My magic bullet is a complete restructuring of the primary and secondary education system with grade levels based on aptitude, not age.

As a primary teacher I’ve been saying this for a long time now. Not every child is developmentally ready to read in Kindergarten/1st, especially since (in the name of being rigorous) the curriculum keeps getting more and more fast paced and difficult. In the first grade we are now teaching skills that used to be taught in the second grade. Kindergarten is teaching what used to be first grade skills. We are throwing more and more at the kids in the early grades and some of the kids (especially the low income kids) are floundering. They end up never catching up. Studies show that low income children start school with a much lower vocabulary than higher income children, and they aren’t as likely to be exposed to books and other print media at home. As a result they really struggle to pick up on reading. At the moment the only way we have to help the kids is retention and a few minutes a day of Title 1 reading intervention, neither of which seems truly all that effective. I have been saying for years now that we could do a more effective job at getting kids the skills that they need by separating them based on aptitude.

Another thing that hurts our schools (at least, my school) is constant teacher turnover. I keep getting the results of the previous year’s class taught by permanent subs (or even a series of subs) and it isn’t pretty.