Clark is glad that he doesn't have high blood pressure, because he'd be steaming right now! The California Court of Appeals has outlawed home schooling. They want parents who wish to take on the burden and challenge of teaching their kids at home to be criminalized. This is an outrageous infringement on personal liberty. The home schooling movement started in the fundamentalist Christian community, but it's since crossed over to about 2 million people of all types. Clark's concern is that as goes California, so goes the nation. Our Soviet-style monopoly school system is not succeeding, so home-schooling must not be outlawed.

How does the U.S. rank academically? A recent international test of 10th graders shows that we're sandwiched between Latvia and Lithuania in the middle of the list. Finland has the highest achieving students in the world. The Scandinavian nation doesn't have a government-mandated curriculum; every teacher must decide for him or herself what to teach. Finnish teachers are not well compensated, but people clamor for the job because they can be true entrepreneurs in the classroom. Finnish classrooms don't use modern technology and kids don't start school until age 7. We here in the U.S. have got to get out of our "one size fits all" mindset where we spend fortunes on education for no meaningful results. Think this doesn't affect you because you don't have kids? Huge amount of your taxes are still spent to support schools that are failures.

Clark has long been excited about educational vouchers in our country. But these days it seems like he's alone in his beliefs. Utah voters recently shot down the nation's first universal school voucher program. The system was originally pushed through by the state legislature, and it earmarked money for every child in every public school in the state. Parents were given the option to take the funds and apply them to private school admission for their children. Under the system, children from poor families would get more money than those from rich ones. But Utah is often considered the reddest of the red states, and voters overwhelmingly threw out the voucher idea. Clark is stunned and disappointed; he's obviously also out of touch with the opinion of many Americans.

Milwaukee, Cleveland and Washington D.C. are all places where vouchers and charter schools have been popular. Clark loves the idea of parents having choice in the education of their children. He feels we spend way too much per child in public schools for the poor results we get. The problem, as he sees it, is that our educational system is a government-sponsored monopoly. In the marketplace, businesses must adapt to new conditions or go out of business. But there's really no equivalent in the schools -- and our children suffer because of it.

Clark often confuses people with his talk about choice in schools because they think he's getting political. But he sees it as an issue that's simply about giving every child an opportunity to succeed -- regardless of their family's socioeconomic background. Monopoly schools and arbitrary zoning either sentence kids to a stinking school or reward them with a good one based on where they live. That's pretty much the norm across the country. But some states like Arizona have been very innovative with allowing school choice and having an active charter school movement. Clark grants that there have been financial scandals in some of the Arizona charter schools, yet he thinks they're on the right track. He also likes the idea of vouchers, which are like gift certificates where you take the public money that would have been spent on a student and give it to them to subsidize private school tuition.

Parents who home-school their kids really impress Clark. There are nearly two million kids who receive this kind of education. Clark admits that he doesn't have the intestinal fortitude to home-school his own brood! Yet home-schooled kids are usually overachievers. Colleges once shunned them because they have non-traditional transcripts and grades. Now The Washington Post reports that nearly 85 percent of colleges have formal evaluation policies to come up with a class rank of sorts for home-schooled kids. There's even a whole cottage industry of learning materials that have sprung up around parents who home-schools. Clark sees the teaching materials for sale at stores in August and September. With home life being such an important factor in a child's education, Clark wants to salute parents who home-school.

Why is it that in 2007 we still offer an education system reminiscent of the Soviet Union? Yes, places like the University of Phoenix have brought new options and experimentation at the college level. But our kids are still suffering. Most primary schools are run as state-controlled monopolies with bureaucrats running the show. It’s all based on where a child lives, and some kids lose out while others luck out. Thankfully, Utah is thinking outside the box. Passing by one vote in the Utah state house, the state is setting up a program whereby 100 percent of kids will get vouchers to go to school where they want. The amount of the voucher will be based on parental income, but every single child will be able to attend private school if they wish. Florida, Ohio, Arizona and Wisconsin are a few other states that have tried new voucher programs. There are always lawsuits going on and it’s been an uphill battle. But Clark is proud that some of our states have such vision. Every child is different and every child needs a certain environment to grow and learn.

