<Allison, I believe you've been sold a bill of goods. Looked for myself in my locale. <First of all, look at what a teacher has to do for his/her education and I know far to many doing the real thing... Like someone else said but I'll say differently: Like cream that rises to the top, so does the scum. We see the exceptional asses and heros, the average teacher is more in the world of trying not to be disenchanted with to many rules, too few resources and an overabundance of students. <didn't do so well in high school, mainly due to lack of ambition and <diligence, didn't want to work too hard in college, and, of course, couldn' <get into a good college. Fortunately, a good college isn't required. On <top of that, he's chosen a niche in which he only has to work a 6-hour day <and he only has to do that 183 days a year to get full salary and, <ultimately a generous pension. Well your experience is different. You wish to see the scum and you do, those that do the job are missed and those that exceed the mark are ignored. I don't for one second believe that our educational system is up to stuff. If anything I'd be glad to post my parting address to my HS class, it wasn't complmetary to skills taught in 1971. The briefest words I'd still say is I knew Algebra, trig and could write a term paper that would knock your socks off but... income tax preparation and employment paperwork (W4, resume, applications) were a mystery. I was trained to go to college. Thankfully I persued both academic and vocational path in parallel. Allison