Well, there seems to be a general consensus here that public schools are doing a piss poor job, in either teaching to pass state tests and thus perpetuating mediocrity, or by failing to help encourage kids in other ways.

This presents us with quite a dilemma. Not everyone can afford private schools and not everyone has the time for home schooling. Thus public schools are in quite a cunundrum. If we pay teachers more, it won't change kids not caring. If we make things easier on kids by lowering passing grades and giving more curves, we are in a sense failing the kids. Therefore it seems the ultimate responsibility here is going to fall in the homes where the kids are being raised. The question now is - how is this tackled?

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"The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom."
Isaac Asimov