Frankly I'm sick of hearing people that can't understand how people are indirectly given higher quality of life by us having an educated population. People without kids benefit from more availability of good jobs, a workforce to fill said jobs, and reduced crime rates... not to mention maybe a little civic pride. If that's not the case I wonder why someone without kids would live in a locality with a higher millage going toward schools... Could it be that they are generally nice places to live?
You want to know why education is lame in this country? Because we thjnk of education as strictly a private good, a commodity that helps only the individual. Countries that actually take education seriously realize it's a public good too.
For all the whining we do in this country about education, we really do indicate a lot of contempt for the concept. With an anti-educational culture, you have crappy education. No policy will change that and the private sector will not magically save things.

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"Man lives in the sunlit world of that which he believes to be reality. But unseen by most is an underworld, a place that is just as real... but not as brightly lit... A DARK SIDE!"
-opening from Tales From the Darkside