Scoble bemoans the state of his local schools:

Stephen Pierzchala: my kids are learning more by not being in California Public Schools.

I agree. My son is in a California Public school. They are so far behind kids in other states it isn't funny. Class sizes are bigger. Fewer computers per student than my friends' kids in other states (my son's school doesn't have any computers for kids to use, for instance because the school couldn't afford to keep them up -- and that was for a Mac lab). Teacher pay ridiculously low compared to cost of living (translation: best teachers leave the state to work elsewhere).

Lack of computers isn't a problem. Heck, if the curriculum was half decent, not having PC's would be a positive benefit. I don't even think that the large class sizes are the issue. My daughter attends a well funded school system in suburban Maryland - one that has consistently high ratings. My wife and I constantly have to back-fill the things that the school just doesn't teach:

• In the lower grades, they simply didn't teach basic arithmetic. If we hadn't spent a long time drilling, my daughter would not know basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts. Heck, sixth grade was the first time she was introduced to the simple tricks for figuring out whether a number is divisible by 3 or 9. Are computers an answer here? Hell no. The answer is simple, and it involves some actual work in the lower grades, coupled with not handing out calculators in first grade.
• In sixth grade, there's math only 3 days a week. Why? Because they insist on a reading class and an English class - instead of simply having the English teacher assign reading. There are kids who need reading help in 6th grade - but an additional class for all students isn't the way to provide it.
• History - based on her school instruction alone, my daughter had no idea why the pilgrims and puritans came to North America. The schools are so afraid of being accused of religious instruction that they wash all references to religion out. I can barely wait for their coverage of the Islamic spread across North Africa and the Crusades - those should be amusing with all religious references washed out.
• All of this makes me wonder about what she isn't learning in the subjects that I don't have a good grasp on (specifically, the physical sciences). It's the same thing I started to wonder about science reporting once I realized how bad most IT reporting is. If they do so badly with the subjects I know, what's going on with the ones I don't?

The pay for teachers in Maryland is decent, as far as teacher pay goes. No, it's not a way to get rich, certainly, and I doubt it keeps up well with the cost of housing (at least, not where I live). There's something deeper wrong with the education system though, and additional money isn't really going to address it, I don't think. The curriculum is weak, too many people (like Scoble) seem to think that a PC at every desk is a magic answer, and too many other people think that reducing class sizes from (say) 35 to (say) 28 is going to bring salvation. I have my doubts. So long as the curriculum is lame, and schools are afraid of bringing subjects up for fear of being yelled at (by activisits of all political persuasions), I don't think it's going to get much better.