"America's schools are failing! Teachers can't teach! Schools cost too much! And, oh yes, the sky is falling!"

Chicken Little and the media pound away at our education system, constantly scaring the public with complaints and censure, all of which end with one blanket accusation: teachers are at fault.

Yes, there are problems. But let's try to get a clear view of them and see who or what is in need of change. Reform is the big word in education today, but just what is it that needs reforming?

To begin with, we must remember that by world standards, we are doing a spectacular job. We graduate 88 percent of our high school seniors - that's number two in the world. We send 65 percent of our high school graduates on to college - that's number one in the world. Moreover, we graduate 33 percent of our population over the age of 25 from college - that's tops in the world.

So what's the problem? It is one that the naysayers who denigrate our accomplishments aren't eager to talk about, because it reflects on those who run our schools rather than on the teachers whom the Chicken Littles always put front and center in their diatribes about school problems.

Here's one big issue: This year 42,000 teachers in California are working with emergency permits, and that number is projected to go to 65,000 in a couple of years. Things won't get better: The California Department of Education recently announced that we will need 300,000 new teachers over the next decade, but meanwhile 40 to 50 percent of all new teachers quit within five years. That's a disaster in the making.

And why is it happening? As one young teacher told me recently, we don't have a teacher recruitment problem; we have a teacher retention problem. Idealistic young people want to become teachers; lots of them begin teaching careers. So why do teachers leave the profession? They leave because they are demoralized. They have bumped into working conditions that knock the idealism out of them and leave them determined to find another job. Most of you know what they face, but let's make a list anyway. National University recently studied 2,600 of their teacher graduates who had taught and then quit. The number one reason for leaving teaching was stress!

Teachers' creativity, enthusiasm, and insights get mauled by administrators who tell them what to teach, where to teach, when to teach, and how to teach. That is why passage of AB 2160 is so important to the future of public education in California. Teachers are put into decrepit rooms without enough textbooks or supplies. They are faced with reams of paperwork, including lengthy lesson plans that no one looks at. They are required to attend useless meetings, to supervise parking lots and playgrounds before and after school and during recess, nutrition time and lunch, rain or shine. If they are lucky, they get 30 minutes for lunch. They are pressured to raise SAT-9 test scores - even though in some low-performing schools that is next to impossible - and teach to the standards, even though the tests don't always cover the same materials.

Teachers work under the direction of an administrator who may not have much teaching experience but who has total control over their professional lives. Often petty tyrants, like Rex Fortune in the Center Unified School District, can change a teacher's classroom, grade level, and teaching program on a whim. They can give an unsatisfactory rating to an outstanding teacher. They can fire first- and second-year teachers - who have no due-process rights - for no cause.

Teachers work in a pressure cooker called a classroom. Regardless of grade level or subject matter, the teacher faces too many students, sometimes up to 45 at a time. And those students bring with them every problem of a society which cannot get its act together enough to rid us of the evils that poverty and a culture dedicated to "fun" impose on our children. Regardless, teachers are held responsible for what the students accomplish, although anyone who thinks at all must recognize that there is a profound difference between teaching and learning. A teacher can teach brilliantly, but it is up to the student to do the learning: children aren't passive receptacles taking in whatever is aimed at them in class. But if the students don't learn, the teacher is blamed, her/his integrity impugned, his/her professionalism discredited.

And all of this falls on a profession where the average beginning salary for California is about $33,000 a year. That's the average; many earn much less. Among jobs that require a college degree, teaching is the lowest paying. Those idealistic young men and women who would like to become teachers can take their degrees and go elsewhere for a much higher salary - and that's what they are doing.

So there's the problem, and it has nothing to do with the current slogans about accountability, reform and testing. The tragedy is that we are allowing these problems to exist and grow when we could find solutions and make things better. No, not overnight, and not on the cheap. But it can be done. Putting teachers in charge of their profession is a first step; putting the money where our ideals are is another. This is a rich nation and a rich state. If enough people want change for the better, they can have it. This is what CTA is fighting for: to make teaching a real profession and to maintain a first-rate school system.

Make no mistake about it: If America wants good teachers, good schools and good students, we can have them.