West Virginia educators will be hosting their peers from more than a dozen states later this month in a conference we hope will address pressing issues facing the region.

Many southern states traditionally lag behind others in education quality. West Virginia is no exception. While schools in some parts of the state are good, others are simply awful.

Later this month the Southern Regional Council on Educational Administration will hold its annual conference in Charleston. Among topics to be discussed is leadership. Some presentations during the event, such as one on how school principals are prepared, will focus on that issue.

Clearly, schools cannot progress toward excellence without excellent leaders. That includes school principals, top teachers and district-level administrators. While West Virginia is involved heavily in attempting to improve the quality of education leaders, information on just how effective our programs are is limited. The conference in Charleston may allow educators from our state to compare notes with their peers from elsewhere in the southern region - an area where many of the challenges involving schools are shared.

A pet peeve of ours for many years has been comparing the performance of West Virginia schools with that in other states. The federal No Child Left Behind law is little help in that regard.

Only candid comparisons of data among the various states - by educators determined to find out how they really stack up - can do the job. We hope educators from our state use at least part of their time at the conference in Charleston to do just that.