response 18 of 29:

Dec 10 17:52 UTC 2003

Here's a theory you can boot around:  Public schools were badly damaged
by the feminist movement.
 
Before the 1970s, teaching and nursing were among the very few professions
which were wide open for talented women.  Because the public schools
had a more-or-less captive labor supply, schools didn't have to pay 
competitive salaries -- teachers, mostly women, couldn't get into 
other, better-paying fields.   Once the rest of the economy opened
to women, education lost its hold on the supply of talented women.
 
I keep seeing solutions which I characterize as "fiat economics:" 
attempting to declare that teachers will become better.