I'm a former teacher. To me, good education looks like kids being interested in the material they are learning and will what they're learning use to build a foundation for their future.

Our current system in the US is broken. The focus is pushed nearly entirely onto math and english because of standardized testing. Teachers are being held accountable for how well students learn, but are being forced into a narrow curriculum by people who haven't set foot into a classroom in years.

The way to fix it starts by giving teachers back some of their authority to choose what will be most useful to their students. Also, all schools should have a similar budget - there is no reason why some school have ancient textbooks and lack basic technologywhile other schools have 1:1 computing and smartboards in every room.

We also need to bring back more technical subjects. Some schools are doing away with shop classes or other family and consumer sciences. This stuff is important and can give students a head start into that industry. Construction work isn't going away. People should know how to do basic cooking and mending. I was one of those nerds in high school that got good grades and took all the AP classes I could. The most useful class I ever took was called "design process" and was taught down in one of the shop classrooms. It taught critical thinking and project management, but I was the only "high ability" student who took it. The class was fun, because it was entirely project-based and you had absolute freedom to meet the objective however you wanted. The teacher was there for help, but was very hands-off and let you figure things out on your own.

We need more classes like that, and it should be a requirement for all students. The only way to teach critical thinking is through practice and it's a great way to incorporate other subject matter into it as well.