Not enough absolutes, too many opinions presented as fact. Twisted history vs absolute science/mathematics. Arts underfunded for sports. Etc. Education is a mess. I believe in home schooling over dumb government driven standardization.

ok. here's the thing i am a teacher. i went through all the avenues and all the courses and will be doing my student teaching soon. i work as an assistant teacher right now and i had a lot of input when i was in high school. with that being said, if you haven't done any of this than please refrain from talking. no one should be telling me how to run my class or teach my subject area. also parents who normally do not care about their children anyway bcause they "can't come to parent-teacher conferences because of other things" shouldn't be telling me what i can't teach. you do not plan my lesson i do and the state apparently has no problem with it.
also nclb act was a joke. it didn't help schools. that we all agree on. however the parents in many districts don't say yes to a lot of levies that are very much needed because they feel we have the money in other areas. there is no money, just other organizations for different aspects of the school. like boosters for sports.

The government should have no part in education. We've given them all the power they want over it, and nothing is any better today because of it.

Here's an issue that's been ignored for three decades, even though Presidential candidates give it cursory lip service every four years and then do nothing. "No Child Left Behind" was an underfunded farce, and other "solutions" to the dilemma, like charter schools, home schooling, magnet schools and vouchers have produced pretty lame results, as well. NCLB was based on the ridiculous premise of teaching to a test objective, with the results of that testing not used to diagnose a student's weaknesses in order to determine proper remediation, but to determine funding levels for schools. In this, schools with underperforming testers were punished and deprived the resources they sorely needed, and schools with high achievers that obviously didn't need additional funding to excel got resources that were unnecessary. This was the most ass-backward approach to the problem imaginable, but, that's not surprising since it was a brain child of the Handjob administration. Furthermore, teaching to a test was always been shown to be a very suspect educational method. In addition, study after study has indicated that charter schools are often underfunded, poorly managed and conceived, staffed with inadequate and sometime legally dubious workers and operating under questionable educational objectives and policies. As a result, these experiments have produced results that aren't much better than your typical public school. Magnet schools have proven to be too focused in their approach, but seem to be a pretty good idea, yet, they're also underfunded. It's great that the government spends $130 billion a year in a fly-swat country like Iraq, but can't come up with enough money to properly support educational alternatives here in the U.S. No wonder we've been losing serious ground since the 1960s. Home schooling is the harbor of religious weirdos who want their kids to be weirdos, too, so they shunt them away from their peers and pass their own ignorance on to another generation. This option should be reserved only for those students with learning disabilities or other non-religious special needs. And, the idea of vouchers is just plain stupid and defeatist, a misappropriation of the taxpayers' money, and usually violates the establishment clause. What this country needs is more prudent spending in education, more federal influence (as the track records of state and local governments in this area are obviously quite lame) over educational policy and execution, the establishment of a national curriculum and standards (and not minimum ones), the abolition of teacher tenure, streamlined administration in our schools, more testing to determine student needs, not funding levels, improvements in physical plants, and replacing the K-12 organization with a "form and stream" approach like the one that's been most effective in the UK for nearly a century. All of this would involve shaking up a firmly-rooted culture of mediocrity, but, if teachers and administrators don't like it, well, they can go and work on a hot dog truck instead. And finally, self-involved parents have to start taking more of a role in their childrens' educations, turn off the idiot box, ban video games from the household, and impress on their kids how critically important their schooling is. Good luck with this last one.

Education must be free and unencumbered. No party, group or government has any business sticking their nose in what is not their business. Education should always be about teaching and nothing else. when politics and political driven agendas are allowed in, it becomes an indoctrination issue which limits and controls the freedoms we cherish so much.

A good education is very important, but you spend all that money on a
good college education only to find out that eventually that good
paying job you have will someday be cut by the government. It happens
all the time.

Education is a key issue and even though I am largely a Republican, one area where the Republicans do not have a clue. They keep lowering the standards while making college unaffordable for most.

