I wish I had time to go into this -- it's a critical issue with our life today. But I don't, so I'll make a couple hopefully pithy and not snarky comments. Fir

I wish I had time to go into this -- it's a critical issue with our life today. But I don't, so I'll make a couple hopefully pithy and not snarky comments. First of all, you have to measure things and you have to have somebody accountable for things. This is true no matter what the thing you are talking about. I don't see how much hand-waving and complaining about society's morals and values is going to get you beyond this extremely reasonable requirement. Second -- and this is ironic -- folks have been complaining about the quality of schools for years. Some of you guys act like this is the first you've heard of it. We've dropped boatloads of money in education. Wake up and see where all this centralized planning, factory-mentality, and unionized system has gotten you. I think it's great people are paying attention. We've missed you. Welcome to the party. It's a very complicated situation, and I don't see a solution emerging any time soon, unfortunately. I know I called out unions and such in my graph above, but in reality it's a very complex situation. The best I can come up with is that you're better off giving the money to the parents in the form of vouchers and letting various systems compete against each other. Or you can keep trying to make one-size-fits-all solutions. Good luck with that.