Teachers First

Teachers are the most important link to our children's education.  We all know that.   Yet we do not treat them with the respect they deserve.   There are also people who would tell you that we do not pay them enough either.  I do not agree with either position.
I think SOME teachers should be paid a lot more than they are.  I also think there are quite a few teachers out there who are feeding at the public trough and not earning at all what they are getting every pay day.  The teachers who are just coasting on the public dime do not deserve our respect.
It is my view that if teachers should join the capitalist spirit.   I believe that teachers should be hired, paid and promoted the way most professionals are in our society- by how well they do the job.  For those teachers who do the job well, they should get to make decisions about what their students need and how to proceed to deliver what the kids need.  There certainly is a need for a common baseline of curriculum in our society.  This common core of skills is needed because of the tremendous mobility of our society.   However, beyond that, good teachers need to be able to decide how to pace the lessons and be required to figure out the methods for delivering this content.
Teachers who can't figure out the best ways to deliver content to students should get out of the classroom.  
We keep talking about bringing the best and the brightest into the classrooms of our country.  Well that is not going to happen as long as there are pacing guides that tell teachers what to teach and when to teach it.   It is also not going to happen as long as all teachers bad and good, get the same amount of salary.
That's how I see it.