Hehe, lots of points! "Tirade" indeed; you seem to share some of my personal anger over the dismal education system here.

I disagree about the "poor funding isn't the problem" bit. I hear that a lot of talk radio shows and such, but I've yet to see a school that couldn't benefit from more funding. How much do we want to invest in the future of our children? I don't know anyone but truly heartless (and short-sighted people) who think they need to scrape by. What I do agree with 100%, though, is that the money needs to be better spent. I fear that too much gets wasted by raw corruption as well as stupid investments. Where I went to school in Louisiana, for instance, it rained very, very frequently. So, what do they build for the school? Flat roofs. Flat roofs in Louisiana. Of course they leaked incessantly, and we wasted no telling how much patching them up and re-roofing them. I'm sure it all started because "Cousin Billy's an architect, you know, good ol' boy" and landed the contract (with a kickback here and there, too, I'm sure). The big problem here is that education systems are largely controlled by the state and local governments, so the spending is only as good as those bureaucracies are honest. I'd like to say that more federal oversight is needed, but somehow I doubt that would work, either. No one seems to feel bad about bilking the government at every turn. "Transparency" is little more than a buzzword now, but it does seem like the only way to make progress here. If people don't know what's going on behind closed doors, we all suffer.

I've also heard that thing about using all the funding before, too. Again, I see that as a stupid policy to begin with, but it seems like a good administrator would find better ways to spend the money than superfluous computers. As long as he could come up with a reasonable use for the money (re-painting, for instance) he ought to be able to spend the money on THAT. Put the money where it will do the most good.

You just don't get anywhere because there is so little incentive to actually do a good job--and teaching is still seen more as a volunteer, "good for the soul" type charity gig rather than something requiring substantial expertise. Many of our "teachers" were "coaches," hired primarily to coach football. A few were fine, but others...geez. I like the general idea of a competitive system for grants and teacher salaries, but it's difficult (impossible??) to get a reasonably fair assessment to base it on. What if a teacher just lucked out with well-prepared students whose parents read to them and help them with their homework? The next teacher might be stuck with kids who don't speak English at home or whose parents are split up and abusive. Also, I think teachers get dumped with too much responsibility; they're not miracle workers, after all. The systems that are in place tend to reward rote learning and objective testing, which we all know is utterly useless and actually encourages teachers and admins to cheat the system.

I like some if the voucher idea, though at the same time it seems to be a bad form of competition (parasitic, really). In fact, I'd say in some places it amounts to segregation. Of course all the poor black kids will end up in the bad schools with bad teachers, which will be made worse when all the talented teachers go to the private, well-funded schools. Also, there gets to be busing and transportation issues that ruin it. I'm fine with private schools, but I'd say if you're going to have public education then go all the way with it. Don't half ass around and let the rich have all the advantages. A poor kid already has so many things limiting his potential for success already. I don't want to do anything widen that gap still further, where "Johnny" gets the A+ education and "Jerome" gets an F education.

Anyway, Mr. Montgomery certainly has the right idea, though at some point it does fall back on the individual to gain an education. I hear a lot about how class should always be fun and everything should be hands-on and such, but that only goes so far. Somethings must be taught and learned that you can't get from a game. Try to imagine a medical school where all the students fell asleep if their professors didn't dance around in a clown outfit and avoided all "boring" topics and spent most of the time talking about "fun and gross out!!" stuff like farting and such.