"To improve teaching, we must attract people of higher intellectual ability and we must make teacher salaries related to ability and effectiveness." - Walter E. Williams
In a surprising move I agree with Mr. Williams on this point. The problem comes in how you attract people of higher intellectual ability and how you make salaries related to ability and effectiveness. First of all, let's pay teachers more; that will attract people. Ambitious smart people don't go into teaching unless they are motivated by something besides money.
Basing salaries on how well they teach is a sick joke unless you raise the amount the can potentially earn well past what they currently earn. If the range is such that a dedicated hard working creative teacher can make a comfortable living; well than you will attract more people. If on the other hand you structure the system so that the best teachers make it to the lower middle class, and everybody else makes less, well, I know I wouldn't want to stick around in that system.
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