Vikram - I agree with your thoughts and think that privatization is the key. This fosters competition between both schools and students.
Americans need to wake up that we are competing on a global scale now and that includes areas such as education and employment.
School in America is a joke - including colleges. I spent 1st grade at the best public school in my town, they decided to switch to some sort of blended grade program, luckily my parents were fortunate enough to be able provide private education for me for 1-8 (I was held back in my first year of private school due to age and probably to increase the schools revenue for another year). The school i went to cost 10k+ per year even for kids as young as kindergarten. We were doing math handouts from public school books that specifically said grade 11 and grade 12 at the top, and we were doing them with ease in 4th grade.
I then switched to public high school and attended a public university. I spent my high school getting drunk, partying, "experimenting", and skipping school with little regard for reprecussion as my school was overwhelmed with children with true behavioral disorders. I knew high school didnt matter. I was also in high school for no child left behind and can vouch first hand that it had terrible effects that were noticeable immediately.
I then attended public college and graduated with two degrees in only 2.5 years (5 semesters). I also completed an MBA in Finance and had completed my entire college education, including MBA, in 4 years.
I can honestly say that my private school education carried me all the way through college with relative ease.
I know this is a specific example, but I believe it demonstrates effectively that the public education system is a joke. I learned more about gangs, drugs, and drinking in high school than anything else.
In fact, my junior english teacher allowed our students to put up a "hood word of the day" on the black board. Consequently, I expanded my vocabulary in those years with words like "smedium", "cat", and "whodi".
In short, my entire public school experience was a joke - including college.
SCHOOL IS WHAT YOU MAKE OF IT, and often times parents dont instill the appropriate sense of respect and importance of education.
In generations past, school was seen as a way to prosperity, an opportunity. Kids now are raised to take for granted everything they have and therefore we will be outdone by children from other countries who are "hungry" for education and appreciate even the opportunity to attend school.
In that regard i think parenting and instilled values are as important as the system itself - it is a sense of entitlement that keeps individuals from wanting to engage in the learning experience.
The solution with education is privatization, we should abolish the department of education along with the department of energy, the FED, the IRS, medicaire, medicaid, welfare, obamacare....the list goes on.
I do like the idea of incentivizing good grades monetarily. This is perhps a solution that would be developed by a private school system, and sought out by "education consumers" as bryan has termed it.
I think a voucher system creates a mess just like section 8 and would not effect the change needed.
"the Great Recession" apparently did not do the trick in sending the american consumers....i mean citizen....the clear message that a "new normal" is upon us - as Mohamed el-Erian coined it. We are now competing on a global scale. It is the responsibility of each individual to take their own education seriously and use the opportunities they have to better themselves.
I think it is clear that our current system isn't working and our government needs to effect a complete education overhaul. I'd like to call it "change", but that word conjures familiar feelings and, to me, entails the notion of ideals that never come to fruition.
If the current crisis didn't provide a clear wake up call to the gov't, "education consumers", and lazy americans in general, i don't know what will.
