We often insinuate in educational debates that people are educationally and professionally successful due to their own individual hard work alone.

This recent quote from Elizabeth Warren succinctly adds an important logic to such debates: in fact, every successful person has benefited in some way from public money. And so, paying it back "for the next kid" (e.g., funding public education) is part of the deal.

http://front.moveon.org/the-elizabeth-warren-quote-every-american-needs-...

These sorts of everyday arguments (and facts) are very useful to have at hand in conversations about inequality in education. Otherwise, we really just rehash opposing opinions.