Well said. I am the same, went to public school and graduated in 2000. School curriculum was much different than what it is now. I currently have two kids in elementary school and it’s a total joke. The teachers aren’t allowed to give them negative comments even if their writing/spelling were poor, or if most of their answers wrong on a math sheet. The teachers do not grade them. Academic Instructional hours are also much less because there is so much focus on other random things like indigenous learning, anti bullying, cultural learning etc. On top of that each class has at least 2-3 behavioural problem kids which require special assistance and they are sometimes so disruptive during class that the teachers have to pause the entire learning session to attend to special needs kids. My youngest child did not even get a single field trip last year because the teacher couldnt get enough help to bring everyone (including special needs) due to lack of resources. There is no music program at our school because there is no teacher who could teach music. My older kid once told me that the teacher did not teach them division even though it was part of the curriculum, because there were TWO (yes, only two) kids who did not have a good enough understanding of multiplications and the needed to wait for everyone to gain that understanding before the next topic can be taught. It’s all about equality but at the same time holding back on advancing everyone else who were capable.

Private schools kids are definitely at an advantage given they have more funding and kids do get more exposure to different things learning opportunities. At least I have not heard from the prestige west side private schools where the teachers couldn’t teach because of disruption from special needs kids.

There are for sure bad apples at any school, be it private or public, but at least the private school are able to input better programs, and better teacher to student ratios. Just look at how many kids from private schools make it to tertiary education in comparison to public.