Basically one catchphrase sums up my stance, but of course I recognize it's a bit more complex than that. Anyway:
National standards, National Standards, NATIONAL STANDARDS!
In short, the problem with American education is its horrible inconsistency. One of the first reasons for this is a great portion of funding comes from local/state sources, like property taxes. Unfortunately, many Americans see education as solely the province/responsibility of individual states - the national government doesn't have a right to do anything. If it were up to me I might even go to solve this once and for all with a constitutional amendment for those sticklers, but current legal methods are still possible revolving around such games like the federal government withholding/threatening to not give the money it does provide.
Now, for some of you not quite so familiar with the system, you might ask: "doesn't America have national standards? I keep on hearing about No Child Left Behind and all that stuff." The short answer is No, we have failed to establish any national standards, we just have politicians acting like they've solved something. For instance, NCLB does NOT require any single, national test - instead, each state makes up its own tests for its own students (keeping with these traditional American principles here).
The end result of this again is that school quality, curricula, and other factors vary widely across America. More wealthy or otherwise successful areas can see much better schools than the inner cities - and this is not because of the students alone or any lack of innate talent/motivation - schools just don't get funding or support they need. I was very fortunate to have attended decent suburban schools and opportunities abounded for all students. From my experience and people I've known, some students do benefit from vocational schools/charter schools or magnets or whatever (and even though I didn't go there I'd still peg TJ as the best high school in the country against all comers). However, the stereotyped suburban American high school really is not that bad - and the solution is not, as politicians again often propose radical new school designs or curriculum plans. The problem is bringing EVERY school up to the same standards - if every school in DC was the same quality as the better ones in Northern Virginia, and the pattern repeated across the country, we wouldn't have so much of a crisis.
Up to now I've looked at this from a point of what the government can do - set reasonable national standards and somehow get states to adopt them. Just to be perfectly clear as I know people from around the world may not know - but SAT/ACT tests are not generally required for high school graduation anywhere - they are optional - we do in fact have no national tests. If we could make some progress on this (simple standards in math, english, science, and history on a national level - and I know firsthand how these things can vary between states currently) I think people would notice. Lastly, I do recognize a ton of social factors that influence student/community success but these can be even more complicated to discuss (I'm willing to too, just holding off for now) because factors like "jock culture" or something can't be addressed with legislation.
