Every child deserves a quality education. Providing competent, caring, qualified teachers in schools organized for success is the way to get there, but the devil is in the details. By tinkering on the edges, adopting piecemeal approaches to attracting, supporting, and retaining highly qualified teachers for the students who need them most, the…

Argues that geography often is relegated to a negligible role in social studies curricula and that geography instruction suffers from a lack of standards and educational research. Recommends establishing intensive cooperative programs developing a thorough knowledge base for geography teachers and encouraging instructional research. (MJP)