Viewer Mail - An excited reader of WHYGJD writes: "Conservatives...have never come up with a plan of their own. They just look at other peoples plans and say they are dumb and discount them. If you want to point something out that you do not like. Then instead of looking like a fool, why not bring up your own point then? At least Liberals are attempting, Conservatives are just complaining."

Challenge accepted. Here's my two cents on public education:

I'd like to kick-off the liberal-conservative debate between by comparing their opposing views on improving our public school system. I've been studying this topic for years, and I'm proud to say it's an area in which I have active involvement (unlike, say Hillary Clinton), primarily as a tutor and academic advisor for many students during the past 10 years. As a case study, I'll use the public schools in Oakland and San Francisco to layout out the differences between liberals and conservatives.

Even the most jaded observers must admit that the Oakland public schools are among the worst in the state. Oakland schools have gotten so bad that virtually all of the white liberals in town are either sending their children to private schools or moving to predominantly white neighborhoods. The two public schools in my own neighborhood, Oakland High School and Edna Brewer Junior High are now 100% minority. You heard right: since the last Bosnian Muslim student graduated from Oakland H.S. in 2000, there are no white students left in my local school district. While continuing to squawk their support for the public school system, white liberals have exercised their freedom to choose the best schools for their children by abandoning the public school system or by moving into racially segregated neighborhoods such as Piedmont, whose public schools are the best in the area. Similar patterns have emerged throughout the region, most notably in nearby San Francisco. On the issue of school "choice", liberal rhetoric clearly diverges from liberal behavior.

But there's more...