[Jeff Higgins]

Seattle's public schools are, in fact, a very real disaster. So, just what, or whom, hath wrought this disaster?

I'm a native North westerner, born in Seattle and raised in Bellevue. When I was a school aged kid, Seattle was a blue collar shipping, logging, and airplane building town. It consistently won (or was very near the top of the list) "best places to live" accolades, based on things like infrastructure, population density, cost of living, housing, scenic beauty, and schools. This was through the '60's, '70's, and '80's. Today, Seattle makes no one's short list of desirable places to live. What happened?

Simple. Seattle changed from a pragmatic, laid-back, blue collar working class town to a very idealistic, uptight, white collar techie-yuppie town. As such, it has transformed into a haven for some of the most ill-conceived liberal rot extant in modern day America. Seattle is nipping at the heels of San Francisco for the number one spot at the top of the leader board for large urban liberal cesspools. One of the most visible casualties of these failed liberal policies is our public school system.

It is perversely ironic that the very yuppie liberal "intellectual" elite that are responsible for the damage are now sending their progeny, en masse, to expensive private schools. They have so thoroughly tanked the public school system in Seattle that they will no longer send their own children through it. They won't even admit their failure, continuing to conscript the children of the less well-to-do to a fatally flawed system of education, one that was concocted through their feel-good experiments in social engineering. And now they want no part of it.

If anything, one would think a true Seattle liberal would be eager to send their children through the public school system of their dreams, a public school system that captures everything they feel is important in their children's educations. They should be beating down the doors to get in. Instead, they are willing to spend $17k per year to ensure their little precious never has to endure the fruits of their failed liberal dogma. Amazing. Disgusting, really.