The public school system is completely broken, and the union sells out the students to protect failing schools and teachers. It is so broken it cannot be fixed. The schools have to be closed and replaced with new ones, and that is what Bloomberg has been trying to do. Of course there must be student and parental responsibility as well, but it is a fact of life that more than half of the students in public schools come from broken homes. The NYC school system has to fill that void. Although we spend more per capita on our students than just about any other city, the public schools not only fail to fill that void, but they exacerbate the problem with their incompetence. And it has been going on for years. It is a tragedy. There is a reason politicians , here and in DC, who take union money and vote the union agenda, send their own children to private schools. This is not to say there are no good, caring, and hard working teachers. There are many. But they are frustrated and worn down by a failed system.