[ALawPoker]

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Anyway, to end this stupid argument...why do people in this thread think that public education system isn't fixable? It works quite well in other countries - at least a lot better than the US - even when much more centralized.

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I haven't been reading the entire thread, but I don't think anyone believes it "isn't fixable" (based on your apparent criteria of "slightly improved" being "fixed"). I would agree that there might be certain changes worth considering, but it wouldn't change my belief that getting the government entirely out of the way is the best possible change.

Since you seem to have so much useless information at your disposal, do other systems spend more per student? I would guess that they certainly do (but who knows). That could be one reason the other systems get better results. If I forced everyone in my town to pay $2 to build a giant statue of myself it would be a better statue than if I only took $1. But that doesn't mean things wouldn't be better still if I let people do what they wanted with their money.

Another reason, which might first strike you as silly but seems pretty intuitively relevant, is that US children are less similar to each other than kids in other countries. I'd say there's a bigger swing in, say, (not to be stereotypical, but trying to make the point clear) the black kid listening to rap music and the preppy white kid trying out for the golf team than the swing you'd find in, say, Belgium. So the bigger a disparity in the people using a service, the less a one size fits all solution can work. And so, the more devastating the results of centralization will be when you're trying to service widely varying interests.

If you compare A vs. B there will always be countless reasons why the same approach might have slightly different results. There is more going into the situations than our brains, being only human, can process effectively. So it seems silly to dwell myopically on various data points, and entirely ignore the broader trend that should tell you government intervention can only screw things up. If you can show me overwhelming evidence why such *isn't* the case, then I'm open ears. But the burden of proof is on you if you're conceding (or at least, temporarily ignoring) the theory aspects. I'm really confused what your point is, or why you think the observation that some systems happen to work better than others means something to ACers. (Or maybe you've given up on that implied point, and are just trying to argue for slight improvements to the US system because you enjoy talking about education.)