I understand your concerns, and I was too rushed to really flesh it out. Shrub's minions have really debased language, because "standards" has now been made a dirty word. But what I mean by it is that there is a floor of things kids should learn beneath which no child should fall, and it should be the same regardless of state or locality. Why is that a curriculum in City A is so drastically different than City Z, or the curriculum in Vermont is so different than the one in Nebraska?

E.g., if a child can start algebra in the 5th grade, great, but every child will do so by 8th grade. Biology no later than 9th grade. Foreign language to be started no later than 8th. And so on.

In my perfect world :<) , testing would be used as it is supposed to be used--as an assessment/diagnostic tool, but not the only one. Certainly it would not be used as it is currently--a bludgeon to punish schools for failing to attain some BS score as opposed to actually measuring what's been learned and make teaching adjustments accordingly.

And speaking of teachers, they'd be paid much better.

All schools would be operated year-round. We should not run our schools so amusement park management can have a steady supply of cheap labor.

But what really burns me is funding education on based on local property taxes, which is totally unfair. That means that lots of kids are starting with one hand tied behind their backs. I believe children have the right to an appropriate education, regardless of where s/he lives, both for their own sakes and to safeguard and perpetuate democracy. (We cannot have a functioning democracy without educated citizens. You have to be able to read and comprehend the Constitution to properly follow it.)

I know what I'm after is ambitious. Utopian, even. I'll never live to see it happen. I personally think it would take a century to get it done. I know the argument that because education is not specifically enumerated in the Constitution, it is deemed a state function. But that's really an excuse. The founders couldn't foresee everything. I'm so over the vaunted "local control," I really am. I've never understood why education gets run by people who are not education professionals.

Like I said, I'm a bit of a radical about it. I know I'll never get my perfect world, but I am willing to work to see a part of it come to life.

Can't hear ya, Peach!

Oh I forgot--just because one is a content matter expert DOES NOT make him or her a good teacher, or even a merely competent one.

Clearly, you'd want someone who is knowledgeable in their subject, but I find pedagogical theory neither silly nor psycho-babble.

What is a concern is how one defining a "highly-qualified" teacher. Again, you don't want some know-nothing walking through the front door. But the standards (damn, there's that word again!) by which that's measured get to be so ridiculous, until you can have a teacher, say, who's successfully (meaning, they have a track record) worked with special-needs kids for 15 years, but if they don't have one BS requirement, they are suddenly "not qualified."

We don't even have kids yet, but I am not flippin' playing about their education when they get here.  

Can't hear ya, Peach!