The education standards in this country are falling faster than the dollar. I've seen schools in LA and Miami where only a quarter of students graduate, and the teachers don't give half a damn. This country is digging itself a ditch that it may never get out of by cutting funding.

They are keeping all the money for them selfs.The school aren't getting their money the others are taking it and putting it in thier pocets

Education should not be a political issue, it should be a personal issue. I fully support the idea that parents are best qualified to decide what their children should be studying and how much they should study it. The public education system is inefficient, arbitrary, and liberal.

education is an important issue, but should be decided at the local level and not by the federal government. schools today are filled with unmotivated students that are undisciplined and unwilling to learn. an education nowadays is a joke compared with an education 30 years ago.

  The feds should just get the heck out of education

the states can run things fine themselves

  Growing up in NW Pa and close to NY state, our schools were pretty good but living in TN now I see the problem.  A handful of schools around here are great and above average.  Oak Ridge school system is in the national top 10. (Of course OR is full of nuclear scientists, you got to keep up)  Then you go a little ways out into the boonies and the education system is stressed, understaffed, over crowded, and passing students with below-average grades to "get rid" of them.  Hey, they will just get married and have kids anyways, why educate them? (their thinking, not mine).  Even in some of the finer areas, the schools are way overcrowded.

My other concern with education is that they don't want to step on toes...."so and so's parents might not like us teaching that".  Tough sh**!  One thing I learned in my 40 plus years is the more education on delicate subjects that we have, the better equipped we are to handle situations.  We had a lot of sex ed in the schools for those not fortunate enough to have parents like mine to go beyond the physical aspects.  We also had hunter safety courses in school then. ( I come from a large hunting area.).  Everyone should be comfortable around firearms to prevent accidents.  These are just two examples. 

Of course this was in the 70's when the world was a little more sexists...girls took typing and boys took shop, but some of that was starting to change at the time.

Asides from it being extremely unaffordable,.....wait, I guess that's the problem.

Pooled one, I must again rebuff your assertion. The US public education system is a shadow of what it could be, overburdened by a lack of proper funding for teachers and aides (most aides are part-time with no benefits, having clocked 39 hours weekly). The teacher certification process in many districts (at least here in Phoenix) is appalling, with many teachers unable to properly pass the courses they are teaching. While I support the need for a proper education provided for by the government, thus far the system has not been up to the task, and needs an overhaul. Several other issues (poverty and illegal immigration chiefly) also impact this, so easy solutions are few and far between.

I believe that education should be the most important issue of our times.  We have people out there that could be teachers but don't because they know they can't afford anything with the meager salary given to teachers (at least in my state).  You also have kids that have no respect and cause great teachers to give up and its not the teachers fault, that lies with the parents.  We need more funding for after school program and things that will make kids want to learn and enjoy school.  I know my friend who is a teacher says they spend more time taching the kids how to pass the semester tests than real studies because thats what the "No child Left Behind" act has made schools do.  Children are the future and to not give them the best education possible is the biggest shame.  There's also the problem that not everyone learns the same way but if we had more tutoring then maybe that would help.  I know that when I was in school I had a hard time with math and because my teacher didn't want to take he time to show us the proper way to figure out the problem only his way I failed the class but ended up getting a tutor who help me alot.  I just wish we could do something to help all these children now before its too late.

