Standard for teachers should be raised now

Education Secretary Richard Riley has presented public schools with a challenge: raise teacher standards.

Riley proposed that we raise and regulate our standards for hiring, training, paying, and certifying teachers.

No matter how much we spend on computers, supplies, buildings, and other facilities, the quality of education eventually comes down to the educators. Substandard teachers do not make the best use of our resources for learning.

Raising standards is not the result of merely wishing for better teachers. If state school systems could learn to make better use of our resources in order to attract better teachers, the standard of education could be significantly raised.

As enrollment in schools everywhere increases, teachers are becoming one of the most undervalued resources of our current educational systems.

If we wish our children to grow up to be educated adults, we must raise the standards by which we employ the people who teach them.