The Big Problem with Schools

i was reading some thing online about the "war on teachers" that seems to be making the rounds these days.  i probably will not totally get into that in this post.  So, what is the biggest problem with the school system in the US?

The biggest failure of the US educational system is the concept of equality.  This applies to educating everybody, regardless of the immigration status, language spoken, ability, etc.  The US concept of equality also opens schools/districts up to completely unnecessary and counter-productive lawsuits.   

There is always somewhat of a trade off between equality and efficiency.   If you want an efficient educational system, you cannot view everybody as equal.  There are some people through numerous factors who are not worth the cost of educating.  This could range from certain diseases, birth defects, accidents, bad luck, etc.  If you want to have the best educational system, you cannot treat everyone as equal.  Diversity is a big problem in the US that many other countries do not have to deal with.

If you discount the concept of equality or at least temper it somewhat, the idea of public schools themselves come into question.  The public school system is supposed to provide a standard of education (kind of a certain floor) in what students are taught (or indoctrinated with, if you prefer).

This alone tries to set an equality standard.  However, this creates the do the minimum public school system that exists today.  From  an efficiency standard, all schools would be private.  Schools would rise or fall based off of their merits, not be propped up in a system of perpetual inefficiency.  A private school system (maybe with government vouchers) would benefit those being educated.  Schools would have to compete with each other (actually what would likely happen is schools operating as local/state oligopolies).  This means changes in the curriculum more frequently and a system better equipped to handle the necessary changes needed to operate the system more efficiently.

There is one oft quoted statistic that really annoys me.... money spent per student.  In the liberal theory, this is a good thing.  However, in the real world, more money spent per student suggests higher levels of inefficiencies.  Much of real difference in this stat will be related to the difference in teacher salaries between regions.  As a taxpayer, wouldn't you want the most bang for your buck? 

Achievement metrics for teachers do not work - would teachers not cheat (like write answers on the board) to ensure that they meet the minimum score possible?  You can't evaluate a teacher's effectiveness based off of one or two tests (in fact, i do not know if there is any form of accurate measurement).   Bad teachers are probably easier to spot.         

Original Post Date: 05/11/11