"Teacher burnout" incorrectly frames the issue as an individual's failure to cope. The term is a convenient fiction that distracts from the real problem: school systems that create impossible working conditions through inadequate support and unmanageable workloads.

Runaway costs in education, housing, and healthcare stem from government intervention. When the government promises to provide a service (e.g., student loans), it becomes a massive "buy-only" force with no price sensitivity, eliminating natural market forces and causing costs to balloon.

The education system effectively produces what it was designed for: compliant workers for a rote-job economy. The problem isn't failure, but a failure to adapt its goals from the industrial era to the innovation era, where creativity and initiative are paramount.

Calls to solve societal issues with higher taxes and more government spending miss the root cause. The government's core issue is a lack of competence and an excess of bureaucracy. Throwing more money into an inefficient system only exacerbates waste without improving outcomes.

To fix public education, focus on the two most critical leverage points: the very beginning and the very end. Ensuring 3-4 year olds have the right nurturing to start kindergarten on level is crucial, as is providing high schoolers with robust, respected career pathways as a valid alternative to college.

The education crisis isn't a lack of qualified people, but a lack of jobs with adequate compensation, respect, and support to retain them. It's a problem of professional unsustainability driven by systemic issues, not a scarcity of talent.

When an oil-revenue crisis hit, Finland had to choose between funding data tracking or teacher training. They chose teachers, shutting down subpar education colleges and elevating the profession. This counterintuitive move—investing in people over metrics during a downturn—created their world-class system.

The primary indicator of a high-performing school isn't its budget, but the level of parental engagement. When affluent and influential parents exit public schools, they withdraw their crucial engagement capital, which weakens the entire system far more than the loss of their direct financial contributions would.

Contrary to the Western obsession with reducing class sizes, successful Asian countries focus on attracting and retaining high-quality educators by paying them more and training them more intensely, even if it means larger classes. This investment in teacher quality yields a better return for educational outcomes.