Being a former board of education member for a large city, I can say with some experience that "standards" alone will do nothing. Education is so messed up beyo

Being a former board of education member for a large city, I can say with some experience that "standards" alone will do nothing. Education is so messed up beyond recognition today. There's so much incredible bureaucracy. So much. Unimaginable. Federal, state, local. School districts have centralized to the point that it's nearly impossible to implement changes unless it's some sort of "one size fits all" scheme. Local schools are hamstrung by work rules, union rules, tenure rules, and then on top of that state and local education "standards." Then there are socio-economic issues. Parents who themselves never learned to read. Kids living in areas where the person to look up to is a drug dealer. Cultures of dependence and reliance on government handouts. Many (if not most) urban school districts have dropout rates of over 50%. Even where there is not that sort of culture, there are parents who think that the schools are babysitters and any kid who does something wrong much have done so because it's the <i>school's</i> fault. And of course, teachers unions, licensing rules, pay scales, and lack of individual accountability contribute as well. It's such an enormous problem that there's no single answer. I think that decentralizing education would go a long way toward helping to spur innovation. Charter schools, vouchers, and removing attendance boundaries help too. Centralization has really hurt education and the only answer that seems to be proposed is <i>more centralization.</i>