To the people asking "Why don't you send your kids to private school?"

I was at a party this weekend and the conversation got steered to public school education.  I promise for once I didn't do the steering but of course became embroiled in the conversation after a few minutes.  Have you noticed that that there is always someone who throws out the remark "Why don't you send your kids to private school?" or "Move to the suburbs, they have good schools.".  Usually I attempt some kind of semi-polite answer and try to move on before I make an ass of myself.  It doesn't usually work.

Of course, away from the situation I have perfect answers for them. 

Our family is made up of myself, my husband and two kids, we own a house in a nice neighborhood, not to brag but we even have a yard (only those who live in the city will fully appreciate this).  We both work at what would be considered professional jobs. So as of today, if we needed to we could send our kids to private school. I say as of today because we like so many families are only one job or one long-term illness away from losing our current standard of living.  Last year my husband couldn't find work for most of the year, like so many families we were effected by the downturn in the economy.  We had to worry about the mortgage and making our $1450 monthly Cobra payments.  If we also had to worry about private school tuition for two kids on top of all the other things I don't know how we would have done it.  Not having that extra burden or the worry about uprooting our kids made it easier. Let's face it in Chicago private school can run anywhere from 7k to 20k per child.

Here are a few more reasons I found through givekidsgoodschools.org:

1. More than 49 million children attend public schools in the United States. That's 9 in every 10 U.S. kids. In fact, public school enrollment hit a record high in 2006. As the school-age population continues to rise, record enrollments are predicted in K-12 public schools each year through at least 2016. How do you give up on a system that 90% of the children depend on?
2. Public schools offer a free education to every child in America. Public schools offer a free public education to every child in the United States, regardless of race, religion or ability.
3. America's success depends on quality public schools. America's public school students represent our future workforce, tax base, and voters. Research suggests that more than two-thirds of jobs will require some education beyond high school, and that those requiring the most education and offering the best pay are the fastest growing. Our nation's future success depends on our ability to educate our children today.
4. Community support does make a difference.There are many ways that communities and individuals can improve public schools. In fact, most decisions about public schools are made at the community level. These include the election of school boards, state and congressional representatives, who in turn, make critical decisions that affect the quality of public schools.

Pretty good reasons for public school education.

As to the other comment "Move to the suburbs, they have good schools." I always have a simple answer for that one.  I don't want to.

If you have any other reasons why public school education is so important let me know.