The Roman Emperor Nero reportedly fiddled while Rome was consumed by fires that he ordered to be set. Our national educational establishment is missing only the togas and fiddles to be clones of the corrupt Nero.

There are mounds of evidence as high as Mount Everest proving the abject failure of the educational zeitgeist that has ruled K–12 education in this country. In all but the wealthiest of enclaves, all too few students are relegated to underperforming schools that fail to prepare them for college or real life. Yet the bureaucracy, and sadly some educators (secure in jobs protected by deeply ensconced rules that make it impossible to fire even for gross incompetence or abject failure to actually educate kids), fiddle merrily away while their students’ futures go up in flames.