A huge amount of your tax dollars goes to schools, even though you may not have kids. And despite all of the money collected and spent, academic performance has declined. There are very dedicated teachers out there, but we must admit that there are also teachers whose hearts just aren’t in it. You may have heard the saying, “you take the teacher not the class.” That’s why Clark thinks it’s so important to incorporate more choice in schools. Right now, we put kids in schools based on how a school board draws district lines. And your kid could either luck out or suffer. Different schools are appropriate for different children. Clark has long been a fan of charter schools and vouchers. Washington DC, in particular, has become a beacon of hope when it comes to school choice. DC was an area that was totally adverse to change and choice. But some charter schools sprang up, and after enough years of innovation the opinion changed. According to the Washington Post, one elementary school was about to close because it didn’t have enough kids. There was also a charter middle school nearby that needed more space because it has so many kids. The district realized that the two could be married to solve the problem. The charter school is moving into the elementary school. It’s the first time in the U.S. that a charter and a public school cooperated to solve a problem, the reporter said. Everyone wins in this situation.

If you have a son or daughter who is having some trouble in school, you may want to consider a tutor. Now, Clark knows tutors can get pretty expensive. But there is a way to get a great tutor at one-third to one-fourth the cost of a typical tutor. According to the Washington Post, tutors in India have master’s degrees, can teach a variety of subjects and only costs $18 to $20 an hour. One is called “Growing Stars” and is based in California. Another is “Study Loft,” which is based in Chicago. They only use overseas tutors. Many of the systems have live chat capability so students can see and interact with their tutor. So, who thinks this is a bad idea? Teachers unions do. They are in an uproar over this and are trying to get Congress to outlaw the overseas tutoring. Let’s hope that goes away quickly.

A new device, The Clicker, is being implemented throughout colleges nationwide so that professors can instantly see if students understand lecture material. The Clicker is meant for college professors who teach in giant lecture halls or auditoriums. At any point during the lecture, the professor can send a digital, multiple-choice question through The Clicker and ask if students understand the lecture material. Students are not thrilled about The Clicker because they have to pay $25 for the device. Clark thinks The Clicker is addressing the wrong problems in colleges. He can’t get over the massive class sizes, and he believes the large auditoriums are the real issue

You’ve probably heard Clark talk about his dislike of monopolies. He thinks one of the worst monopolies out there is our public education system. He despises the idea of drawing monopoly lines that determine which school a child will attend. It puts parents in a position where they have to make a real estate choice based on what schools are in an area. There should be open enrollment and more school choice so kids can go where they want. The city of Milwaukee was the first to try the voucher system, and it has been enormously successful so far. A recent study showed that the average graduation rate among disadvantaged public school students is one in three. Yet two-thirds of kids from the same neighborhoods who used vouchers and went to different schools earned a high school diploma. That’s double the graduation rate. Two out of three is still a little disconcerting, but it’s much better than one out of three. We all pay a ton of tax money for public schools, regardless of whether we have kids in school. Yet, some of these schools are not required to live up to certain standards. If they don’t make the cut, shut them down and try something else. We owe it to our kids.

Clark is a huge admirer of teachers. It’s a sacrifice financially and many teachers burn out because the work is so difficult. A lot of the burnout happens because of the environment in which teachers must work. Many schools are not set up to help children learn, and the bureaucracy that decides where kids go to school is inherently flawed. Every child is different and there is no “one size fits all” for kids. Nowhere is it worse than in Washington, D.C. Many kids there simply don’t have a chance because the schools are so poor. So, Clark was jumping for joy when Congress passed a voucher program for the Washington schools. People in the public school system were not happy about it, and many are now seething. Clark wonders why public schools are upset because kids get to choose which school they want to attend. he thinks it's a great thing. According to the Washington Post, the government held a school fair that allowed parents to find a “match” school for their kids. The parents had been chosen in a lottery and they showed up in droves, trying to get their kids into one of 44 private schools. Granted, many kids do fine in public schools. But we have to give kids a chance and a choice, especially lower income students who may never get another one.