The problem with the education budgets is all the graft involved. The money should be going into infrastructure (not rigged contracts) and retaining the best teachers. Teachers should redo their certifications every three or four years, since technology is on an accelerating pace, and the classroom infrastructure should be updated along about the same schedule. Merit pay above the normal rates should be established and applied based on a range of variables that are not able to be rigged as a group. Graduation rates, kids left back, classroom control, etc. The public education system should be doing what all large corporations do, which is to identify their best talent and retain it. Given the value of an excellent teacher promotion should not force people away from the classroom into the bureaucracy. Keep the best teachers in the classroom as long as you can and reward them with pay boosts. These are all things that the best educational systems in the world do as a function of normal operation. The US needs to catch up and focus on educating everybody to the best possible outcome. Trade schools should be a simple option that kicks in along about the 7th or 8th grade if it becomes obvious that the student would be better off learning a trade.
