Education needs to become a top priority in America, said Vice President Al Gore in an address to the Iowa State Education Association Thursday at Hilton Coliseum.

He focused on education issues in Iowa and the United States.

“The importance of education is even greater now than it has ever been,” he said. “We’ve got to get the entire country to give education a much higher priority.”

Gore said the information age is changing the nature of jobs, and employers are looking for the skills that accompany a good education.

“Education makes the difference between low-paying jobs and high-paying jobs,” he said.

Gore said there is a need for a strong base of elementary and secondary education for all of the 53 million children in school, a record number for the United States.

He listed several areas that need improvement in public schools.

“We not only need to modernize schools, but we need to reduce the size of each classroom,” he said. “In most communities, we’ve got teachers who are too overburdened to spend quality time with each student.”

The need for improving curricula and infrastructure is becoming more necessary as classrooms continue to deteriorate, he said.

Gore said legislation was being considered that would create interest-free bonds for schools and hire 100,000 new teachers.

He also said he wanted every teacher to have “access to continuing education” and every classroom to be connected to the Internet.

Emphasis also needs to be placed on “ensuring our schools are safe,” he said.

Fighting drug abuse should be a much higher priority, he said. The meth crisis in Iowa is “not just a problem, it’s an epidemic,” he said.

Sandra Johnson of Paulina said she has been teaching high school for 22 years and encounters a lot of drugs in an after-school program she is involved with.

“The amount of drugs is amazing,” she said. “People would be shocked.”

Johnson said she liked Gore’s plans for improving school buildings.

“Zeroing in on infrastructure is vital,” said Johnson, who is currently teaching in a classroom with a leaking ceiling.

Jackie Wellborn, special education teacher in Marion, also liked Gore’s infrastructure improvement ideas. She said the school building she teaches in was constructed in the 1800s and needs to be replaced.

“It’s time for Iowa Congress to put money where their talk is,” she said.

Sue Stuchel of Winterset said she has been teaching for 16 years and would like to see the size of her kindergarten class reduced. Currently, she has 24 children in her class all day.

She said the more children that are in her class, the less time she has to instruct them.

“Taking your kids to the bathroom becomes an ordeal.”