Photon Courier links to an interesting misrepresentation of relative spending on education and defense. As I've mentioned before, unlike most countries, we spend a good deal of private as well as public money, and as a share of GDP we are pretty much on a par with other countries. David thinks many "have more or less bought into this idea that education is chronically impoverished". I think not; I do think Americans are frustrated with the quality of the output from the elementary and secondary school systems (and the universities, if you agree with John Bruce), and what they want are choices.