The recent Press editorial series on education offers some provocative grist for debate. Better late than never.

Education is the future. Without a solid foundation of basic knowledge, our youth will be denied their maximum potential and fulfillment because they will lack the full spectrum of tools needed to pursue their happiness. In recognition of this need, the Idaho Constitution mandates the State provide free and uniform public schools. While noble in intent, in practice public schools suffer the benefits and shortcomings typical of any monopoly. They do not display the efficiencies, quality and innovation that are forged in the arena of free market competition.

As with many complex and dynamic systems there is more than one problem that contributes to the overall poor performance. These problems overlap and have long half-lives making it difficult to realize a clear, empirically demonstrable cause and effect. While the Press editors recognize that the quality of the teacher is a contributing factor, it is by no means the only or even the primary problem. This is illustrated by asking the question 'Why don't we have only great teachers?' The answer is that there are systemic problems that prevent this situation.

One problem is the lack of responsibility of leadership. The culture of any organization is a manifestation of the leadership. When then Teacher's Union president (CEA) Kristi Milan was asked why we don't have better performing schools she replied, "It's because we don't get good students." If leadership does not accept responsibility for a problem then who will?

The answer is "nobody;" not the administration, not the teachers, not the parents and not the students, and so the problem persists.

Another problem is that pay and/or status are not based on performance. In our school districts there is no direct correlation between teacher performance and teacher compensation. Pay rates are simply a function of years on the job and the number of hours a teacher has spent as a student. This is known as the "Pay Matrix". How well you do the job does not enter into the equation.

To illustrate this point, let's take two example teachers. (Please note that wages of all state employees are a matter of public record and can be researched at AccountableIdaho.com.) Timothy Sandford teaches general band at LCHS and is the lead contract negotiator for the CEA. Mr. Sandford was one of 35 recipients of the 2011 National Education Association's (NEA) California Causality Award for Teaching Excellence. Mr. Sandford was nominated for this award by the IEA (Idaho teacher's union). According to public records, his 2012 pay was $60,080. Compare this with Katie Pemberton who teaches Pre-Algebra to 6th through 8th graders at Canfield Middle School. She earned the title of 2013 Idaho State Teacher of the Year. Ms. Pemberton was nominated by her peers. Her pay in 2012 was $45,983. Is it good policy to pay our Idaho Teacher of the Year 76 percent of what an NEA award winning teacher makes?

The fact that there is an "Idaho Teacher of the Year" also means that there was a runner up. So if we can determine who the best and second best teachers are in the state, can we also determine the third best? How about the fourth best? Why can't we rank all teachers and make some portion of their pay and their authority proportional to their ability and performance? One would expect that better than average teachers would welcome this approach but worse than average teachers would shun it.

Not having a link between pay and performance has a variety of negative consequences, including some upstream in the statehouse. Our legislators have no metric that they can point to and say that spending more on education will directly improve education. To the contrary, the public school system in Washington DC spends over four times as much per student on education as Idaho but ranks below Idaho in student performance. If the State spends money on a road, we get a better road. If the state spends more on education this does not, by itself, improve education. This is partly because the system treats teachers as a homogeneous commodity rather than a dynamic resource. Without the opportunity to have superior performance identified and rewarded, quality cannot improve and the consumer will look elsewhere for educational services.

Our public schools are also failing to effectively leverage technology and the utilities of the information age. When any person can hold in their hand a device that is a portal to every book, song, poem, movie, speech or any other product of the mind ever produced, how is it possible that some students don't have access to textbooks? When video conferencing is common, easy and inexpensive, how is it that every student does not have access to the best teacher on any subject? Are our schools run by Luddites?

Our public schools are displaying a pattern typical of a failing business. Market share is decreasing while overhead costs are rising. Larger percentages of resources are directed towards overhead and new product development is set aside for lack of capital. This exacerbates the market erosion and the cycle continues. In a healthy, service based business, factoring out profit, labor costs (wages and benefits) should be around 80 percent of gross expenditures, leaving 20 percent for everything else. Coeur d'Alene School District 271 is currently at 89.7 percent wages and benefits, leaving 10.3 percent for everything else. This is not sustainable.

Compounding the problem is the introduction of Common Core, a nationalized set of standards which will essentially create a nationalization of curricula. This will reduce local control of education and decrease the opportunity for innovative solutions to be implemented. With blandishments for conformance to Common Core standards and no incentives to exceed them, Common Core standards will become a ceiling. The recent elimination of gifted student programs presages this inevitability.

Can the situation be remedied? Yes, of course. However, it will require addressing the obvious structural problems described, and there is no apparent local willingness to do so. Elections have consequences and the latest School Board election achieved "balance", which is to say that the CEA now sits on both sides of the labor negotiation table. This has already resulted in the reduction of staffing; the elimination of programs for gifted students, the inability to replace aging school buses and will likely result in an 12 percent increase in health insurance costs to the district.

Can the legislature fix the problems? Yes, but only with a consensus on the solution. You cannot fix something that does not want to be fixed. The Referendum Propositions 1, 2 and 3 demonstrated the truth of this. Unfortunately, as our education system becomes progressively more nationalized by Common Core and programs like No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top, the performance of our students will continue to deteriorate. Ironically, if you simultaneously "race to the top" while "leaving no child behind" then you must necessarily limit your progress to the speed of the slowest. This turns a bell curve into a flat line and makes the average equal to the lowest denominator.

The Press calls for replacing the 10 percent who are the worst teachers with average or better teachers. While a worthy goal, in practice this would require a fair and effective system of teacher evaluation and a culture that would accept being ranked. History does not support either of these requirements becoming reality. Perhaps when there is sufficient pressure from alternatives to Public Schools (such as private and homeschooling) will the necessary steps be taken. Until then, the concrete has hardened.

Brent Regan is a former member of the Coeur d'Alene School Board.