Well qualified is implied.  We currently do not have one well qualified and I don't want another one.

The US Department of Education does not create curriculum or address local budgets.  All that is done at the state and local levels.  Private schools establish their own curriculum and their budgets are tuition based (mostly) with little federal, state or local involvement.

The government hardly does anything for schools. Public schools in the US are run by the cities that try their best to run with whatever budget they have.  

The reason why private schools dont promise because private schools don't have to have standards.  Even when they are doing bad, they don't have to be held accountable.  

Even individual public schools aren't usually held accountable.  It's the problem with the entirety that usually gets talked about improving, including private schools.  

There certainly are lots of bad religious schools.  In fact, one could argue that a religious school is automatically bad, as they teach stuff that is demonstrably false.  That doesn't make public schools good.  

And, yeah, scores - there are constant scandals of shitty schools cheating test scores.  But, more importantly than that, public schools in general are know for "teaching to the test", rather than providing a well rounded education.  If you ever talk to parents of kids that go to for-profit schools (to distinguish them from religious schools), ask them why they chose private school over public.  Almost always, those parents will say that one of the top reasons is the breadth and depth of the education their kids receive.   In other words, they get a *bigger* education than they could get in public school.  

I swear, it seems like every other day there has to be a thread by someone outside the US or someone who has "lived here" to ask or tell us why the US is X, Y or Z.  The whole country (300 million diverse people from all over the world) gets to be lumped together and branded by the word of the day because somebody read an article this morning about an incident that must indicate that racism is literally taking place on every block as least once per day.  I wonder how many other countries as diverse as the US get along in perfect harmony?

You know what I think?  Japan is full of Japanese people, how many Hispanic people are in Japan?  Bunch of fucking racists, how dare they control their immigration and have a majority of people, good thing anybody that moves there is never ever once been exposed to any type of bias, and they don't hate black people or to this day depict black people in racist caricatures, nope don't go to youtube looking for that stuff cause it doesn't exist!  Seriously, why isn't Japan or China opening up it's borders?  Good thing all those countries around Syria (who mostly share the same religious beliefs) accepted all those refugees because we know the US wouldn't take them, bunch of racist white Christian men, even though they have the most diverse racial marriages of any religion, it make me sick!

Same goes for the whole of the Middle East, why all my Christian and Jewish friends are free to worship and are never slaughtered or have their places of worship burned to the ground and their priests beheaded, never happened.  No, racism and segregation is only a modern US problem

Amazing how many diverse people identify as American, but if you are from just about any other country, their is a uniform race and ethnicity that 90% + would look like, or genetically how much they have in common.  I wonder if other countries were as open to immigrants as the US, if those countries would fare better in regards to "racism".   And yet it's amazing how much KILLING goes on between countries and races that are very close together, Russia and Ukraine, N. and S. Korea, Saudi Arabia and Iran, etc.  

Alright that's enough sarcasm, yeah their is racism in the US along with the rest of the world.  America is not a hive mind, the world isn't perfect and people can choose not to accept others.  It's a lot easier when you have a country that is older, not into opening it's borders to other cultures, and where everyone is the same race to find racism is less frequent because duh.  I'd rather be an immigrant to the US any day than immigrate to most of the rest of the world and do half as well or live half as long and all this "racism" doesn't seem to affect the amount of people that want to come here.  

Charter and private schools have their own caveats.  I can list 4 in my area that shut down mid year with no warning to parents or students because they didn't make enough money.  

I agree that our education system is outdated, underfunded (low teacher pay and lack of school supplies) and impractical (the one size fits all model is ridiculous as any teacher will tell you).  I'd suggest we look toward Japan and the Scandinavian countries for a complete overhaul of the whole thing.  I personally would love to see more of a Reggio Emilia approach.

If you read further in the thread, you'll note I make a distinction between federal, state and local governments. But you mentioned politicians promising to fix education which is, ironically, a promise you usually hear from federal level candidates.

2 African-American men sitting in a Star Bucks were arrested because they appeared to be intimidating. This incident forced a shut down of 8,000 Star Bucks across the US as a protest against racism. Many innocent African-Americans are shot by trigger friendly police over minor issues. Fear, ignorance and hatred fuels the entrenched racism within American society.