It’s far easier to find (and pay for) a top-notch algebra teacher to fill an opening in Boston or Austin than in the Mississippi delta or rural Idaho. That’s wh

It’s far easier to find (and pay for) a top-notch algebra teacher to fill an opening in Boston or Austin than in the Mississippi delta or rural Idaho. That’s why states have long been free to determine their own certification norms and Praxis passing scores. Can a field this big and diverse truly accommodate a single “high bar”? This underscores what I see as a major problem with education. Some cities/states clearly have better teachers than others for various reasons, but students are for the most part stuck with the school nearest them. Why should some students have to settle for subpar teachers simply because of geography? If we used online learning for at least part of the overall curriculum, we could partially level the playing field, and open up access for students to get a wider range of teaching perspectives and styles. Imagine learning about Native American history from a teacher on a reservation, or the Civil War from a teacher in the South.