Education is the most important issue, in my opinion at least. The thing about education that makes it important is that it can solve most every problem is society but the lack of it can cause and prolong every problem in the society. Most people seem to think that the best thing when it comes to education is to spend as much as possible on it and expect that to solve the problems with it. This logic is flawed because the public education system is naturally flawed (if this system wasn't flawed then economics and psychology would be wrong). It is naturally flawed since the system as we have it has tons of resources and rights but no incentives. The no child left behind idea was a greater idea than the do-nothing idea, unfortunately the flaws of the system couldn't be fixed by this act (i will admit that it had many problems but the logic behind it was good). The problem is human nature. We all work on the principals of gain over cost. We want to get more than we sacrifice. When you buy a candy bar, the 60¢ (average in the country) is worth less to you than the candy bar. How does fructose corn syrup and chocolate have anything to do with schools? It has everything to do with schools. The same incentive program, now on a large scale with much more to loose, is at play. The people who run the schools (all levels) have no incentive, be it positive incentive or the elimination-of-negative-outcome-incentive, and therefore, acting on human nature, bring efficiency down. They have nothing to gain by educating the schools better or more efficiently and therefore don't, as a whole, make the schools better (as a whole means that there are some people who care but over all they don't. I know some of you out there know some compassionate person and, because you hate me and because you think everyone else is like them, you may try to use that as a counter example). a public education in a non-nationalistic and non-religious country that is influenced by negative culture (emoism, gangsterism and idiocy) and short term pleasure (cellphones, alcohol, drugs, laziness, games, games, oh and games) has no incentive for the students to care (with the exception of the good ones) and there is no incentive for the teachers to care (they have noting to gain in the first place and now they have to go against a brick wall of negativism from students). We all know that slave labor is inefficient. Slaves have no incentive to work except if punishment is the alternative. The schools system is like a slave system (you know what i mean, i don't what some bleeding heart moron getting pissed off at me for making a valid point), the only incentive to work is to avoid consequences but the ideal amount of work is just enough to avoid those consequences. Public schools are ethically wrong. We want schools to promote things but the things we want them to promote are things that others see as wrong or evil. There are somethings we just don't know. I know all of you have an almost cultist faith in evolution and atheism but your faith doesn't make it any truer than faith in Jesus or Muhammad. Private schools are better since they have their own beliefs and you can pick the beliefs you want instilled into your children instead of the public school doing that for you. Public schools are bad.

Until the federal government got their fingers into the education pie, the US led the world in this area across the board. Now, we suck hind tit among industrialized nations. Dreamer alluded to "no child left behind"...this is a crock, has helped nothing, and is further proof of Bush's socialist tendencies. Want to improve public education in the US? Get the federal government out of it!  The results speak for themselves.

Education should be dealt with by the state, or at least more power needs to be taken away from the federal government and given to the state.

Our system of public education is miserable. And it couldn't be happening at a worse time. At no time in history has it been more important to have an educated populace in order for a nation to succeed. And it is just at this very time that our national high school graduation rate is about 67%.

We are committing suicide (of a sort) by allowing waves of immigrants in who place little or no value upon education. Immigration is great. Immigration w/o a desire to better oneself is a disservice to the the immigrant's newfound home, however.

After spending a fortune occupying,bombing and "rebuilding"(sarcasm intended) Iraq,our own schools are deteriorating and substandard.If we neglect our childrens education,we stand no chance of NOT becoming a 3rd world country in the future.

I believe very strongly in the need to preserve parent choice and a variety of "schooling" options for students.

Parents should be, first and foremost, held responsible for the setting of behavioral standards and academic performance. Next, society as a whole needs to pick up the slack by repremanding neglectful parents and helping those most in need of educational resources.

The one-size-fits-all, state as educator/parent does not work. Mass education must be a societal effort if it is to work.

Giving the system more money will not improve the system.

Very important political issue, that's the problem. Governments, by their design, do not do education well. Is there another thing in the world, into which we would pour absolute barrels and barrels of money, and be so dissatisfied with the result, that we would identify the solution as, "Hmmmm. We need to pour more money into this" ?

Teacher's unions and unattentive parents are equally to blame for this mess. Please don't expect the childless taxpayer to dump even more of their "share" into this bottomless pit.

Education is the most important aspect of the lives of the average citizen. It is the basis for all success in life. Teachers should make more money than doctors, and in return should be fired if they don't teach!

All I can say is I hope they keep teaching evolution.

I KNOW that children are the future.... We need to prepare them for it, WAY better than we are now.

