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["clanSkeen" <sgian AT planetc.com>]

>  He was
>certainly aided by the fact that teachers were relatively much higher
>paid than today---attracting the best as in any other business other
>than education.

So you've said before:  Education is like any other business, if you spend
more money you get a better "product."   This leaves is with an enigma:  the
schools systems that do the best academically aren't the ones where the most
money is spent.   Speculation aside, it has been demonstrated many times
over that more spending and higher teacher salaraies do NOT mean better
education.  It makes no difference how ligocal it sounds or how much the
principle *ought* to apply, it *doesn't*.

For example, and there are legions more:

"Plainly, continued increases in federal spending on education have not had
the desired effect. This is very obvious in Al Gore's adopted hometown of
Washington, D.C. Washington receives the highest proportion of educational
funds from the federal government (15.6 percent), has the smallest pupils
per teacher ratio (11:1), and is the fourth largest spender per student in
the United States ($8,670). Yet when it comes to academic achievement
Washington is ranked fiftieth out of fifty-one. Comparing Utah and New
Jersey further disproves the myth that more spending equals better
education. Utah spends the least per student ($3,909) while New Jersey
spends more per student than any other state ($9,585). Utah is ranked a
respectable fifteenth academically, while New Jersey is ranked twenty-fifth
despite spending more than twice per pupil.14 "

http://www.ntu.org/main/press_issuebriefs.php?PressID=289&org_name=NTUF

If we assume that your principle MUST hold true, then what schools produce
is not education.  (If that were true, the schools with the highest teacher
salaries would have the best education).  Rather they must be doing
something else, like indoctrination.


*washingtonpost.com* <http://www.washingtonpost.com/>
*Good Homes, Good Students*
By William Raspberry


What the author fails to address, and all of his ilk fail to address, is
that if schools and the government weren't usurping an inordinate proportion
of our children's time and their parent's money (and therefore, their time),
then perhaps they could be more involved with their children as he
advocates.


James