Yeah, and this breaks down pretty fast, particularly when it comes to teaching the stuff you can't easily hand wave, e.g. science. Even at the middle/high school level, where teachers are supposed to have studied topic they teach at the undergraduate level in some capacity, you find plenty of foreign language teachers who are terrible speakers of the language they teach, or math teachers who basically have the same level of math as their students, with the distinction that they have access to the answers for the exercises they give. I spent some time in a US state university for grad school, and the level of some students who majored in education and later went on to teach was abysmal. It's hard to tell if the hegemony of standardized testing is the root or a symptom of the problem, but the overall picture is bleak.
This is precisely why if we want a great education system, we need to incentivize people who are practicing professionals first to then go teach. My best teachers in high school all shared those traits: a historian who had spent many years doing field research teaching history/geography, a geologist who was also a researcher for a major lab teaching natural sciences, etc.
Not everyone is made for teaching, but we as a society need to become much better at encouraging and enabling the people who enjoy it to teach in parallel to their professional activity (I would happily teach math from 8-10am before my day job 2-3 days a week if there was the structure for it.).
The people who want to become teachers just because they like kids but don't have any deep knowledge/understanding of any particular subject can teach kindergarten.
In every European country I've lived in schools are generally split into primary and secondary. Primary school teachers are general educators whose primary skill is teaching but who do not need advanced knowledge in any particular subject. They usually have the same class all day, which gives them a deep insight into students' progrewss (although from a kid's point of view, if you don't get on with your teacher then school may suck). In secondary school teachers may teach more than one subject but they're required to have studied their primary subject at university and done some additional study in other subjects they teach, as well as additional study in educational methods. So your math teacher has a math degree, your history teacher a history degree and so on. People who plan to teach usually develop themselves academically in two subjects, sometimes three if they're closely related or you have special experience. For example: http://www.teachingcouncil.ie/_fileupload/Registration/Gener...
California seems to be moving towards this model too: http://www.ctc.ca.gov/credentials/leaflets/cl560c.pdf
The downside of this is that if a particular teacher is sick and another has to take the class as a substitute, the substitute teacher just babysits, or comes into class with a homework assignment from the sick teacher that should be doable during the class period. The upside is that in general students are keenly aware that teachers know what they're talking about and are considerably more expert in the subject than would be possible using the assigned textbooks.
I've ranted on HN before about how destructive of educational ends the practice of using 'Teacher's Editions of textbooks with scripts and answer keys is. It degrades teaching to a branch of bullshit artistry, and students who take a subject seriously can quickly detect a lack of true expertise.
Obviously this short comment isn't meant as an accurate descriptor of the whole state of the US education system, just the legacy of the non-specialization referred to in the grandparent comment.
1-6 (or 7 in some places) is taught single teacher who probably majored in education with the whole class (with maybe a once a week art or muisc class taught by a specialist if the school is well funded).
7 or 8 through 12th is taught with 6-8 subjects a day (or in some places 3-4 subjects with alternating days having different subjects) with teachers who teach a smaller number of subjects. At HS level, in many places in the US it is expected that the teacher will have a Bachelors related to the subject they are teaching.
The general consensus is that California school systems are poor, and what little I've seen of them seems to hold true: I grew up in the Northeast, and communities that are comparably affluent in Southern California to there are much worse off school wise. The most common point to blame seems to be Prop 13[1], but I also notice that California has many more decisions centralized, and does also tend to have more parents who are non-native English speakers, so I don't know what is to blame.
1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_%2819...
As someone who went to school in the US, no, you're wrong.
While 'grade school' often refers to elementary school, surely you are aware of people's tendency to talk about 'k-12' education in a lump and the lax academic requirements for substitute teaching in many school districts even at high school level.
You are simply factually incorrect about your assertion that higher grades are run the same as lower grades. I don't particularly care about your inability to accept that, but I do find it surprising that you would assert your inexperienced viewpoint is correct.
Also your insult was not missed. Thank you for that, it verifies to me that you have nothing of import to say.
Grade school teachers aren't expected to be specialists in the field they teach. They're expected to be specialists in teaching. Usually they have a bachelors (or masters) in education and maybe another degree, but it may or may not be the thing they teach (if they even teach only one thing at all).
To put it another way, this is a bit like asking what physicists would willingly teach in the USA's education system? The answer is obviously not very many, but that's beside the point. Physics still gets taught.