Columbia, SC — In reference to the Jan. 30 editorial, “Howard Rich’s losing investment strategy,” Mr. Rich is obviously unaware of how successful South Carolina’s public schools have been in educating our students.

He might have a point if our students’ test scores were the worst in the nation, but they aren’t. And I expect that South Carolina’s academic prowess will continue to grow, even as the nation’s scores decrease compared to other nations.

Private schools have an unfair advantage anyway. They tend to attract students who want to learn and remove from their rolls those who don’t. Public schools must force-feed knowledge even to those whom private schools would turn away.

Public schools also seek to bring all of our children up to the same level and have had remarkable success in doing so, while private schools don’t care if the results for each student are different. That is so obviously unfair to the intellectually challenged.

Anyone reading this letter can see for themselves how well our public schools have prepared us to recognize what works and what doesn’t.

John Magum

Florence