Chiming in on the selective teaching pool...

The Quick and the Ed points out that although the new ETS study shows that America's teacher pool is improving, it is still sorely lacking in minority teacher candidates.

I agree with them that this is a major issue that needs to be addressed quickly. It needs to be addressed form two angles: attracting more minorities to teaching as a career AND getting more minorities to the point where they could actually BE a teacher (i.e. a college degree). After all, if only 12% of Latinos have a bachelor's, it would seem a bit idealistic to imagine that a large percentage of the nation's teaching corps would be Latino.

Therefore, this is an issue that reflects on (and affects) the teaching profession, but our education system as a whole. Let's start the reform from the bottom up: How can we get more minority students into 4-year college programs and THEN attract them to teaching?

Seems like a big question.