School Improvement - A Tough Road

I was speaking with a professor form LSU recently about efforts to reform schools where students were not making advancement.  We both agreed that the institution of education in America is essentialy broken in many ways.  And while our disucssion was great and heartfelt, I came away from it with no real new ideas about how to fix a broken bureaucratic institution.  There are so many obstacles that I surrender to defeat very time I think about ways that can be adopted to achieve widespread school improvement.

The key element in every idea that I have is people.  Good qualified people who are willing to be held accountable for providing a safe, nurturing learning environment where students can succeed and realize their potential.  How do you get great people to work for miserable pay levels often times in very poor conditions inside of a seemingly backwards bureaucratic institution?  I have no clue.  I only know that it is not working.

I don't think that anyone can argue that our best natural resource in this country is our people.  And right now, we are not investing in our children who will very soon become the next generation of our best natural resource.  I read news stories every day of children who can't read, teachers engaging in social promotion and school leaders cheating and falsifying data to meet NCLB requirements.  When does all of this madness stop?