"This year, American taxpayers will spend more than $9,200 on the average public-school student. That’s a real increase of 69 percent over the per pupil expenditure in 1980. The total bill for a student who remains through high school will be almost $100,000. This spending would be worthwhile if it gave us the results we need to compete globally. But it hasn’t been doing so. American students still score poorly compared to students from other countries, especially in math and science. The National Assessment of Educational Progress shows 18 percent of fourth-graders and 29 percent of eighth-graders scored ‘below basic’ in mathematics last year. And far too many students drop out. At least 1 in 4 quits high school. Among minority children, the picture is even bleaker. In 2002, only 56 percent of black and 52 percent of Hispanic students graduated, compared to 78 percent of white students. The Census Bureau has found that a full-time employee with a college degree will earn more than $2 million over a lifetime. One with only a high-school diploma will earn half as much, while a dropout, obviously, will earn even less. More ominously, an independent study found dropouts die an average of nine years sooner than graduates. Our educational system is a national problem—but one that calls for local solutions. One approach is to provide school choice."

—Ed Feulner