There is a widely held belief that students generally do better in private schools, but the evidence for this is at best mixed. What is clear, however, is that public schools have the greater potential for creating culturally diverse environments, that measurably enhance the critical intellectual skills of young people. The advocates of school choice fail to comprehend that the purposes and functions of profit-making businesses and public schools are fundamentally different. Notable examples of such schools would be the Bronx High School of Science, Bronx, New York, or the many 'magnet' schools. In short, since the size of successful schools in the educational marketplace does not usually increase, the least successful schools seldom go out of business.
Students have to attend school somewhere.
These are also usually the children of the wealthiest and best educated households. These realities suggest that one highly likely consequence of implementing a policy of choice would be to magnify the existing social stratification of the schools. I believe that real academic excellence can only exist in a democracy, within the framework of multicultural diversity. Indeed, our public school systems, despite their serious problems, represent one of the most important institutional safeguards for defending the principles of democracy and equality under the law. There is, in effect, a dual function of public education.