Odd that so many are not particularly dissatisfied with the dysfunctional status quo, as the US ratchets down to close to the bottom of educational achievement among richer nations.
Almost entirely thanks to poverty and uneven school funding.
Indeed, you're quite right. We spend more per student, generally, in poor districts than in wealthy ones. And poverty makes it difficult for students to have an environment conducive to learning. Indeed, when you are surrounded by a culture that treats educational attainment as essentially devoid of practical value or return, it hard to get students motivated no matter how much money you throw at them. I've always wondered what the educational metrics used to compare countries' performance (PISA, etc) would look like in the US broken down by race. I suspect that if one were to remove Blacks and Hispanics from the figures, our (well, I guess
your) performance would be at a more satisfactory level. (It is curious that these sort of measures tend to place the more homogenous countries at the top; one could argue "at least we
tolerate the presence of disadvantaged minorities.") Which suggests that, yes, there are broader environmental issues at play.
So the solution is to... not do anything differently? Because if we all agree that the status quo is indeed "dysfunctional", we all ought to support "reform" of one sort of another. Critics of "reform" are in this regard somewhat like critics of Obamacare- the find lots of problems with it but are mum on what they'd do instead, and in this case the implication is that the present system suits them just fine. "Them" here being the education unions, of course.
The thing about charter schools, as a common criticism goes, is that while they may very well owe their success to their ability to attract bright students (the implication being that they aren't all that great), the "bright kids" from low-income backgrounds would otherwise fare more poorly in their absence. Which is perhaps the greatest tragedy of our education system's dysfunction- that students with potential and enthusiasm are being stifled by it and denied the opportunities for success that they would take
if they were available.Indeed, one could make the case that one of the more egregious imbalances of our education system is the excessive focus given to special-needs education at the expense of, in many cases, programs for advanced students.
Either way, the problem of how, even with tenure and the "inflated" salaries, no one (capable) really wants to be a teacher these days remains a difficult challenge to overcome, at least with normal assumptions about incentives and such.
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