Today's Theme -- Teachers Should Be Well-Trained, Well-Paid, Full- Time, Intelligent Professionals -- Improving Education: Readers Chalk Up Recommendation

SCHEDULES

In my utopia, schools would be open as much as 24 hours each day. They would provide day care to all who needed the service, including those welfare mothers who needed to educate themselves to become employed. They would make technology, libraries and other facilities available to the community. After-school programs for latchkey children would give many students a place to explore interests and have social contact in a positive, supervised environment. - Mary Young, Milton

Extend the school year into the summer. Students are no longer needed on the farm (where for generations they learned valuable skills working with their parents). Teachers have always known that much is forgotten during the three months of summer vacation. During the summer, school should provide more field trips, camps, internships, exchange programs, travel opportunities and integrated studies. One month of vacation is long enough. It would be less of a burden on working parents to find supervision for their children. - Jacquelin V. Konis, Bainbridge Island

LEADERSHIP

Teachers often sit by in disbelief as their school administration makes decisions that fly in the face of common sense or best educational practice.

The professional playing field is not level, and teachers are at the bottom of the hill. - Maggie Lewis, Seattle

Administrative duties, meetings and other overhead chores seem to compete with class time for some teachers I've spoken with, and preclude more intense parent/teacher communication. - Mark Aberle, North Bend

No matter how compelling the need for change may be, it is unlikely to be accomplished without leadership and broad-based community support.

Until teachers and administrators are accountable for student success/failure via their own performance, the system is not going to change very much. - Grace Smith, Grosse Pointe, Mich.

UNIONS

Let the professionals (in this case, the teachers) decide how to improve their profession, since it is they who are on the front line of action and see the immediate result of any change in the system.

This can be accomplished only through independent unionism with a completely democratic structure, as opposed to the business unionism of the AFL-CIO, whose hierarchical structure too frequently serves interests other than those they claim to represent. - Benjamin Ferguson, Seattle

STUDENTS

The growing attitude of disrespect toward authority and disobedience toward organizational structures by many students (no doubt a reflection of the culture at large) has created an inverted power structure and impediment to maintaining an effective learning environment. - Patricia Starr and Carolyn Dion, Bellevue

It took 10 years as a teacher for me to persuade the administration to give out awards other than sports awards. - Jacquelin V. Konis, Bainbridge Island

Primary grades should be confined to 20 pupils and intermediate grades to 25 or fewer.

Problem pupils should not be mainstreamed into the classroom to cause disruptions that deprive a person of a right to an education.

- Edward Praxel, Amanda Park, Wash.

TEACHERS

The teachers I know feel they don't need to dress professionally. Why? Why are sweatshirts and very casual clothing considered fine on grown adults who want to be taken seriously in the working world? - S. Lowe, Seattle

Reward good teachers. In the rest of the business world, bad workers don't keep their jobs. - Lorri Simpson, Anacortes

Teachers need to work outside of teaching periodically in order to get grounded in what is happening in the world outside of teaching.

Allow people from industry who are not trained teachers to teach for limited time periods.

- Hank and Karen Heiberg, Everett

The education world is very conformist and coercive. Teachers aren't allowed professional judgment and independence.

Please stop using teachers as political agents. - K-Y Su, Mukilteo

Eliminate tenure. Those who do not have the energy, care or interest for innovation and continually improving their results with students will move on to other vocations. - Sharon Babcock, Tacoma

The best way to improve the teaching profession is to get educators to act like any other professionals. Free-market economy education and the competitive forces of parental choice will weed out the substandard performers and raise the level of teacher performance and accountability that we expect from any professional. - Mary Jane Leusner, Boise, Idaho

Many of the teachers in this school knew full well about how (a certain) teacher functioned in class, but none were willing to say anything in public. Privately they acknowledged there were real problems.

However, the system protects the bad teachers and gives them a secure job. Teachers have told me how hard their job is, as though no other person on the face of the earth has any job-related problems. I just wish I could have the summer off to recover from some of my job trauma. - June Davis, Oak Harbor

There were some solid teaching practices in place in Japan that would be helpful to us here. Several times a year colleagues observe a lesson and give feedback. I do believe that peer review and feedback are two of the best methods for improving teaching.

I see absolutely nothing wrong with basic competency exams for teachers.

If they have not mastered the material they are supposed to teach, then how can they teach it? - Marcia Sanders, Seattle

All schools in England and Wales have to submit to an inspection every five years that examines every aspect of a school, including delivery of the curriculum. A recent innovation is the status of "Advanced Skills Teacher" for educators who are of outstanding quality and meet specified criteria in qualifications, experience, training and teaching results.

- Duncan Hawley, Swansea, United Kingdom

Schools of Education faculty need to join forces on equal footing with school district master teachers and form co-directed schools of professional development.

Teachers must be paid more so that the profession attracts the best and the brightest and ensures their ongoing commitment for professional sharing and training. - MAK Mitchell, Seattle

Eliminate the requirement for K-12 teachers and administrators to feed and clothe children. To see that children get their essential needs met that are not being met at home, co-locate social agencies within the schools. - Sharon Babcock, Tacoma

PARENTS

One way to improve things would be to have mandatory parent presence. Imagine parents in each classroom, through the hallways, manning bathrooms, soccer games, bleachers and those obscure, out-of-the-way (potential) drug/smoking areas! They could be simply a quiet, chaired observer, or help in creative ways that the teacher wants. - Michaeleen Neher, Covington