to be a million times worse where the schools aren't equitably funded.

I took my youngest out of school after 3rd grade. She had severe anxiety at the time, and it was because of the high-stakes testing. She was the top student in her class, and her teacher kept putting more and more pressure on her to do more, do better, and she was suffering.

Every day on the way to school, she'd say she had a stomach ache. (I now know via her therapist that this is how kids feel and express anxiety when they don't know what anxiety is.) I tried talking with the teacher, talking with the principal, everything. It wasn't changing.

I didn't want to subject her to being miserable anymore, so I took her out of school. It was one of the best decisions I've ever made. She is the happiest kid I know. She's so smart, loves learning, loves her learning co-op, loves her friends, and is comfortable in her own skin.

She has gotten to opt out of all of the middle school bullying and drama and violence and bullshit that I went through and that her older sister went through. Homeschooling is absolutely a feminist choice for me. Schools are not safe for girls.

I deeply relate with and understand parents who opt out of their public school system for something else. Schools are not always safe for everyone. They don't always educate kids. They often demoralize and break down kids. This is especially true for POC, LGBTQ, disabled people.

Not everyone has the privilege to homeschool or send their kids to private school. This is where charter schools have seen a need and filled the gap. Where I live, charter schools mainly exist to provide alternative learning methods like Montessori, free of high stakes testing.

In other places, charter schools exist to provide more rigorous academics and more opportunities for students who would otherwise attend a school with fewer resources and less individual attention.

The parents who choose these alternatives don't have time to stick it out and change the system. They have kids now who need the best education experience they can get. They didn't ask for the system to be the way that it is. They are just working within it.

The answer of course is to fix the public schools so that you can woo families back. The answer is not to put barriers in the way of struggling families to get their kids the best education they can, while continuing to allow white flight and private schools for the wealthy.

It seems like for every broken system, we always ask people at the bottom and in the middle to sacrifice to fix it, rather than asking the people at the top to do something.

We're asking for charter schools to be banned. Why aren't we asking for private schools to be banned? We're asking for an end to public $ for charters. Why aren't we asking for a tax credit for families who attend local public schools or a tax on families who use private schools?

It's never realistic to ask for these things, but it's always realistic to ask regular families to sacrifice.

Anyway, I see a lot of people who have very ignorant opinions about charter schools and the people who use them. A lot of people with opinions on this should be taking a backseat and learning from people who know what they're talking about.

And if you live in a "good" public school district, you should probably sit this one out unless you're willing to discuss what you personally are willing to give up so that other kids can get a good education too.