It may surprise you to learn that I hold great sympathy for your tuition "double bind" in paying taxes for the public school system, and then paying again for private tuition expense. Further, I agree with you that our American schools have a strong and predisposed bias in favor of Secularism and against Religion. I think the strength of society, schools, individuals and communities is found in strong and abiding religious belief systems, which seem to be anathema to many in America's educational establishment nowadays. I believe in God, and I think that ramming ideas of Malthusian population control, anti-Nuke hysteria, chicken little notions about atmospheric disaster based on CO2 emissions, and pro-Abortion policies are not just insulting to my own belief systems, but profoundly unintelligent. I favor prayer in schools, the Ten Commandments posted wherever and whenever folks want to see them, and Creationism or Intelligent Design as a needed counter to the Scientology known as Evolution. I took two years of Biology classes in my high school days, and while the teacher was truly great, he was unutterably opposed to any questioning of Darwinian evolution theories. I think God is bigger than most human controversies, and I think that God welcomes those who question, like Jesus did Doubting Thomas, and like God did in Jesus' parable of the Prodigal Son. That Government can waste tax dollars and spoil education, economic activity, and human lives is no strange idea to me. However, you seem to see these issues as revolving solely around your own family and belief systems and wallet. By definition, your government (and I might add, your religion) takes into account other folks apart from yourself, and their interests, too. Would you have it any other way? Since you see the pros and cons of public education from the lens of your own life, I will answer you in your own terms. you were the beneficiary of an inheritance bequeathed to you from preceding generations. As such, you may consider your own life a container by which you pass on to future generations that which you hold only in stewardship. Your own children and neighbors and friends and community benefit from a well-funded and productive public educational system. The proof is in the commonly understood fact that a college educated citizen in America earns an extra $1 Million income in U.S. Dollars in the course of a working lifetime. Have you ever figured out the cost benefit analysis as to what that education costs, versus what it provides in terms of increased tax and economic and social and communal benefits? Maybe you should think about it. The post-World War II G.I. Bill led to the greatest economic expansion in history, as did the land grant programs of preceding generations. As to your assertion that public education dollars are wasted, I have to wonder if you feel the same way about Pentagon budgets and defense contract boondoggles. Investing in people has always been the strongest and best way to defend America. Investing in foolish wars and fearful policies of Nativism in a world of many cultures, peoples, and economies, seems highly counterproductive to me. You have to look at the world with confidence. A good education will provision you with that confidence. My best advice to people with whom I disagree on this and many other matters of public policy, is to advise you to take the time to read a good book. Your mind is very closed and defensive, and you are thinking like a cornered animal, rather than as a noble and versatile human being made in the image of God. Respect for other people, their needs and concerns, is not just a sentimental or religious parable; it is good public policy, and makes an excellent training ground for living a happy, productive, and spirtually satisfying life. Treating others as yourself implies respect for both yourself and others. Doing to others, as you would have done to yourself, is great business advice. How you see cross border immigrants, says more about yourself, than it does them. I like and appreciate the earthiness, cultural diversity, hard work and family values of first generation immigrants. Three of my four Italian grandparents were such. Even today, I think they were the best people I ever met in my life. I still think of "the Old Country" as the touchstone for my New World life here in America.