Sorry to take awhile with your reply.OK, you are probably going to trash me for using personal experience as evidence but since I'm prohibited from using google to find citations for things I'll have to lay out why I'm qualified to say the things I'm about to say. First, while in university I worked at a total of 2 high schools (Hastings Senior High School and Papillion-La Vista High School) as an Assistant Debate coach. I worked at each one for 2 years. After graduation I went to Japan and have been working as an ALT (Assistant Language Teacher at 2 schools: Sakuragaoka-shogakko and Minamikawara-shogakko) for a total of 3 years. I am also the area manager for my company in Saitama meaning that I routinely speak with other ALTs about problems they are having at their school. I have done extensive amounts of work in classrooms and been exposed to many different teaching styles.One of the biggest problems with the American education system is that although it claims not to "track" children (place them in tracks based on their academic achievement) it actually does "track" them by wealth. Public schools are just not up to the standards of private schools in the US. This means that unless you have the advantage of being wealthy you aren't as likely to get a good education. (this is why doing things like making sure that everyone has equal access to computers is commendable -- see the article)Japan by contrast admittedly "tracks" students. Everyone has a right to public education, but some public institutions are better then others. If you do well on placement tests you go to a better school by the merit that you try harder, not that you have money. The elite schools are almost all public institutions private schools are more oriented around special needs. The reason for this is that the pay for public school teachers is about twice as high as private school teachers and doesn't vary based on tuition rates.Neither system is perfect to be honest. They are also difficult to compare. (Japanese schools also have year round school) I would also say that the japanese system has its problem. It runs the risk of unfairly tracking students into a lower school because they didn't try for a semester or 2 and got bad grades, but at least those decisions can be traced to personal responsibility. In Japan, graduating from a prestigious public school and passing the entrance the entrance exam to a good university means your financial issues will almost always get sorted regardless of your economic status. The american system by contrast often fails pull the good students up. Some kids get put in bad schools just because of the neighborhood that they lived in and even the ones that outperform all of their fellow students often get overlooked at ivy league schools because they didn't go to a private college prep school or their parents aren't alumni, etc. Even if they somehow got into a private university even with Federal Stafford loans some students cant afford to go.Education like defense is one area where the government should spend money. It's not socialist to be pro-funding for teachers and in favor of things like giving students computers so that they can have easier access to information. (especially since in this case the price tag was like $300 per student) The end result is that your country will have better students and better more intelligent citizens.