So we do that, but now the richer families will say "Well because we pay more in property taxes, our children should have the best teachers and the best resources and not the people who pay less." So then because it's now a private business, they offer the higher level courses, music and art classes or the better prep courses for the SAT to those students and not the poorer students.
Richer families are already able to put their kids in good schools. They either do that by moving to the suburbs where the better public schools are, or putting them into private schools. This leaves the poor kids trapped in the urban school districts which, with virtually no exceptions, fail them.
If we simply gave every parent a voucher, and let that parent choose what school to send their child to, then the parents of those kids who are trapped would have an OPTION to send them to a better school. Of course, the rich kids will continue getting into the better private schools who charge above the voucher level, but nothing is going to change that. VOUCHERS HELP THE POOR!
This comes to the fundamental philosophy of this country. Are we the "Land of Opportunity" for all or just for the people with the means to afford the opportunities? I went to a public school because I grew up lower middle class. I worked my tail off in school to get good grades and get into AP and honors classes. We sell ourselves as a country that if you work hard, you will make it in this country. Education is a way to do that.
But unfortunately most of our urban public schools are failing our poor children so badly that they NO LONGER HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY. They graduate, but many can't read, can't do simple math, and certainly can't communicate well enough to get good jobs to lift themselves out of poverty.
Again, VOUCHERS HELP THE POOR!
It's easy to determine who works hard and who doesn't. If you are smart and do the work, you'll get a grade based on your work. A, B, C, D, or F. It doesn't recognize your bank account, just how well you master the material and the work you put in to do it. To take that away just seems unamerican. Yes we all know that money talks, but Education shouldn't be affected by how much money you make but how hard you work. I just feel that some pushing this Charter School/School Vouchers agenda is ultimately trying to get to that point where only richer families get the true opportunities and if you aren't born into that, you will have a poor quality of life regardless of how hard you work.
But if your kid's school looks more like a prison, and your kid can't get the teacher's attention because they are busy dealing with the problem kids, and the money for your kid's textbooks got siphoned into paying for a new assistant vice principal for LGBT discipline...your kid won't be able to perform their best.
Giving parent's choices, by giving them vouchers, is not "taking anything away", and it certainly is not "unAmerican".
You already see this mentality in some parts of the inner city and this leads to people committing crimes to "get money" because they don't believe that if you truly work hard in this country, you will be successful. All they see is failure around them and people looking down on them. So they don't care about our society and our rules. We have to invest seriously into the philosophy that ALL citizens should have the right to a quality education. I don't think private schools are the solution.
So what is your solution, because the public schools are, all too often, utterly failing the students. The mentality you describe above, like you said, is mostly found in the "inner city" where the public schools are typically the worse. If you don't agree with vouchers, then what is your solution?
Might suck at higher maths, but I'm an ace with arithmetic. 
