> I would enjoy teaching, but wouldn't do it for the world.

As a current teacher in the states, this has become my attitude. My mom is a teacher (retiring this year, actually) and I never seriously considered it, to be honest. Yet, once I got started, I found out how enjoyable it was, and that I really liked it (even though I hate teaching Algebra II to kids who can barely multiply...). But I'm in a red state, and tired to have to constantly worry about funding, whether I'll have a job in a few years because of budget cuts, whether I'll have insurance and/or a pension, etc. etc. It's absolutely awful and really draining on you. I am, sadly, looking at getting out.

I think part of the problem is how our system is set up. We need to move to a system like Germany, in my opinion. After middle school, if you're a decent student, you can get put on the track to go to college; otherwise, you get put on a "career path". My school already has those, but, unfortunately, they still make those students take the useless classes, like Algebra II. This just kills the desire to learn.

It also doesn't help that smartphone addictions are a huge problem to overcome, and there's still teachers pushing for more technology integration into the classroom when I honestly believe we need less.

It sucks, because I do enjoy teaching, but with the current trend of things, I really want out.

> Over the past 20 years or so, the federal government has shifted the burden of education to the states by cutting subsidies as well, making matters worse.

Prior to 1980, there was no federal Department of Education, and prior to 1953 when the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare was created, the federal government's involvement with education was limited to an Office of Education hidden away in the Federal Security Agency, and prior to 1939 it was a little bureau in the Department of the Interior.

Philosophically, the U.S. initially emphasized local control of education. The federal government's involvement with public education didn't really become so heavy-handed until the mid-60s. The states were not that involved until relatively recent times, either; rather, education was pretty much controlled by local school boards. Regardless of which philosophy you personally favor (decentralized vs. federal control), it's very difficult or impossible to argue that Americans as a whole are better educated now than they were 50 or 100 years ago.

And what that history tends to highlight is that, at least in a classroom setting without a lot of 1:1 instruction, there's probably only so much that schools can do to move the needle by themselves absent the right kind of home environment and involvement. For example, there's very little correlation between per student spending and test achievement between towns and cities in a state.

If you count blacks too, it is easy to argue that education as a while is getting better. That demographic and it's education made big leaps against back then.

But also, I have yet to see compelling argument for why whites as a whole did not made progress - if you include drop outs and people who barely finished elementary school too. Those were more frequent back then.

> Entire article can be boiled down to this. Takeaways: education is controlled by the states, and many states don't make it a priority.

Education is a classic state issue. Why shouldn’t people be able to deprioritize it?

There has to be an argument that when you deprioritize education so kids can't read or do basic arithmetic yet are expected to do taxes and follow arcane laws immediately upon hitting age 18 that its extremely harmful to future generations to defund it.

Basically, if you vote on a single issue to change speed limits everyone having the law inflicted upon them is also a voter. Or at least a hairs length away from being one if you get your license as fast as possible at 16.

If you vote to defund public schools so the power goes out intermittently and there is black mold in the ceiling and cockroaches in the lockers, you are directly harming those who have no say in what happens to them.

It comes back to general issues of regional politics in a global world. If China wants to manipulate their currency and violate IP or if Russia wants to invade and conquer its neighbors or if the US wants to occupy countries for decades on end the citizens of, say, Greece never had anything close to a say in any of those happenings but are still subject to the consequences of them. Just because you get to write your own laws doesn't mean those without a voice in your decisions will be heavily, often negatively, impacted by them.

In the US that problem is more pronounced, because the freedom of movement within the US means that states that actually educate their population have to deal with the influx of uneducated that enter them when their economies prosper with an educated employed population and the states that didn't educate their people have crippled economies incapable of growing because nobody can read beyond a 4th grade level.

>Why shouldn’t people be able to deprioritize it?

They should to a degree, but of course it depends on the level. Plus, having an educated population is good for national and economic security. Really now more so than ever in our history given the competitive landscape of the world economy today.

In other words, as a national security issue, I don't believe states shouldn't be allowed to neglect education as much as some have. One of the pillars to building and maintaining an economic powerhouse is a well educated population.

As long as there's some minimum floor for public education. Otherwise there's a grave risk that we end up with even more class stratification and impeded economic mobility than we have now.