Reply #27: I have in fact identified the real problems

[notesdev]

If you think that cut budgets are the problem, you haven't looked at the numbers. There is almost no relationship at all between money put into the system and the performance of that system (just look at Detroit).

Rote learning is not ideal, but in the past it was sufficient to produce reasonably educated graduates. Whatever is going on today, it is not producing reasonably educated graduates.

Economic hardship? There has always been economic hardship, always will be. This is effectively a constant and not part of the equation.

Now, public devaluation of critical thinking, that I can agree with. If you were in charge of solving that problem, where would you start?