We toured, applied to, got accepted into and received financial aid from an International Baccelaureate academy. The kid would be going there in the fall except that the aid wasn't quite enough.

She's three.

I went to public school but I went to a public school set up for nuclear scientists' kids run by nuclear scientists' wives combining the resources of the city, the state and the Department of Energy. I hated the fuck out of it but hot diggity damn the curriculum had some rigor.

My wife went through the challenge program here and got a full ride to college. She's whip smart but she doesn't know a lot of things for the simple reason that she was never taught.

Dated a girl. She went to public school up here. Her sister went to Lakeside. Girl I dated hung out with drug dealers, worked at the pea plant, dated a long string of physically abusive men and has been divorced three times. Her sister hung out with the children of CEOs, taught math in Switzerland, dated two guys I'm still friends with (one of which runs a 20-person software company) and is a tenured professor at Berkeley.

I'm not about to shoot down any levees or tax packages designed to improve the state of education around here, but I'm also planning on private school for the kid from before she knows how to read.