A main issue that is not addressed here is what is being taught in the schools, and how it can best meet the needs of the students. Everyone doesn’t need college, and No Child Left Behind gutted vocationsl education in this country because students couldn’t drill for the standards tests if they were learning how to make a living. Higher paying office jobs that involve a lot of reading and writing don’t work for many people, and we are fooling ourselves if we think everyone can do them. All students do not need the same things.

I taught primarily lower income high school students for over 20 years, most of it in a public school. Academically and socially, those kids were starting way, way behind their peers from higher income families, which were incidentally in the same public school. Kids from more affluent families had not only had more exposure to reading and books in the house, but they had been to the zoo, and the museums, and a play, and the historical sites. They had spent a lot more time engaged in learning activities with their parents and other caring adults. It’s not just about the money, and locally funded education in this country is not going to change anyway. If you are directly paying for an activity that affects your community and possibly your own children, you have a lot more say in how that activity is conducted. The last big education program out of Washington was NCLB, and it was a disaster.