You scoff at the $440 amount—your scheme only results in about $1075 going to each student—certainly not enough to afford Andover or the crappy $6000 school you send your kids to.

You're wrong. And given you are such an idiot, I see no reason to discuss this further with you.

I say get the government out of education. Set up a voucher system.

Steve Verdon- This is, to use your words, a better example of "moronic drivel." Creating a voucher system is not "getting the government out of education"--it is simply re-arranging the way in which the government is skewing the marketplace. The federal government should entirely abandon the education game instead of pouring money into it as your scheme suggests.

Under your scheme the feds will still be pouring billions into education, unfairly subsidising people with children.

You scoff at the $440 amount--your scheme only results in about $1075 going to each student--certainly not enough to afford Andover or the crappy $6000 school you send your kids to.

Ok, lets say you abolish the federal Dept. of Ed and give the money back to taxpayers. It would result in about $440 per taxpayer. Tuition for a decent school like Phillps Academy Andover is $24,000 for a day student. Where’s the rest of the money going to come from?

Actually, a voucher system would take the current spending on students, divide it by the number of students and that would be a crude approximation to the amount of the voucher. Second, the comparison to a hyper expensive private school is just stupid idiotic bullshit. This is like saying if the government is going to pay for a car for everybody, then that car should be a Rolls Royce. I manage to send my kid to private school for under $6,000 for 10 months. So cut out this kind of moronic drivel, or people will start thinking you are a moron.

Wal-Mart is an excellent example of why the free market shouldn’t be solely responsible for education. The market’s priorities are not going to be the priorities we want to teach.

While I don't doubt that some people might avail themselves to "Wal-Mart-esque" schools, that wouldn't be the only choice available, just as Wal-Mart is not the only place to shop. In fact, maybe having some kids attend "Wal-Mart Schools" would be a good thing. Not everybody is going to be a doctor, lawyer, or atronaught. There will need to be plumbers, carpenters, and other jobs that don't require things like calculus or comparative writing.

Vouchers that are made out to parents for the current per capita monies being wasted in the government schools. Just give 80% of the current per pupil expendature. The parents can take these vouchers to any school they trust. All the failing bureaucrats will either put up or shut up. They can try to organize there fellow employees at Wal Mart. LOL

*And* too important to be left to the vagaries of the free market. Angels, descend! Teach us! We are unworthy to do so ourselves!

Failing that, the feds are in a better spot to raise standards and impose uniformity than anyone else.

Still the local systems are better than turning it over to the fed, for pity’s sake.

Bithead, I would like to think that the feds would be less likely to impose any stunts like ID in the biology class. I could be mistaken.

It occurs to me that we might want something insulated, like the Federal Reserve Board, to handle curriculum decisions.

Education in general has been treated like an afterthought in this country. For years we relied on smart women's not being able to do much else but teach. We don't have that little luxury any more. We need to get serious about education if our nation's going to have a future. Leaving it up to thousands of little districts and the Texas School Board's choice of textbooks is not the way to go.

Set up a voucher system. Set it up so that parents have to fork over part of the tuition.

Ok, lets say you abolish the federal Dept. of Ed and give the money back to taxpayers. It would result in about $440 per taxpayer. Tuition for a decent school like Phillps Academy Andover is $24,000 for a day student. Where's the rest of the money going to come from?

Education is too important to be left up to the states.

Agreed. It's also too important to be left to the feds, or to local government.

It's too important to be left to any government.

I no longer have faith in the federal gov’t running our education system – it is a state issue – break the unions and get rid of national initiatives.

The federal government does not "run our education system." They provide modest funding, but most of it comes from local property taxes and the governance structure is entirely local. "The unions," by the way, have been unequivocally critical of idiotic national initiatives like No Child Left Behind.

Before the big-government ideologues of the Bush/Rove/Cheney camp browbeated conservatives who demanded limited and effective governance, the Republican party had the elimination of the Dept. of Education as an important element of their party platform.

When Bush ran for president in 1999 he largely did it on the appeal to become the School Board Superintendant-in-Chief. That should have tipped us of to his activist predilections. After assuming the presidency its gone downhill since.