School is back in and that signals a good time to remember to respect teachers.

Yes, adults, we are talking to you.

It seems so often in America we are so adamant about weeding out “bad teachers” that we hinder the good ones. We get so many levels of government, from the federal to the local, involved in the classroom that we do little to allow the well-educated teachers to think for themselves.

Is that the example we set for our children?

Why send teachers through four, five or six years of college just so they can be pressed into a very narrow and hard-set routine? Let the teachers teach. Give them the flexibility to be creative and innovative and original.

Furthermore, weeding out bad teachers needs to be the job of the school districts, not the state or federal governments.

Politicians that we adults elect sometimes will bend over backward to display higher test scores, even if it means making teachers teach to a test. Ultimately, the student learn memorization skills rather than any context.

Does it do students any good to know the Battle of Hastings was in 1066 so they can fill in an oval on a sheet of paper but not know who William the Conqueror was?

In the Upper Midwest — from Nebraska to Wisconsin — we generally have a greater respect for local control when it comes to our schools. It has worked, too. This is the largest region of quality public schools in the country.

This newspaper believes in that local-control philosophy and urges St. Paul and Washington to undo some of the state and federal controls they have placed upon the schools in the past 10 or 15 years.