The per pupil cost of government schools has well more than doubled (in inflation adjusted dollars) in less than thirty years. It is several times what it was 100 years ago. At the same time we graduate a huge percentage of functional illiterates. We all laugh at the Jay Walking segment of the Tonight Show but blinding ignorance is common among those whose teachers were more concerned with their self esteem than their education.

Blaming parents and "society" is crap. There have always been problem children and bad parents. We didn't used to allow them to destroy the education of everyone else. Also, there are plenty of Catholic, and other private, schools that draw from the same population, spend much less and do a much better job. They DEMAND discipline, punish miscreants and expect results.

At the government schools we have the teachers unions and bureaucracy. The unions protect incompetents and demands higher pay, better benefits and retirement than the private sector but much fewer hours at work. The bureaucracy rewards based upon seniority rather than results, refuses to support classroom teachers against juvenile delinquents and their parents, and loads up the payroll with lots of non classroom staff. Agenda driven politicians and "activists" demand time be used to indoctrinate kids in whatever is politically correct

As for salaries and benefits. I have spoken with RETIRED teachers from several states who are being paid well in excess of $100K annually, plus healthcare. While I'm sure there are some whose wages have not gone up, they would be the exception rather than the rule. Teachers salaries have gone up even during the current recession, usually much faster than the rate of inflation.

Public education in the US is a jobs program for the middle class. The abysmal state of actual education and the ever increasing amount we spend on it prove the assertion. For more information, and to see how your state is doing, check out this link.

http://www.alec.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Report_Card_on_American_Education

We all like to think of ourselves as rugged individualists. But when push comes to shove most of us are sheep who do what we are told. Worst of all, a lot of us become unpaid agents of whoever is controlling the agenda by enforcing the current dogma on the few rugged individualists who actually exist.