The quickest way to fix the education system in this country is to basically pay kids to learn. The promise of future rewards simply isn't tangible enough for a lot of kids today -- especially ones who don't see any future for themselves. What if quarterly report cards were a way for students to earn some money? Not much... maybe only a few hundred dollars at maximum (As in all courses for example) Give the teachers incentives based on the same metrics.

I'm skeptical of the idea that, with enough money,, we can coddle kids into learning by revising how the information is taught or otherwise candy coating the material to be more accessible. It's a bad life lesson. Sometimes learning things is hard. Sometimes you have to work at it. Sometimes you need to learn a subject inside out to understand it and that is difficult. If you manage to find someway to make a particular subject easy to learn it only works to a certain degree because kids may be conditioned to believe that all information they need to learn in life will be presented in such a carefully engineered and optimized way. That is simply not reality. The reality of most people's lives is you work for your own best interest and are rewarded for it in a tangible way. Duplicating that model in public schools in some form would be a step in the right direction.