"What I mean is that perhaps we should base teacher salary completely on the level of education that they receive, as they do in most other countries."

>>>That's pretty much what they do now. Seems to me the system works okay for elementary school, but that we should scrap the system for the high schools. Do away with teacher certification entirely and pull people in from the community who have degrees and are active in various fields to teach on a part-time basis.

Ok, if we bring people in from the community to help out, where is the consistencecy in teaching?

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An informed voter scares the Goverment lackeys.

An American first and always a Conservative.

I agree with scrapping the teacher certification; it is almost like having a career-substitute teacher.

Not that there is anything wrong with substitute teachers. It is just that we need people that will teach the actual studies, and we need to require that they are actually educated in those areas as well.

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"A committee is a group of people who individually can do nothing but together can decide that nothing can be done."
Fred Allen

"A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul."
George Bernard Shaw

"Politics is the art of choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable."
John Galbraith

All the issues raised here have merit.

Teachers should be paid more, provided they are high quality teachers with the education to back that up. This cannot happen with the current teachers union because they protect the dead weight. Additionally, a Masters Degree from Harvard does not mean anything if the teacher can't get the message across to the student. Qualifications and Job performance are the traits that should judge income. Unfortunately, the current union structure does not allow you to reward teachers that perform well, or punish teachers who suck.

Low student to instructor ratio sounds good, but countries like Korea have huge ratios. These Korean students perform better than US students on standardized tests. Maybe this is not a big issue.

Homeschooling is a great thing, provided the parents understand the responsibility. If a parent is well schooled and can teach, and has the motivation to cart the kids to sporting events and other events so the kids can socialize, there is nothing wrong with it. A determined parent could easily outpace the public school in terms of quality of education. The problem is that there are quite a few parents who decide to home school, but lose interest or motivation or reach the end of their own ability to teach.

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Great post Commonsense!!

You are quite correct on the aspect of homeschooling; it takes dedication, for sure.

Whether you homeschool, allow your children to attend private, or go the public school route, parental involvement is definately #1!

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"A committee is a group of people who individually can do nothing but together can decide that nothing can be done."
Fred Allen

"A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul."
George Bernard Shaw

"Politics is the art of choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable."
John Galbraith

>>>Consistancy? Who needs consistancy? You take a course in history, then you take a course in algebra.