Watch Academy Award-winning director Davis Guggenheim's "Waiting for Superman" to see the sorry state of America's school system. One answer is to dismiss 1,000 of the country's worst teachers freeing our great teachers to build on what's been learned instead of being stuck teaching students what they should've already mastered.

But teacher unions have strongly resisted firing failing, sub-standard teachers and squashed any attempt to pay for performance — rewarding the best teachers with higher salaries. Instead, the unions keep campaigning for more money. With an exploding deficit at the national and state levels, the funds aren't there.

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The U.S. has the best higher education system in the world in great part because universities compete for survival. It's time we do so for the primary and secondary level. Let's fund dreams, not expensive, slow-moving school district bureaucracies and teachers' unions that refuse to hold their own accountable!

The Pacific Research Institute, http://www.pacificresearch.org, has documented proven solutions. Watch Lance Izumi's New York Times video op-ed, "Sweden's Choice." It's time we use this crisis to give parents back control of their children's future!

We, the people, don't want cutbacks; we want solutions that work and use our tax dollars responsibly.

Read more: http://www.vcstar.com/news/2010/nov/21/its-time-for-school-choice/