These comments aren't taking into account the deterioration of the quality of teachers. One reason for this is due to smart women leaving the field in the '70s when the rest of careers opened up to them. My sister quit teaching English and became a lawyer. She earned a lot more and got a lot more respect. And, yes, in order to attract those people back to teaching the country will have to pay a lot more. These women have options and they walked.

Further, there is a serious problem with the fact that classroom discipline is so compromised by unruly students that many competent teachers no longer want to be with these children. This is not just in the US. I was in Chile last year, taking an ESL teaching class, and watched a video of a Chilean teaching English to a class of 10 year olds. The whole room was in complete chaos.

An older man in the class with me who was my age (early 60s) had been a teacher and said that the video depicted why he would no longer go into the classroom. Curiously, the 2 younger students in the class, recent college grads, felt we didn't accept normal in students. Well, the new normal is devastating to learning. Parents are responsible for this mess.

Christine