EH>I read your post on higher academic standards, but what about higher
EH>standards for teachers....
EH>The standards of a lot of colleges are lower also. This has resulted in
EH>teachers who are teaching subjects in elementary school in which they are
EH>not qualified....
If the problem exists to the extent you say, why is it true?
Rather than fault teachers in general, or their unions, why
not focus on HOW it can be that there are so many ill-equipped
teachers in schools?!
There are "x" number of teaching jobs to be filled by "y"
number of teaching candidates... It seems pretty clear to me
that "y" is not a large enough number to accomodate "x" with
a sufficient number of good candidates!
OK.. You want to raise standards on teachers which further
reduces "y" - How does this solve the problem?  This only
works if you have a very large "y" and are able to cull out
the best candidates and still meet "x", don't you think?
The REAL problem is that there aren't enough teaching 
candidates around, so schools must settle for less than
ideal candidates.  This despite the "extravagant salaries",
"lifetime jobs", etc that teachers are supposed to enjoy.
There is obviously an insufficient incentive for competent
people to enter the teaching field, and it is THIS that
must be impacted before any real gains are going to be made.
Such ideas as elimination of tenure, for example, are going
to be counterproductive...
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