1.) There has been a significant demographic shift in the teaching cadres over the last thirty years. When I was in school (sixties), many of my teachers were very bright, capable women who were otherwise shut out of the job market. Today most teachers are drawn from the bottom fourth of graduating college classes. When I taught college, my most hopless students were education majors. They meant well but they had no skills and no particular knowledge. The only good teachers left (that I have noticed) are married women who like to teach and whose husband's salaries allow them to afford it.
2) Talk of teacher productivity is absurd, especially because it does not take into account the fact that the children teachers work with are far more "deprived" than they were thirty years ago. They are more likely not to have a parent at home; and they are more likely to come from severely deprived urban/suburban environments. This, if you believe that there is a flavor of urban idiocy (sit at home in front of the TV all day) that is far worse than village idiocy (run around outside all day and interact with animals/people). What I'm driving at is that it takes a lot more work to cut through some forms of "modern," "advanced" illiteracy than it did to cut through simple illiteracy. There are many more reasons why talking about teacher productivity is absurd, but since most everyone seems to agree about this one, I'll stop here.
But the bottom line is they are no longer interested in providing public education. They no longer have a Sputnik race: and public education is pretty much in decline globally. Besides, education is expensive, it encourages democracy, and it encourages people to think that they could actually change reality. Instead they want to blame the teachers (by complaining about their "productivity" and low skills) and to blame/punish the students by making them work hard at stupid and age-inappropriate tasks. WHY does a second grader need to learn about celsius AND frarenheit? Now of course, I'm writing this from California which is worsted only by Mississippi in the dismalness of its public school system.
The basic plan is that the upper middle class (and up) will pay to educate their children, the religious middle/working class will send their kids to religious schools or home teach, and everyone else will attempt to survive the urban cesspools otherwise known as schools. Again, forgive the vehemence. I am writing from California. AND, I swear to you (because I volunteer teach in the local public schools) walking into most public schools in Oakland is like walking into a third-world country. There has been no money for paint or basic maintenance for over twenty years. And the kids are supposed to think that we care about them! Ha!
Will qualified teachers make a difference? They can make some difference--but this is a theoretical question. They will never pay teachers enough to attract a critical mass of qualified teachers. So the only way they could get them would be if qualified, well educated intellectuals decided to strike the corporate sector and go teach in the public schools. You know, Ayn Rand meets Chekhov.
And then it would still be hard. 1) because teaching requires more than intelligence and education 2) because some of the problems kids are coming to school with stem from, as I noted before, severe sensory, emotional, and social deprivation. Schools could be organized to provide an alternative social locus; but that too would take a completely different vision than the atomized identity politics that governs most current efforts to "improve" schools.
The only bright side I can think of is that dysfunctional schools means less institutional brainwashing. I could also turn to the deconstructionsts for additional consolation; they will tell me that the "enlightenment" project was nothing other than a totalitarian assault on the pluralistic individual blah, blah.
Mostly, I feel very, very sorry for the kids.
Joanna