Andanh.com

Our nation is facing a shortage of teachers trained to prepare students for 21st-century careers and to help high-needs students. Interestingly, these challenges are really not so different from those faced throughout our nation's history.

In colonial New England, struggling villages had difficulty keeping their schools open, and when settlement moved west, it was often not easy to find teachers for the one-room schoolhouses that dotted the prairie.

Nevertheless, as early as 1647, Massachusetts law mandated that every town of 50 or more families support an elementary school, and by 1918 compulsory education for elementary school became law in all states. Today children in America enjoy 12 years of free public education. However, overall population increases have contributed to severe teacher shortages in urban and rural schools.

In the mid-20th century, when the Soviet Union launched the Sputnik satellite, Congress passed the National Defense Education Act. It provided scientific equipment for schools and emphasized the study of math, science and foreign languages. But as baby boomers reach retirement age, our schools are not producing enough graduates to fill vacancies in science-based fields such as engineering, nursing and pharmacy.

The civil rights movement of the 1960s opened doors to equality in education and a better life for millions. Yet our nation's schools currently are not prepared to teach children growing up in poverty or the growing number of children for whom English is not their first language.

Barack Obama sells the Democratic Party short. He talks about his fundraising success as if his donors were part of a spontaneous movement of small-money enthusiasts who cohered around him. In fact, Democrats have spent years building their donor network.

As in other recent campaigns, lawyers account for the biggest chunk of Democratic donations. They have donated about $18 million to Obama, compared with about $5 million to John McCain, according to data released on June 2 and available on the Web site OpenSecrets.org.

People who work at securities and investment companies have given Obama about $8 million, compared with $4.5 million for McCain. People who work in communications and electronics have given Obama about $10 million, compared with $2 million for McCain. Professors and other people who work in education have given Obama roughly $7 million, compared with $700,000 for McCain.

Medical professionals have given Obama $7 million, compared with $3 million for McCain. Commercial bankers have given Obama $1.6 million, compared with $1.2 million for McCain. Hedge fund and private equity managers have given Obama about $1.6 million, compared with $850,000 for McCain.

When you break it out by individual companies, you find that employees of Goldman Sachs gave more to Obama than workers of any other employer. Next are employees of the University of California, UBS, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, National Amusements, Lehman Brothers, Harvard University and Google. At many of these workplaces, Obama has a 3-1 or 4-1 fundraising advantage over McCain.