Quote Originally Posted by GGT View Post
Humming? How about picking up the gasping corpse from the emergency room floor?

1) Yes, our standard of living has risen for most everyone in the US, and that's great. Public education is the key for accessibility and continued progress. But we're failing at that. The ones that don't drop out aren't keeping up with the rest of the world. There's been such a systemic LAG between education and skills to match the changing world, that we're playing catch-up for at least 2 generations, maybe 3.

2) We focus too much on wealth and not enough on the basics, while the definition of Basic has escalated and progressed. This isn't romanticism about The Good Old Days (when an 8th grade education landed a job in a Detroit auto-assembly line), but a condemnation about our slowness to evolve with the world.

No, we bicker about teacher pensions, the DoE, charter schools, property taxes, costs per pupil, government grants and student aid for college....all about the money aspects....but little toward making the US a First Class A-One nation for education. The proof is in our willingness to cut funding for public education (save some bucks), at a time when education is more important than ever. Go go USA #1!

I don't see why you're sidetracking this. We spend more money on education per student than most, but we get sub-par results in some of the most high-spending areas. That's not about income inequality, it's about ineptitude.