We often complain about the state of education in this country, but are not willing to pay professional salaries to those responsible for the design and delivery of instruction. Further, we have created so much bureaucratic work for teachers that they are not able to spend enough time doing what they really want to do.
I think one of the challenges for people in my field, instructional technology, is to help provide teachers resources that will take much of the busy work off the shoulders of teachers and provide instructional resources via the Internet. In the past instructional media resources have often been designed as stand-alone educational diversions. "Today we're going to watch a film." Intelligent knowledge objects and metadata standards may become part of a global resource to assist teachers in finding information and learning objects that can be integrated into the classroom curriculum, not supplant it.
This last point is critical. Often, people have sought ways to replace teachers. Radio and film were viewed by some as a way to replace teachers. We need to turn our focus on increasing productivity in the educational setting, just as we have done in the information industry and other private industries.
Again, the payoffs for such increases in productivity are more obvious in businesses were the impact can be measured in a relatively short time by return-on-investment measures. The payoffs in education or more long-term and less measurable. Yet the impact on our workforce and our culture is tremendous. As the need for productive and well-educated employees grows and is recognized (e.g., the federal School-To-Work program), hopefully the value of craft and products of teachers will be recognized for their full worth and tools developed to support the instructional design efforts that occur every day in our schools.