Education is a State issue. The Federal Government should be confined to constitutional limits.

The biggest problem with education is the NEA!No amount of money in the world will solve the problems caused by this very liberal organization.The only way for the NEA to be held at bay is for parents to take a stand and quit letting the schools raise their kids.

There are so many problems with the education system that I don't even know where to begin. I do know howevere, where they don't have problems with the education system and that is in private schools. The schools set the expectations and the students must achieve. If they don't they're out. It's that simple. The parents understand the importance of an education and they make sure their kids get one. I do realize that not everyone can afford to send their children to private school but make no mistake, those who can and do are very involved with their child's education. Learning doen't take place in the classroom. It takes place at home! The explinations when doing homework solidify the concepts and dispell the confusion the children experience when they do their homework. This can't happen if the parents are not involved. When an adult brings a child into this world they are expected to provide for that child which includes educating them. This is an awesome responsibility. Yet to many parents dish off that responsibility to the education system and then complain when their child cannot perform or doesn't know what they should. It's to late then. Not only does the learning happen at home but the enrichment must come from home as well. Parents need to followup by expanding on what is being taught by opening the encyclopedia, researching on the internet, using the library, or other community resources. I can't help but wonder what some of these parents were thinking when they said, ...I do. or whether they even contimplated the consequence of unprotected sex. The problem with education falls squarely on the shoulders of the parents and until this problem improves, the education system will remain the way it is (in a downward spiral)

I agree 100% with what was written by tboneya. My father was a professional educator for half a century and I'm married to a teacher. She has had to spend an enormous amount of time filling out forms documenting what color her students are, who gets the free lunch program, etc. We get mailings from the N.E.A., and it's all about left-wing politics. If you give a child the bad grade that he/she earned, the parents will come rushing into the school and accuse you of being a racist. Kids are allowed to sass and mock their teachers, because they know the teacher can't lay a finger on them. I was visiting the school once and actually saw a 3rd grade boy physically strike my wife. And the teachers are under so much pressure to indoctrinate these children politically (always in a left-ward direction) that between that and trying haplessly to maintain order, they hardly get a chance to teach the fundamentals we learned a generation earlier. I'm beginning to believe more and more what I heard a minister say years ago: that the government really had no business being the ones to educate the children of this country in the first place.

Quality and affordable education is a problem, but the citizens and especially the educators do not like the solutions. First, a lack of funding is not the problem. I cannot speak for other states, but the last time I checked, North Carolina spends more than 50% of its annual budget on education, and that money does not included federal and local funding. That is a heck of a lot of money, so the problem must be how the money is spent. Second, the federal government should have a minimal role in education, limited almost entirely to redistributing educational resources on a national level to help smooth out the 'lumps' in resource availability on a national level. Third, some type of merit system must be imposed on our educators. I do not have standing enough to say which merit system is better, so just pick the one with the least warts (as they will all have some) and do it. Fourth, as painful as this may sound, the U.S. is overeducating our students. Lower level students do not need middle to higher education and middle level students do not need the highest education. Education costs money and that cost must be recouped somehow. Decreasing education on the lower level students will reduce the labor costs of that student-worker which will bring lower skilled jobs back (which is better than no jobs at all). Fifth, on a related note, we need to teach more real life skills (eg balancing a check book and negotiating a lease) and less high level English, math and literature to lower to middle level students. Sixth, slash administration by at least one half and use 50% of the money saved to hire actual teachers. This will save money and reduce class size. Sixth, (keeping in mind the new teachers from reducing administration) cut all the teachers that cannot make the grade and replace them with interns from area colleges for full semesters who get educational credit for the work (no or nominal pay). Seventh, replace most literature studies with combined literature, movie, television, etc studies as visual media has largely replaced reading as the common artistic experience (our modern mythology if you will). Finally, implement a voucher system in which each voucher is valued at the marginal savings to the state in having a student out of the public system.

