" Reward them instead for the the number of students they have succeeding at the highest levels. How many kids did you have pass AP tests? How many students did you have score above the 75th percentile on the ACT?"

You are still in the college Prep metality. Why is college entrance so important? Why not how many get through and enter into the trades?

"Vouchers might help alleviate some of the inequity, but as a taxpayer, do I really want to pay for someone else's child to attend a private school simply because the public school system sucks on ice?"

If you have no kids, do you really want to pay for the public school system? (your answer should be yes). The better educated our neighbors kids are, the better off we are as a society because those kids will be taxpayers and the better off we set them up to be, the less the rest of us will have to spend to support them or ideally, the less we will have to spend for the services government should provide (roads, schools, etc) because we have a more productive tax base.

Our issue is that we expect too much of the lowest tier. We should not even be pushing them towards college or further education. One, they will not succeed and two, after paying for 5+ years of education they do not need, they will still be serving McDonalds because we did not push them towards a more realistic goal in life (plumbing, electrician, construction, manual labor, etc) that they may have had a better chance at success and reaching their potential.

NOTE: I am not putting down the trades. I actually feel there is not enough emphasis on them in the High School level and therefore, many who would succeed at such jobs are not pushed towards where they could succeed and after wasting 4 years of High School to get into college, only begin learning a trade after wasting that time thus reducing their chance at success and maximizing their potential.

"Despite what the bleeding hearts think, not everybody gets to be the smartest person in the room."

Exactly, but everyone has something to contribute. Not everyone goes to Harvard Law, but the Harvard Law graduate also is not well served if there is no one to fix his heat when it is -20 below and the liberals have taken away all the Coal production and/or the schools do not teach anyone to fix a furnace.