jayeff

At the risk of stating the obvious, they are only 'more real life' for the majority of the middle and lower classes.

My only taste of public schools was a few semester in US public schools: in the UK I went to private (although there we call them public) schools throughout my school 'career'. Although there are a few exceptional state-run schools in the UK and some poor private/public schools, generally the educational standards of the private schools are far higher and pupils get a much broader education, beyond the merely academic. Most such schools are not unlike the army in that first they teach you how to accept discipline and then to develop self-discipline. From what I have seen, that is one of the biggest differences from public schools, there and here.

I caught the last few years of my step-daughters' education in the US public school system and above all it struck me as a giant confidence trick. You have kids coming home at 3:30 in the afternoon with little if any homework, along with all the other symptoms of a minimal attempt at providing good education. So when kids graduate high school, they face four years of paying for a degree course, because they have to spend a year learning things which in most, if not all of Europe, they would have learned before college/university. Worse, despite the cost of further education here, most degree courses are distinctly second rate by European standards.

PS: those who think big government is to blame for the state of education here should do some research. Over 70% of educational spending is controlled locally by school boards. It is their unwillingness to see their influence reduced which is responsible for the huge, expensive and often very ineffective schools which dominate US education.