Fun Fact: 6% of Scientists are Republican

[Dotard]

If we better fund.....

This seems to be the catcha all answer when speaking of how to improve the education of Americans,

"Let's throw more money at the problem, that'll fix it!"

It is of my opinion that once you start overpaying for a service, the service provider begins not to care about his craft, it becomes about the money. My brother and his wife are 'educators'. Their income is obsene for the work, and time invested on the job.
At social functions where I am in the company of teachers it was quite common when questioned about why they chose the profession, for them to reply; "Where else can I get paid so much for doing so little?" and "I really don't give a damn about those little shits, I just want my fat-assed paycheck, three months vacation every year, a week off for xmas, a week off for thanksgiving, a free health club membership, etc. etc."
It's a small sample but I'll go out on a limb here and say this is quite common based on the testimony of these people.

Throwing more money at these teachers is not the answer. If you were to hire teachers at a fair wage for a fair days work you cannot tell me you would not still have people lined up, resumes in hand, applying. The up side would be the people applying would be wanting to teach for the love of teaching, not for the love of money.

When my brother just entered into the market after his schooling the easiest positions to get with no experiance is in private schools. Of course his first job was in one of those. Boy he used to LOVE to crone on about how private schools consistantly churn out children who read, write and do 'rithmatic at higher grade levels than the public schools. Since private schools are notorious for low wages any 'educated' educators that pass thru their doors are doing it just to list it on their resumes as experiance so they don't stick around long in these institutions. The teachers that you see year after year have no more than a high school education themselves. (Source for this opinion is nothing more than my personal interactions with these educators.) Again, small sample, overwhelming support for my contentions.

Again, my opinion is these non-educated educators consistantly churn out higher end products than the public schools due to the teachers wanting to teach for the love of teaching, it's not about the money. I believe the problem with US public schools is because for those employed to teach, it's about the money and nothing else.

I advocate cutting teacher pay to a more fair and reasonable amount. Ditching the health club memberships and attracting those who want to do it because they want to do it, not because it's a sham job that'll get you buckets of money.

Just my 2 cents.