I would add the observation that school decline has paralelled the rise in school liberalism. Social engineering has taken a front seat to real education. History is distored so as not to offend anyone (correction: so as not to offend liberals. It's still okay to offend conservatives)
Conservative thinking will always produce better results in the area of education because it espouses personal responsibility, hard work, reaping what you sow, black and white, right and wrong...all of which aid the part of education that actually produces results: STUDENT EFFORT!
Liberal thinking says that a bad grade is the failure of the system, the student "feels bad" or is a victim of society in one way or another and if we can only all sing "we are the world" everyday in class everyone will get a good education.