Quote:I believe that, in many situations, it's a better solution than government oversight. Private contractors often improve service and cut costs over government agencies. They tend to hire better people, train them better, hold them more accountable (ever seen the government try to fire someone?), and they frequently do it with less overhead because they know that they can be replaced. All bets are off in the defense arena, where defense contractors can bill the government $100 for a toilet seat and the government gleefully signs off on it, but if a lot of those contractors are hired at the local or state level, you'd see a lot of services improve dramatically.

 

That being said, I'm not sure that education is one of those areas. I'm not a fan of Common Core at all, and I know several teachers who want to burn their Common Core materials because it's just such a woefully inadequate program. It's easy for me to say this now because I'm 12 years out of high school, but I do wish we'd expand the school year by another month like some of the leading countries do. Would it cost more? Yeah, teacher's unions would certainly want and deserve raises for adding a month to the calendar, janitorial and support staff that are typically furloughed or placed on reduced hours during the summer would be needed full-time, the power bill would be marginally higher by virtue of not being able to turn off lights and A/C to unused wings of the school, and other incremental costs would be incurred, but at some point, isn't it worth it?

 

States and local school boards should retain control over school curriculum, and while getting them on board with the idea of adding a month to the school year might be difficult--especially in areas like rural Colorado, where many schools already operate only four days a week because of local needs or budgetary constraints--the federal government stepping in and footing the bill for that extra month, at least initially, while making up the difference elsewhere (cut military spending and raise taxes on the wealthy...sacrilege, I know) would probably bring most states and school districts on board with the idea.

 

If there's an area that we should pay more attention to, education is it. Drop Common Core and focus on state-specific curriculum, increase funding to schools to hire better teachers, stop forcing teachers to promote students that clearly aren't ready (19% of high school graduates being illiterate is ridiculous--http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/06...80355.html) and rather than grading teachers on standardized test scores, grade students on them. How do we grade teachers if not by standardized test scores and student grades? That's above my pay grade, but there has to be a better way than how it's done now.

 

Despite all I've just said, education is a secondary priority for me. First, I want my damn privacy back, and I'm tired of getting my chain yanked (literally) every time I walk into an airport.