The causes of educational problems in Boston are probably not the same causes as problems in Fort Wayne, as Seattle, as Dallas, etc. This is the fallacy of the US Department of Education -- a federal solution will fix all things. Often it 'fixes' things that weren't broken in one locality while burdening that locality with more bureaucratic oversight -- paperwork. I have yet to hear of a teacher or administrator that thought the US Department fo Education didn't require enough paperwork.

I completely agree with the criticism of local administrators of local school systems. In my area we have a legacy of cronyism. The only cure for that is a more demanding electorate.

Finally, in my area we lose a very large proportion of new teachers every year. They are stunned by the bureaucracy and demands on their time. They deluded themselves into thinking they could do an adequate job of teaching by showing up 8 - 3. My wife, a 20-year veteran of public school teaching, starts at 7:15 and leaves at 4:00. She often works a few hours on weekends in prep for the coming week. She buys lots of supplies for students whose parents can't or wont pay for the children's supplies.

The worst thing is: The teachers in this district teach to the standardized tests. the children are burdened with having to know things. Lots of things. Things you can learn from Google or Wikipaedia. But wait, they HAVE google and Wikipaedia. So we're teaching kids to be a pale imitation of a search engine. Brilliant.