Tear Public Schools Down? WTF?

I see the crazy free marketers have shown up over at PZ's place. I'll reproduce here what I said over there.

The major benefit of public schools is they attempt (imperfectly, but better than the invisible handjob which attempts the opposite) to break down class barriers.

In short, if the Libertarians get their way, poor kids will have poor educations which get them low paying service and labor jobs, and rich kids will have the best educations that give them the best salaries, and such a system will transform America into an impenetrable aristocracy in less than a generation. When we guarantee that everyone has an average (and always striving to be better) education, we break the positively reinforcing caste structure inherent in capitalist systems.