For one thing: federalise your education ... (Score 1)

IMHO one difference between the American Public educational system and that of other countries like France (I'm a product of the French Public Education myself) is the way it is funded. As long as rich areas fund their public schools, and poor inner-city areas fund theirs, the chasm or disparity between school districts is enormous. This only tends to reinforce or magnify differences due to socio-economic factors. So making the funding available at a federal level should bring up public education in the US. Another improvement might take the form of better salaries to teachers. So instead of spending more money on computerising the classrooms, more money would be spent on keeping the best teachers in schools. And finally, a third possible improvement which would need the first two to succeed, would be to teach kids along the ways THEY understand best, and not the ways THEIR TEACHERS were taught. What I'm talking about is separating students based on their dominant sense: auditory (hearing), visual, or kinesthetic (physical, hands on). Disclaimer: the French (like any country's) public schools are not perfect but they are different. So copying the good aspects from them (or others) might just do the trick.