You are right that the quality of school in North America is decreasing. I am not quite how to fix it: more funding? Train more teachers? Or, changing the public school system by placing more stringent tests, curicullum (sp?) etc? I don't know.
Competition, competition, competition. Abolish the practical monopoly that government has on primary education and let the free market flourish. There are countless ways to teach just about everything, the government school textbook committee will rarely pick the best one. Actually, there isn't really a best one - every kid is different. Another argument for mass experimentation in education.
Awhile ago I was reading about a two-tier health services - one is the basic provided by Gov and the second tier is by private corp. It seems all good on the surface as the concept is that: if you can afford it why not get a better health care that is available to the masses?
I think the primary problem with the health care system in the US is that the consumer is not directly paying for service. People pay $20 for a doctors appt and think that is the cost, which of course is very wrong. It's not even insurance, its pre-paid health care. We need the get the employers of it, and make insurance be insurance again, with the vast majority of consumers paying out of pocket for routine health care and insurance kicking in for unexpected events.
Since that probably won't happen in my lifetime, I do find John Kerry's proposal somewhat interesting. He wants to make government an re-insurer reimbursing private insurers for their expenses over 50K on any individual insured. It's the 80/20 rule, let the private market handle the 80% and society will help with the 20% that tend to be really expensive.
In an ideal world, I'd much rather see a free market solution. However, realistically, it's not going to happen, if anything government will get more involved in health care over the next 10-20 years. In that scenario, Kerry's proposal has some merit.
(Note - I'm not a Kerry supporter, but I will give him or his advisers credit for what I think is a fairly interesting solution that could actually help in the short term.)