RE: Question 1: Attracting and Retaining Teachers

The problem with a pre-determined standard by age is that kids aren't standard.  A five year old can wear anything from a size 3 to a size twelve;  a five year old can be short or tall;  a five year old can already be reading or not.  Kids develop at different rates. If there are standards by age/grade level, many children will be deemed failures (and already are deemed as such), when all they need is a bit more time.  Kids don't crawl, sit, walk, get teeth, or talk at the same time.  Neither do they  read, write, compute, etc. at the same time.  Knowing where they are on the continuum of development is helpful; pinning them down to meeting a standard by a certain time is not.