I'm not desperately inspired at the moment. So instead of writing something useful here's some things that other people have written. I enjoyed this post from Brian Micklethwait's Education Blog

I am more than ever convinced that if the entire state education system were to drop dead tomorrow morning, that would be a great improvement for some people immediately, for many people in a few weeks, for most people in a few months, and for almost everyone in a few years.  After a decade, the results would be miraculous.

And also this rather amusing primer on the US Sub-prime mortgage debacle, which I found on the Volokh Conspiracy. You need to click the screen to go through the slides.