The number one thing that our education needs is for it to be the students asking the questions and the teachers guiding the students to make sure the right ones get answered. We have an education system that makes the students answer questions that have answers already (the known knowns and unknown knowns) while the students need to be tackling things that have not been solved of yet (the known unknowns) and striving to look at things in a new light that has never been looked at before (the unknown unknowns). Yes, we need to increase funding and yes we need to stop teaching by testing, but that does not get at the larger issue. The larger issue is that our education system and policies are being optimized for the teaching of good employees and good corporate leaders and not good collaborative entrepreneurs and good think-out-of-the-box scientists.
And don’t get me started about the higher education system that blatantly promotes exclusivity and competition where collaboration is needed.