You Can Keep Your Pricey Private Schools

Re “Nowadays, It’s an Apple iPod for the Teacher,” Commentary, Dec. 15: After reading Karen Stabiner’s silly piece about teacher holiday gifts, I’m even more thrilled my children attend public school, those bastions of disadvantage and poverty. It simplifies my holiday shopping and ensures my kids attend school with families whose values aren’t lying somewhere in their parents’ “sagging nasolabial folds” (whatever those are). After all, clearly we can’t afford outrageous tuitions or obscene gifting (or at least choose not to).

I take one huge exception to her comments though. By choosing public school, my kids may be forgoing “enough advantages to make most families’ heads swim,” as if most of those had any more value than the new packaging on your favorite cereal.

One thing we haven’t forgone, however, is “passionate teachers.” There are many, many of those to be found in public schools, where their work is not just another private school perk.

Eileen Savage

Pacific Palisades