>But schools? Sheesh. Do you have a model where this sort of school privatization has worked in a large first-world state? How do you know it won't end up like the privatized US healthcare system that even Obama's opponents agree is too expensive and needing reform?

See Washington DC voucher program. So successful it was just killed by the Dems in power because it was undermining the union controlled, disaster they call the public system.

>Or is the existing school system so bad it needs to be messed with that drastically?

America is continuing its slide compared to the world in education. Math and science skills, literacy and graduation rates are all slipping while we throw more and more money every year at a failing, union dominated, socially engineered system of local power structures and entrenched bureaucracy. Their is a better way in and we can observe it right now in private education. There is a better way and we can observe it in charter schools. Their is a better way and we can observe it right now in voucher programs. There is a better way and we are avoiding it like the plague because one of the major parties of this nation is bought and paid for by the teacher's union.