"A Nation at Risk" sounded the call for school improvement and offered recommendations for bringing it about. "No Child Left Behind" was even more prescriptive in its approach to raising student achievement. However, as the author of this article points out, for all their recommendations and strategies, both reform efforts neglect the essential conditions for improving teaching. Both efforts do not mesh well with what we know about good teaching, what makes people want to become teachers, and why they stay. This article presents five conditions for improved teaching: collaboration, empowerment, reflection, time, and training. It then presents five actions teachers must take to earn these conditions. These are: (1) improve current educational standards; (2) develop standards for the resources needed to meet educational standards; (3) develop assessment systems to show that students and schools are meeting standards; (4) develop a definition of highly qualified teachers and enforce it; and (5) develop processes for recruiting, inducting, retaining, and rewarding highly qualified teachers. (Contains 17 notes.)