Lets start this out with a question. Has our education system gotten 3.5 times better since the 1960s? No, while you ponder that, have a look at this:
Here are the links I used to put this together:
#1) Near the bottom, this page ranks several nations on Reading/Math/Scientific literacy. I just took the 3 scores, added them up, and took the average to get my ranking. (http://www.siteselection.com/ssinsider/snapshot/sf011210.htm)
#2) How much do nations spend per student? Not all the nations listed in the first part are listed. There are a few notable exceptions, unfortunately. (http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_spe_per_sec_sch_stu-spending-per-secondary-school-student)
Putting this together, I came up with this list of countries, ranked on their Education:
1. Finland - ?
2. Korea - ?
3. Japan - $5,890.00
4. New Zealand - ?
5. Canada - ?
6. Australia - $5,830.00
7. Ireland - $3,934.00
8 United Kingdom - $5,230.00
9. Austria - $8,163.00
10. Sweden - $5,648.00
11. France - $6,605.00
12. Belgium - ?
13. United States - $7,764.00
14. Iceland - ?
15. Switzerland - $9,348.00
16. Norway - $7,343.00
17. Czech Republic - $3,182.00
18. Denmark - $7,200.00
19. Spain - $4,274.00
20. Italy - $6,458.00
It doesn't LOOK like spending lots of money is the key... once again, spending it wisely, seems to be the key for the best education.
So, back to my original question, has our education gotten better, or worse, since the 1960s? Have a look at this URL, that adjusts how much we spend per student, since the 60s. http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=66
Does that make you think that we need to look at paying more for education helps? I am ALL for cutting admin costs, quit cutting teacher's salary, cut superintendent and district level offices. Usually, they are overly-filled with bureaucrats, and not in it for the kids. I DO think that teacher unions are a problem as well. Ultimately, it is the parents, and what WE allow. Who WE vote in...