Give control of education back to the cities

After watching "Stupid in America" by John Stossel, I can't help to overcome the feeling of being cheated out of my property tax money.  But do I really?

My son attends an elementary school in one of the suburbs of Chicago.  So far, we are very pleased with the school, teachers, approach to the curriculum, and above all, the results.  Even though he's in 2nd grade, his reading, writing, math, and critical thinking skills are amazing.  The school district is ran very well.  Sure, they want to raise taxes to expand and pay for more programs but the community keeps close watch over the spending.

So, is the problem with poor education related to the inner city schools?  I believe so - for the most part.

It's more difficult to recruit teachers with a true calling in poor neighborhoods - that's a given - but the teacher unions are no help either.  Bureaucracy and mismanagement of inner city school districts is a common issue.  

But what about the parents?  According to Wikipedia:

The 1960 United States Census reported that 9% of children were dependent on a single parent, a number that has increased to 28% by the 2000 US Census. The spike was caused by an increase in unmarried pregnancies, which 36% of all births by unmarried women, and to the increasing prevalence of divorces among couples.  In 2006, 12.9 million families in the US were headed by a single parent, 80% of which were headed by a female.

No wonder that kids in single parent families have difficulties with homework, behavior, comprehension, and attendance.  Mothers working two jobs to keep the family afloat just can't handle the extra load of helping with homework or school projects. 

Give back the full control over schools to the communities.  Let them decide what type of school they want - public, charter, Catholic, Jewish, Baptist - and how they pay for it.  Dealing with unions on the local level would give more flexibility to the school districts without the fear of dealing with state or national bullies forcing they way into our schools.  We pay - we demand - we control.