Thumbnail Essay on Public Schools

My friend, a budding politician, asked about schools. My response follows:
Here's an inspiring story.
http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%253A%252F%252Fwww.nytimes.com%252F2010%252F02%252F23%252Fopinion%252F23herbert.html%253Fref%253Dopinion&h=7c437b527c50a3eda79eafadee79c688&ref=mf
She's succeeding by getting out of this disaster: http://www.thecartelmovie.com/
There's only one way you could double real (inflation adjusted) spending over 30 years while generating a lower quality product but not fear the loss of customers - that's if you have a coercive government monopoly.
The Federal govt is in a fiscal death spiral due to the realities of demographics and the foolishness of building medicare/medicaid/social security on the assumption of an ever increasing population. State and local governments are in a fiscal death spiral (references avail on request) due to obligations made to state/local workers - we've promised, no matter how much it hurts the decreasing pool of productive citizens - to protect former state employees from uncertainty (no matter how poor the economy runs, or how high their health care costs, your work will secure their futures).
Shouldn't one be able to get an excellent education for $10,000/kid/year for K-12? What if, instead of pumping these billions in a coercive government monopoly, we could transform education into a system that is focused on teaching kids instead of providing for the secure futures of teachers who are not accountable for success or failure? Don't get me wrong, the teachers that sustain their passion and help kids in a system like our are heroes. But those are the minority, and the ones who are not pulling their weight get just as much pay and their lifetime benefits. It's an abomination.
Charter schools? Heck yes. Anything that decentralizes, anything that makes education accountable to educating kids vice getting politicians re-elected for keeping unions happy.
Step one - demand a system to measure the improvement in knowledge across a school year for every student. Teachers who's students improve the least should be required to change grade levels, get more training/mentoring, or get another job. We're giving them our financial futures, they should be required to meet a standard of performance - they should prove they can teach.