If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail, according to the old saying. And if you’re the richest nation in the history of the planet, you tend to see money as the answer to every problem.

Take education, for example. In his Condition of the State speech, Gov. Tom Vilsack called for more spending on our schools, and some of his points seem perfectly sound. Education is crucial and Iowa’s teachers deserve the best pay we can manage.

But to have proper perspective on this issue, we need to appreciate just how well our system is doing already and consider that one way to do even better would require not checkbooks but – brace yourself – personal responsibility.

First, the good news. According to the Iowa Association of School Boards’ Condition of Education Report 2002, our state ranked first in the nation for the lowest dropout rate, tied for second in average ACT score, placed second among SAT math averages and third among SAT verbal averages.

That’s a strong educational system.

How much should we worry about class size? We already rank 14th best in the United States, with a pupil-to-teacher ratio of 15.2:1.

Are we paying our teachers enough? Here’s where we should spend a bit more. The National Education Association’s latest rankings place Iowa’s average teacher salary 38th among the states. You could say we’re getting great results at a bargain price, but it’s probably wise to provide greater rewards for those excellent results. We might hang on to more of our fine instructors.

But there may be more important things we can do to stay at the top of the heap. Instead of looking for ways to spend, let’s look at how we live.

A 2003 report from the Brown Center for Education Policy at the Brookings Institution claimed that the typical U.S. student spends an hour a day or less on homework, even in high school.

A Brown Center researcher cited a long-term UCLA study that asked college freshmen how much homework they did as high school seniors. In 1987, 47 percent said they had spent more than five hours a week. The figure declined every year, hitting 34 percent in 2002.

Instead of doing homework, they’re spending lots of time watching TV and using the Internet. One study of sixth- and seventh-graders found that they averaged 3 hours and 20 minutes per day watching TV and playing computer or video games.

Any drive for the best possible education really does begin at home.