Thinking people have to stop talking about public education with the emotive, illogical, and ahistorical happy talk.

No, public education is not and never has been the "cornerstone of democracy" or the "great equalizer" or a "public good." Trading in these memes stunts us.

In truth, the public education system was a Prussian project intended to create unthinking soldiers and model citizens/workers for elites to use. It may be too late to revisit the true origins of what is now a $750 billion public ignorance project, but there's time for truth.

How can you look at the boundary line used to assign students to "public" schools and not see the glaring red lines used to ghettoize some students into dream-killing failure factories and others into islands of unearned privilege?

Are you blind? The great equalizer?

And, how can you call public schools democratic just because they have school board members - elected in low-turnout elections overwhelmed by public employee union cash - and ignore that most of the worst pre-Brown discrimination was conducted by elected board members?

And, how can you call common schools good with the only thing they have in common is mediocrity? They teach to the middle, lower standards for many and barely meeting them for others. The systems of bells, grades, and external motivations have dumbed down generations of students.

And, finally, what the hell is this nonsense about public schools being a public good? It's literally untrue. Educated people have to stop repeating these dumb things. Pubic schools are rivalrous. You know it. Can we all get into the fancy magnet school? .....

Can we all afford a million-dollar mortgage so we can get into a good "public" school? If these schools so public and open to all, why are school districts hiring private investigators to prove residency fraud and kick parents out of wealthier school districts? "Public"?

If you went through "public" school you should find one thing ironic and suspicious: why didn't they teach you the actual history of public education while you were in the public education system? Seems like a pretty important oversight.

Because the goal has always been...sheep.