Yeah, the article is essentially empty of any research. "Hey Massachusetts did these things and it worked out great!" Well What did Massachusetts do? Teacher en

Yeah, the article is essentially empty of any research. "Hey Massachusetts did these things and it worked out great!" Well What did Massachusetts do? Teacher entrance exams and reshuffling money. Reshuffling money where exactly? What else did they do to improve scores? I'd also like to point out that in many other countries the state is seen as the first employer of choice. Unlike the US where Apple, Oracle, Google, and Microsoft get the best picks first and the state can choose later many countries, if you do well in school you are slotted for a teaching or gov't job with great benefits, lifetime employment, guaranteed pension, housing, etc. This might not mean much to those in the US but in Europe and most of Asia a government job is a seriously good job. This affects the US education because some of the best teachers aren't even considering teaching, not when they can pull Google money, Facebook money, or Intel money. So in that regard, the unions are right. Our free market works so well that teachers have to be paid more. Not all teachers, but certainly the best ones. This is why it's important to factor in opportunity costs when doing these samples. If the best job in China is a teacher making $50,000 than what is the equivalent in the US? $100k, $150k.