Teachers

Education is an issue that requires all the assistance possible to repair it, but the "status" of teachers is completely irrelevant. This country used to be a leader in education, and is now thirteenth (approx.) in rank. The United States is laughed at and hated around the world - improvements in education would help our reputation. The reputations of teachers does not matter when addressing educational issues. The problem lies within the students and the teachers' abilities to reach them, interest them, teach them - not the social standing of teachers. Workers in any occupation will complain about their job; a lineman who decides he is not appreciated enough will refuse to work, equating to darkness, while an under-appreciated teacher will refuse to teach, leaving students ignorant, but still able to make a living, doing the various low-level jobs that need to be done (which would not be such a bad thing, especially since college acceptance rates are dropping). http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/03/27/how-to-raise-the-status-of-teachers/let-us-teach I agree with Williams that education would greatly improve if teachers were left to their own devices, able to decide what and how to teach, instead of relying on administrators who have never known anything about the position teachers are in to tell them how high to jump. Teacher A: begins teaching from Chapter 1, going through all the information, terms, questions, unit tests - continues this all year Teacher B: uses the textbook as one resource, calling on other sources to educate their students. Teacher B is clearly the more effective educator, as Teacher A is not a teacher at all - A's method of teaching could be undertaken by the students themselves. B's method of teaching actually requires the teacher's prescence for the students to receive an education.