http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113223026
Everyone from President Obama on down seems to agree: a good teacher can make a huge difference in the life of a child.
American schools have been trying for decades to improve teacher quality, with mixed results. Over the next year, NPR will explore those efforts, and look at the latest crop of teachers entering the profession.
Teaching performance is difficult to improve in part because the profession is so large. With about 4 million teachers in the profession, efforts to boost quality tend to take place on the margins. Many efforts focus on expanding the pool of new teachers entering the workforce, and on encouraging more teachers to work with special education and low-income students.
Considerable blame has been directed at the certification process. State requirements tend to steer teachers to traditional teacher colleges and require specific hours of coursework. And since all states have different requirements, teachers often find it's best to go to college in their state. This helps create a hiring market that is very localized. Many teachers end up working close to where they themselves went to elementary or high school.
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