[Rocky7]

Those are all good points, BH. But I think the single most important thing we need is accountability. What would help that? Here's my ideas:

1. Allow parents to pick their schools. Not more local monopolies for schools so that they get their funding no matter what. Crappy schools fail and go out of business. Good ones, with good staff good leadership and good results, expand.

2. Merit pay. Good teachers are worth more than duds. Simple as that. It's the way the rest of the world works and it's the way their world should work, too. Teachers unions and their useful idiots come up with an assortment of excuses, labels and nightmare scenarios to justify them being paid more just because they didn't die and to justify them keeping their jobs as long as they dance the P.C. Jig. End all that.

You'd then see more good young teachers staying on the job, more satisfaction and recognition for the good ones that are there.

On the other hand, Teachers' Union power would drop and the ability of government to manipulate, bribe and generally BS all of us to get votes would also drop.

It's easy to see how those priorities sort out at the present time.