I could care less about this from a “we are the world” bleeding heart issue. I look at economics. If a state does not come out of the gate just right, the market will still take time to correct. What about those who were in school during the “correction”
I would whether not pay for their jail time or what have you.
If you can pitch me a transitional system that moves this out to the states, and guaranties that we remain competitive internationally, as a country, not as 50 individual entities, I am all ears.
BTW, leaving it to the states, which is fine, really is not going to do much for the “market” idea of making things better. You now are involving 50 bureaucracies, few of which do well trying to respond to market forces. It is going to take a lot of effort. maybe even privatization, but that is going to be a long tough battle there.
My fear is that without a steady hand and a reasoned slow approach, this will be a disaster that we will take years to overcome.
Saying Education Sucks is easy and is a great campaign slogan, but I want a fix that will work. I want it to cost less, not more, in the long run. I think that is a pretty conservative approach, don’t you?
My guess is that vouchers and parental choice would be strong initial steps. Establishing a transition plan that ends Federal involvement and transfers those responsibilities (limited in scope) to the states over say a 5 year time frame would be another step...but it could only come (and this is the essential 1st step) as the will of the people in this regard was firmly established through the election process because you will have to have elected officials overturn and replace years of accumlated "Acts of Congress" geared towards the current failing policies and in favor of these policies and principles.
It is likely, that although I could see the process being accomplished in far less time than we have experienced the "Great Society" policies from the 60s on (50 years to get where we are at), it is still likely to take 20 years of concerted effort to turn it around.
Having said that, withou discourse such as this all over this nation (and it is occurring), we will not get the momentum necessary to effect that first step...we may get the initial vouchers before that because I believe there is already a "fed-up" sense with the current system that would allow that to get enacted sooner..