At the center of the problem with the current approach to public schools is that a centralized government has great difficulty fixing localized problems. A more bureaucratic centralized institution faces a guessing game—namely the need to predict what is best for children in a particular local community.

Early American leaders understood the paramount importance of conveying to young people what it means to be a citizen. As Thomas Jefferson asserted, “A democratic republic could succeed only if the people as a whole were knowledgeable about the institutions of self-government and participated in them.”

As Don Nielsen writes in his book Every School, “Given what we know about the importance of the home environment to the successful development of a child, it would seem prudent for our education system and our health-care system to work together to influence our future students and citizens.”

As Nielsen describes the condition, “We have a national situation in which the most important profession in our society is experiencing high turnover, and is losing its best people the fastest. Moreover, the vast majority of our best and brightest people don’t even consider entering the profession of teaching.”