Why do football players get paid millions when the people that educate our children (and adults!) barely scrape by on some of the most pathetic salaries this side of a fast food restaurant? Education is vital for our great citizens and should be taken very seriously. Teachers should get at LEAST a 1000% increase in salary. All schools should require teachers to have a certain level of education and certification. The older, decaying schools should be replaced with new, technologically-advanced wonders with built in computers, automatic doors, new books, teaching aids and more. A wise person once told me that ...if you ever stop learning, you know that there is a problem. This wise person is completely right.

Teachers unions are destroying american education and they do it in the name of helping the children. Truth is, most teachers that I know could care less as long as they get their enormous pensions, $2 co-pay on Rx drugs, and their summers off.

The federal Gov't has a surprisingly small slice of education spending. But in spite of this Bush has made more $$ available to more people for college than at any other time is history. In fact, despite continued tuition increases the cost of attending a university actually became more affordable last year. As far as spending at the state level is concerned. Most states spend nearly 66% of the annual budget on schools. With a growth rate of 6-10% far exceeding inflation. Eventually school spending will exceed the GDP at this pace. An impossibility of course but now you can see the addiction liberals have with spending.

Americans will always be fat/drunk/stupid as long as education is secondary. Our government lies about education- they really DON'T care- why would you educate a population of people you're trying to control? As long as people can't read, write, or perform even the simplest of algebraic or logical funcions, we are sheep.

There are too many stupid, lazy teachers in America.

It is quite obvious that the education system of the United States is deeply flawed. The biggest problem is the constant intrusion on the part of the federal government. Only around 8% of public school funding comes from the federal government, and yet it is the federal government that has the authority to decide what is best for school districts across the nation. As a high school student, I must say that I am very fortunate, as I feel that I am in a fantastic school. However, I realize that there are many who do not enjoy that opporunity. The first step towards reforming the public school system is to return the power back to the states. The Department of Education's sole responsibility should be to distribute funding. Let the local school districts (who through property and city taxes provide most of the funding for their schools) decide what is best for their schoolchildren. School choice is another important right. Parents SHOULD have the right to take their kids out of a failing public school and send them to another school of their choice. More parental involvement and choice is the key to ensuring that America's youth get the best education they possibly can. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, a landmark law signed by President Bush in 2001, although underfunded, is a step in the right direction. In the final analysis, education and the decisions surrounding it should be left up to the states and local school districts, because, as the saying goes, one size does not fit all.

If the government wants better schhools, they need to stop wasting money teaching 12 year olds how to put on condoms and how to perform oral sex!

Private schools only. Government doesn't exsist to provide an education. It is NOT a right!

A very important political issue. We live in a country where many high schoolers can't even locate the their own state on a map, there IS a problem! Teachers are forced to pass students who should fail because the administration is afraid of getting sued, THIS IS A PROBLEM. Most of the time, the class doesn't even finish the curriculum laid out in the beginning of the year. Education should be a top priority!

i wish they fed gov could do something it isn't the money it is how the matter is approached in the classroom

I'm a bit dismayed about all the bringing God back into the schools and that they are federally funded governement mouthpieces. For one thing, in recent years federal funding for schools has been about 7%. The majority comes from state taxes and local property taxes. This is where many of the problems lie. Rich suburban schools have higher property values, thus more money for schools. poverty stricken school districts can be horrendous to say the least. Read Jon Kozol's book, "The Other America" to see how school is being taught in East St. Louis. These children are not being given a fair shake. Sharing textbooks, bathroom facilities that don't work, teachers that quit in a matter of months because they can't take the high risk students and lack of support...I could go on! East St. Louis is not the only place dealing with this tragedy as most residents of inner cities can tell you. Until we revamp school funding we will continue to have poverty-stricken schools worthy of third world countries and students from these schools who are ill-prepared to face the real world, much less college. It's easy to just blame teachers and absent parents but we need to qiut giving 50% or more of our tax dollars to the Pentagon and deal with this very real problem at home because these kids are not going to go away. They'll be going to the Welfare office. Also, I'm not totally opposed to God in school, (the Great One upstairs knows how I prayed before a French exam) however, that really is the responsibility of the parents and family. Teachers are there to teach and not be surrogate parents. Teachers should certainly guide students between right and wrong, but as a Muslim, I have a real problem with zealots wanting schools to become a weeklong Bible study and Jesus rally. That's what Sunday School is for!

