Paul Goble Staunton, Dec. 7 – Tens of thousands of Russian parents are pulling their children out of public schools because of overcrowding, the dumbing down of the curriculum and the brainwashing about the war and the Putin regime children are now subject to, aga according to a study of the situation in St. Petersburg by the Bumaga news agency. While the number of pupils in expensive elite private schools remains relatively small, the covid pandemic led to an explosive growth in the number of “economy class” informal schools that parents could send their children to instead of the state schools or home schooling (paperpaper.ru/bez-propagandy-i-s-uvazheniem-k-chelovek/). Now, the Bumaga study estimates that there are far more youngsters in these schools, which cost about 30,000 rubles (300 US dollars) a month, than the official figures for the northern capital of just over 50,000 given that the government does not include a large number of schools very much in operation. Parents in smaller cities and villages have fewer opportunities to send their children to such institutions, but the fact that those in the megalopolises do suggests that parents now view such schools as a way to protect their children from what the Putin educational reformers are doing.