and it has *bad* teachers, I say bad, as individuals they are not to be blamed, the teachers are trapped too

You contradict yourself, so it's hard to understand what you actually think of teachers in the US, but you are repeating unfounded scapegoating. As a teacher, let me tell you that most teachers are competent. They are not going to change the world, but they are competent. I know, because I talked to them every day for four years and watched them teach so I could become a better teacher (while teaching myself). Yes, the Bell Curve applies, but it applies to many (most?) things we do.

There is nothing wrong with teachers that strong communities and stronger parents won't fix. In fact, students who are motivated to learn (whether intrinsically or extrinsically), will. Period. It is **NOT** a teacher's job to teach your child values, diligence, hard work or beliefs. It is YOUR job.

Can we train teachers better? Of course. Are they the problem? Rarely. During my entire schooling K-12, I had exactly one truly bad teacher. He was the head football coach teaching math, and couldn't have possibly cared less. The rest were "normals", and I had exactly four teachers I thought excellent. But most were competent. That is, they did not **prevent** learning like the above math teacher did.

I am not uncritical of our schools or our teachers. A lot of them mail it in, and I am **not** a fan, but as a percentage, the numbers are low. Hell, even those mailing it in are mailing in what they were doing as a young, motivated teacher, so their work is actually not horrid.

What should be the case for training is that every new teacher have a mentor that they work closely with for years, not just a semester, and that not just being observed once or twice. But what they really need is funding, parents that give a damn and make their kids do their homework, and neighborhoods that are supportive, stable places where kids are raised to be responsible, participatory and motivated (allowing for kids being kids, of course.)

I've never even heard of, let alone read, a paper that attempted to nail down why American schools don't deliver. If you've some proof other than the repeated, un-sourced BS that teachers are the problem, please link it.

Cheers

Proper use of the internet for the creation of decentralized structures for education and manufacturing (you can send instruction, and specs around over the web) would take care of the need for bussing and transportation.

It can be done by getting the school administrators to realize that they can, uh, control and command the work to be done without having to bear any of the costs.

This sneaky way of manipulating the administrators is easily accomplished by letting them keep their administration budget while jettisoning the physical plant budget, for a lower total budget cost.

We eliminate all costs of the fixed location, land acquisition costs (and recurring costs such as taxes taxes,) fixed cost physical plant, the school buildings, the custodial staff, the building maintenance and (and recurring costs like upkeep and supplies,) in one fell swoop.

The cost is negative and therefore beneficial to the school, the community and the student body.

A combination of podcasting and tiered access (free but uncredited and unsupported; cheap with email support; full cost credited with teachers using tele-presence technology for submitting papers and a bi- ,or tri-annual trip taking tests,) would result in a better educated populace.

There are two things to consider. The student environment and the teaching environment.

The student environment: You probably have space in your home now to operate virtual learning. If you need to standardize equipment beyond a web browser and web cam, the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) initiative can come to the rescue and provide a single platform for support.

The teaching environment: One high-powered fiber internet connection. If teachers want/need to actually see the students and teachers have/need to have them see them, web cams on the students' OLPCs and a high-def web cam on the teachers' apparatus

We have not done away with the need for class rooms entirely, but we have been able to time and place shift them so that occasionally using a single unspecialized, non-purpose-specific large hall would be acceptable. (Building a congregation hall where students and teachers can gather twice or three times a year for testing purposes, and which can be used by anyone else for other events such as sports etcetera, would be an adequate way to spread the costs of maintaining such a cubic space event hall.)