I have argued before in other posts and Editor’s Notes about the importance of public education and the deliberate efforts to destroy it. I realize that our educational system is not perfect, and the current mobilization of parents to attack their local boards based on lies and fear-mongering is not only despicable, but it is also dangerous. I believe that without quality, free, public education we can never achieve an open, democratic society that embraces all of its population. Look around the world where education is optional, and parents must pay, and you see children who are condemned to being uneducated, and where girls disproportionately are less (or un) educated. In other words, you have two or more tiers of citizenship.