What is an Acceptable Fallout Rate ?

Just a note: Assuming it is still on, remember the Citizen mtg is tomorrow night... (Details) I haven't seen it advertised anywhere since that note on Speed's blog.

Now, I see a problem with the priorities I proposed. (Details) Priority 1 is that:

All students graduate with the core knowledge necessary to pursue further education or begin employment at a typical American institution/company. (ie English reading, English writing, math, science, history, social studies, ~2 yrs foreign language, etc) (ie basic values, work ethic, citizenship, personal health, personal finance, etc)

The reality is that this is probably impossible. Just like when we take raw material and do work to form it into finished goods, there is almost always a "fallout rate". This refers to the parts that simply do not meet the quality expectations at the end of the production process. This flawed product is then scrapped, reworked or possibly sold at an outlet store...

In production, "fallout" can be caused by to much variation in the material, the wrong material, poor or inconsistent tools, poor processes, failure to follow processes, etc. In summary, to reduce fallout your processes and tooling need to be robust across the variation of material you expect to receive. And people need to follow the standard work / recipe.

With this in mind and given the wide variation in kids, homes, backgrounds, etc:

What is an acceptable "Fallout Rate" for the public school system?

Remember that:

• These are children just like your own, just born into less fortunate circumstances. Stop NOW and envision your child or grandchild as "fallout". What would you do to prevent it??? What would you do to prevent other equally inocent children from falling into that hole???
• The children can't be scrapped, melted down and recycled, so society carries the burden of our failure to ensure they succeed. (ie prisons, welfare, poverty, social unrest, etc)
• Reworking the kids is even more expensive and unlikely to succeed. (ie bad habits are hard to undo)
• Instead of helping us win relative to the foreign competition, they serve as an anchor in the boat.

I don't think writing blank checks is the correct answer. Yet I am certain the answer lies in raising the funding, cutting the fluff, prioritizing and having all citizen's getting actively involved in fixing this American embarrassment. (ie fallout rate that is too high)

The alternative is to look out for us and our own, and say that it is "their problem". Then we can all go down together as the growing anchor sinks the boat.

Thoughts ?