Education

No Child Left Behind is dumb.  There’s no better investment we can make in the future of America than the education of our children.  Each child should be given access to world-class education, not just the children of those that can afford it.  How do we ensure a world-class education for our children?  Surely not by relying on multi-choice test scores as a metric for progress and quality! Let the Chinese beat us on test scores.  What makes America great is our creativity and innovation.  We need an educational system that is great at fostering that.  Instead of vilifying the teaching profession and its unions let’s start respecting the teachers of our children as much as we respect other professionals.  Let’s support our teachers and help them do this important job.  Let’s encourage people to get master’s degrees in education and then encourage them to teach in our inner-city schools by forgiving their student loans.  Let’s invest in education the same way we invest in our military.  And if you think that spending money on military is more important than spending money on education you should realize that no nation has ever been able to sustain military might in the face of economic collapse.  So investing in the economic strength of our country which depends on having well-educated citizens is a pre-requisite for military strength. 

Model

Let’s learn from successful approaches elsewhere in the world. For example: Why Are Finland’s Schools Successful?