My understanding of the public school system is that administrators and football takes up all the money, and the government will forcefully end teachers strikes.
The teachers union is probably the only thing keeping public schools running in a country where a political party explicitly wants them to fail and will sabotage them for political gain
You think in rich states (like california) with liberal, democratic legislation and liberal governors that the political parties are the ones keeping schools from being effective?
Because when a kid is truly problematic, they can kick them out, and kicking them out means kicking them into the public school system? The public school system has to either spend a disproportionate amount of time/money on troubled children or completely neglect them. Private schools can do the math to decide if the child is profitable, and kick them out if they are not.
It feels very disingenuous to try to make an argument about teacher's unions and then use private non-union schools made up of those who can afford the tuition or qualify for a merit based scholarship and public schools made up of everyone else.
The teachers union is probably the only thing keeping public schools running in a country where a political party explicitly wants them to fail and will sabotage them for political gain