By CED Trustee Steffen E. Palko, President and Vice Chairman (retired), XTO Energy, Inc., and Robert F. Pence, President and CEO, Freese and Nichols, Inc.

Strong teachers are key to improving the achievement of America's schoolchildren. Ensuring that every classroom is staffed with an effective teacher is a significant challenge, in no small part because the nation needs a lot of people to staff its schools. To attract enough high-quality individuals to the classroom, states and districts must rethink their compensation policies. Current pay and pension structures are out of sync with the realities of the 21st century labor market.