These recommended changes to Title I--a key provision of No Child Left Behind--could make significant improvements when it comes to what goes on in America’s schools and school systems day-to-day.

Student achievement should be incorporated into teacher evaluation and compensation, and transparency is a vital tool for recognizing excellence and shaming mediocrity. But a public data release is the wrong way to get there.

While the 1960s differentiated staffing movement fueled a new era of teacher quality consciousness, it failed to ignite the transformative reforms its leaders hoped for. If this innovative design is to take hold in 21st century schools, as we propose, then we should take a good long look in the rearview mirror before setting a new course.

Teachers are the most important school-level factor in student success—but as any parent knows, all teachers are not created equal. Reforms to the current quite cursory teacher evaluation system, if done well, have the potential to remove the worst-performing teachers and, even more important, to assist the majority in improving their craft.

The notion of the do-everything teacher once made good sense, when talent was cheap and plentiful and when our demands on teachers were pretty basic.

President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan have been co-opting much of the GOP playbook on education. But on spending, they have acted like traditional borrow-and-spend Democrats.

Aggressive leadership on the "business" of schooling isn't an end in itself, but it is essential if school leaders are going to have the resources they need to drive improvements in teaching and learning through the stormy seas ahead.

Low grading standards in university education departments will negatively affect the accumulation of skills for prospective teachers and contribute to a larger culture of low standards for educators.