Canada compares favourably with the rest of the world, but the US is spending more and getting fairly poor results. This probably explains why Obama is willing to continue some of Bush's experiments in education. While I hope for success for Obama, pushing charter schools and the hoping that "entrepreneurship" will save the educational system appears misguided to me.
First, interest group-based "charter schools" creates fault lines in the social fabric by isolating these groups from each other. Public funding of religious schools worries me greatly. (Canada's social contract among its two founding groups -- English and French -- resulted in public funding of Catholic schools. I view this as a mistake, but it not open to change at this time.)
Second, the hope that entrepreneurship will save the educational system is misguided. It is not clear to me that the money economy is the solution to social ills. Good pay for teachers is essential, but a lot of the money goes into bloated bureaucracies and overpaid school administrators. The idea that paying big bucks for quality education is equivalent to hoping that over-compensated lWall Street bankers and hedge fund managers will build a sound economy. Money won't bring better educational results. The quality of education is a complex mix of support for education among parents and the wider community, a sense of public service among the educators, and a youth with a sense of promise and a commitment to the future make a complex mixture that create strong educational institutions.
As with most problems, it is easier to see the what needs to be fixed than it is to identify how to fix it, or how to mobilize to make the change, or how to find the commitment to stick with improving things until tangible results are obtained and the new approach takes root.
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