I think education is very important. We all need to learn how to read, write, and do math if we want to do anything worthwhile in this world. I think schools, especially at the primary level, need to go back to basics.

I usually don't read long winded snuffy. I am a teacher in a very small district. The school is composed of 30% foster kids. If you want to improve education then restructure it to be competitive. If a student doesn't met the standards at the end of 8th grade he or she goes into the lobor force in a apprentice program. If they don't make the standard at the end of high school then they go to a 2 yr. program. Those who do get a full prepaid 4 year college. Many people will disagree but think of the advantages. As they progress up the ladder the smaller the class size.Trouble makers and others who thought school was joke will become tax payers.High school grads will become formen or low to mid level management. College grads will be mid to upper level. The cream of the crop will become Doctors etc. This is just a thought. State and federal costs will drop.After awhile then parents and community leaders will get involved to encourage little Joey to study hard. WOW think of it! Parents involved in their childs education! What a novel idea! Maybe after a few years we won't have all the problems in the classrooms that we have now.

Where is this in the constitution?

The crux of so many problems. Undereducated people become a burden. Well-educated people ease burdens. QED

Education is a very important issue. Let's go beyond the political grandstanding that politicians do with this issue. Both parties are guilty of this by using catch phrases and soundbites to cover up the lousy conditions of our schools. Down here in Florida, Governor Bush has demanded that schools and teachers be held accountable through student testing (a fine idea). If a school fails the overall testing, then it loses funding and students are eligible for vouchers to attend public schools. The problem is that the majority of schools that are failing the standardized tests are schools where most of the students are new immigrants who don't know the language. If a school is failing, the government should help the schools that are failing by providing more funding and programs to allow the students to cope with the problem. In Florida, the government provides aid based on who is passing the test and failing it. If the students don't know English, then how do they expect them to pass a complicated test?? In my view, the education system in this country is too rigid. Different students have different needs. The "One Size Fits All" concept does not work with education. Different school districts should be given flexibility as to the types of programs that should be offered at the public schools. Teachers and students should be made accountable, but lets do it right. The Federal Department of Education should not be an agency that merely distributes a largesse of federal funding to the states. It should have the power to implement certain standards that all states need to adhere to, like standardized testing. Another major issue with the test is the review students get for it. In Florida, teachers spend half of the year reviewing students for the standardized test instead of teaching students actual material. The test should be something that is integrated into the curriculum. Skills such as math and critical reading should already be part of the curriculum. Students don't go to school to learn how to take a test, they go to learn skills that they will take into the job market. Also, parents need to be more involved in their kids education and students cannot be absent from school too much. If the education system is going to be reformed, it has to start at this point. Education is mostly a local issue and therefore the parents need to get involved because the federal government really can't do that much about it. Education is an issue that is very important because a well educated population will mean a productive and prosperous nation. For the poor and the "disenfranchised", as Jesse Jackson would say, the true civil right that needs to achieved is the right to an education. Quotas in the workplace won't solve anything if the minority does not have the relevant job skills. Education is the true civil right that everyone in this country is entitled to.

Conservatives need to get out of the way and allow the much needed money to be sent to our public schools. Thomas Jefferson believed that a democracy can only exist when we have an educated public that can make informed decisions and vote accordingly. I hope one day we can realize Jefferson's dream and live in a true democracy.

Want to improve scores? 1)ditch the teachers' union, and 2)privatize schools, abolish the Dept of Ed and NEA