Why do public schools stink? According to Thomas Sowell and a study that he sites, we might want to take a long look at the teachers.

Most discussions of the problems of American education have an air of utter unreality because they avoid addressing the most fundamental and intractable problem of our public schools -- the low quality of our teachers. There is no point expecting teachers to teach things that they themselves do not know or understand.

That becomes painfully obvious from a recently released report from the U.S. Department of Education. This report has an innocuous title on the cover -- "Meeting the Highly Qualified Teachers Challenge" -- and devastating facts inside.

According to this report, in 28 of the 29 states that use the same standardized test for teachers, it is not even necessary to come up to the national average in mathematics to become a teacher. In none of these states is it necessary to come up to the national average in reading. In some states, you can score in the bottom quarter in either math or reading (or both) and still meet the requirements to become a teacher.