This is why Barack Obama has my vote

From The Audacity of Hope, p 162, on the shortage of experienced teachers in America

The problem isn't that there's no interest in teaching; I constantly meet young people who've graduated from top colleges and ahve signed up, through programs like Teach for America, for two-year stints in some of the countrys toughest public schools. They find the work extraordinarily rewarding; the kids they teach benefit from their creativity and enthusiasm. But by the end of two years, most have either changed careers or moved to suburban schols -- a consequence of low pay, lack of support from the educational bureaucracy, and a pervasive feeling of isolation.

If we're serious about building a twenty-first century school system, we're going to have to take the teaching profession seriously. This means changing the certification process to a llow a chemistry major who wants to teach to avoid expensive additional course work; pairing up new recruits with master teachers to break their isolation; and giving proven teachers more control over what goes on in their classrooms.

It also means paying teachers what they're worth. Theres no reason why an experienced, highly quaified, and effective teacher shouldnt' earn 100,000 annually at the peak of his or her career. Highly skilled teachers in such critical fields as math and science -- as well as those willing to teach in the toughest urban schools -- should be paid even more.

There's just one catch. In exchange for more money, teachers need to become more accountable for their performance -- and school districts need to have greater ability to get rid of ineffective teachers.

emphasis mine.