Also, their children will compete globally because modern technology makes the location of their worker less important. An amazing 73 percent strongly agree that schools should have similarly rigorous academic standards. Local control may still be desirable when hiring a football coach but not when deciding on a curriculum. Knowing parents' concerns, government officials are now seeking more ways to improve schools. Recently, U.S. Education Secretary Richard Riley proposed a uniform system for qualifying teachers nationwide.
Research shows teacher quality varies greatly from state to state and between school districts.
The fact that Mr. Riley's proposed voluntary national standards were not immediately trashed on Capitol Hill is very significant. Education officials are crossing state lines to work to improve schools, too. For example, recently, a regional conference was held in Princeton, NJ, which brought together state superintendents, lawmakers and business representatives from Delaware, Washington, D.C., Maryland, New Jersey and Pennsylvania to discuss such matters as setting more uniform standards for teacher education in the region. Those who attended were enthusiastic and they are working on plans to begin this collaborative process. For far too long, school systems have struggled alone to determine what students should know by the time they graduate and each state has had its own set of teacher standards rather than adopting a regional approach to school reform.