First of all, the federal government should have control over all public schools. This does not mean that it should micromanage, but it should have the final say in all disputes over public education. Many conservatives would protest that school vouchers might be the only way to send their children to less secular schools. Here is my solution: Require that all schools set aside time for daily school prayer and post the Ten Commandments in every classroom. Another requirement that I propose is mandating abstinence-only education in all schools. Academic standards must be national, and there should be an annual national test of all students on all grade levels.
Furthermore, the federal government should essentially nationalize all public schools. All public schools should be dependent on the U.S. government for funding and should have their funding increased and decreased (and in some cases, eliminated) based on whether and to what extent they meet both academic and ethical standards. Private schools should still exist, of course, but without government vouchers. In this way I put together the ethical understanding of conservatives and the academic understanding of liberals to give a comprehensive, de-secularized free education plan to all children. Combined with my affirmative action plan (which I discuss in another thread) this is how I would run our public schools. I welcome all comments.

What if i'm Hindu? Or Islamic? Or athiest? Do i still have to pray?

__________________
What's this i hear bed? Word has it you and Pam are sleeping together.

All children must be allowed to pray- not required to pray. That would include people of all faiths (except the few that worship evil), including Hinduism and so forth.

Can't you do that in break (recess?) if you wanted to? Sounds good to me. Except if the non religious kids don't get time out where the religious kids would to pray. also what happens when someone claims there a Jedi knight and need a day off to master the force?

__________________
What's this i hear bed? Word has it you and Pam are sleeping together.

It would not occur to most children to pray during recess.

Neither would it occur to them to pray during school unless they were told to.

__________________
It's the difference between suicide and slow capitulation... - Jim Morrison

It would occur to them if they were told, "You may now pray". I am not advocating telling them, "You must now pray". That is an essential difference.

Force, I predict that many of your opinions will change during the time when your owns kids are in school.

Giving the federal government power over schools to that degree further removes power from the parents where it truly belongs. As much as possible, I believe schools should be governed by the locals. Schools will NEVER be equal.

The fact is that no matter what you do or how much money you spend, half of all children will fail to make it into the top 50th percentile. If you want improvements across the board, you must allow competition. In order to have competition, you must allow choice.

If you want to back up your arguments, provide evidence of how many things have been improved by the intrusion of the federal government, and provide evidence that test scores improve with increases in funding and federal involvement in schools. I honestly don't think you can do it, but I will look at any links you post.

__________________
Do you know what it's like to fall in the mud and get kicked... in the head... with an iron boot? Of course you don't, no one does. It never happens. It's a dumb question... skip it.

The academic problem with more private control of schools is that there is no standard at all. If the government does not oversee schools, it has no guarantee that they will be properly run. If private enterprise enters our educational system, money will be considered more important than education or children. I have also heard the argument about parents controlling schools, but I can tell you that most parents who grew up during the 1970's have ultraliberal social ideas and if parents controlled schools by majority right now there would be no school prayer, no Ten Commandments and no focus on abstinence. You may be a parent, but I went to a middle school in the 1990's (need I say more) and I see the need for principles that don't change based on the political ideas of parents.

This is an anecdotal report on school vouchers in Milwaukee:

http://www.weac.org/news/sept96/vouchers.htm