On teaching, knowledge, and personal power.....

     "Knowledge is power.  From Florence in the 14th century
to Great Britain in the 19th and the United States in the 20th,
the leading economic power has always been the leading
educational power."

     "It's astounding that in the 21st century about 25% of men
do not graduate from high school in the U. S.  Even more
astounding, the number of high school dropouts has increased
since the 1960's, when about 18% of men dropped out."

"In 2010, the unemployment rate among high school
dropouts was close to 15%.

     "At times, teacher pay in the United States seems more
like something from Soviet-era Russia than 21st-century
America.  Wages for teachers are low, egalitarian, and not
based on performance.  We pay physical education teachers
about the same as math teachers despite the fact that math
teachers have greater opportunities elsewhere in the
economy.  As a result, we have lots of excellent physical
education teachers but not nearly enough excellent math
teachers.  The teachers unions oppose even the most
modest proposals to add measures of teacher quality to
selection and pay decisions.

     "Soviet-style pay practices helped to eventually
collapse the Soviet system, and the same thing is
happening in American education."

-as excerpted from Alex Tabarrok's Launching the Innovation
Renaissance: A New Path to Bring Smart Ideas to Market Fast