There is much more in life than getting excellent grades by cramming information down your throat and regurgitating it during the final exam. Don’t get me wrong i clearly support the concept of getting good grades but that is not the only important factor for a persons success and innovation in a country . In a country like India you have to try to understand that there a 1 billion + people living over there and sure the statics say that more students are graduated in India compared to USA/Canada but its the quality of the students that matter than quality.

Now i am going to offend some of the Indians who might read this comment but the point being that most of the students graduating don’t have the necessary skills that they can apply in a real world scenario. For example the rote learning system DOES NOT promote leadership , communication , critical thinking skills which in my opinion are much more important than knowing the complete periodic table. I think it as this way if you have an opinion and u cant articulate it in a proper way and have no idea how to convince and persuade people then that idea is as good as nothing.

I seriously will ask the people who do come across my comment to think about the dis-advantages of Rote Learning , there might be short term advantages but in the long term it can be detrimental both to the individual and for society .

Much of the problem lies with the teachers’ unions that will not permit public schools to fire teachers who have tenure and are coasting. I disagree with you Uncle Sam is just overburdening teachers by asking them to teach to ridiculous standards. What makes the standards ridiculous? too high? too low? what’s wrong with standards? What alternative would you suggest?

I _do_ agree that we need to get the Federal government out of education – control should belong to the parents and local school boards. The information on how the children are learning compared to other schools is a piece of information that the parents and the local school board need in order to make good decisions. State control is also a problem. Control should be local – not distant.

As long as the government is entrusted with this sacred duty we will fail. Just as every other duty given to the government has failed. Social Security -> Bankrupt, War on Drugs or Poverty -> Laughable, Banking System -> Wall Street Buddy Bailouts.