[WS:] Yes, indeed. My wife who teaches at Montgomery County Public Schools - which is a Mercedes of public education in the US - says pretty much the same thing. According to her, the most disastrous effect of these policies is a rat race to the top that leaves most kids behind (my phrase, not hers.) For example, kids whose educational needs have been neglected and do not understand basic math are nonetheless forced to take Algebra II, which they are bound to fail and eventually drop out.
According to my wife, tailoring instruction to the level and needs of students would remedy this, but teachers cannot do this because curriculum that teaches to standardized tests requires meeting imposed from above standards.
As to "teachers' qualifications' - she says that it is very difficult to find qualified teachers, because people are leaving the profession in droves. Oftentimes, nobody even applies to open positions especially in math and science - as people who are qualified to teach these subjects can find better paying and less stressful jobs elsewhere.
Stress is a major factor that affect teachers. One major source of that stress is idiotic policies of "more," "earlier" and "faster" imposed by the no-child-left-behind policies and teaching to standardized testing. Another major source is parents. Wealthy parents are particularly obnoxious because they often threaten lawsuits if their kids do not get the grades they expect. Fearing lawsuits, schools administration puts pressure on teachers to alter grades or in some case to do work for such students!. The poor parents, on the other hand, either do not have time and skills to guide their kids (many of them are FOBs who do not speak English and work several jobs) or do not care about their kid's education and become combative when school contacts them. I've heard horror stories of students being abused or neglected by their parents. There not that many services available to remedy this in the first place, but obtaining even those limited services requires heroic efforts on the part of the school. Oftentimes, kids get no services unless they are court-ordered.
Schools are expected to provide not just instruction, but social services as well. However, facing cost cuts, schools district cut services right and left - but not the administration size! - increase class size and require teachers to work extra hours without pay. For example, my wife routinely works from 7AM to 5Pm (10 hours, not counting extracurricular duties) without being paid overtime, because her position is qualified as "supervisory" (she is a "resource teacher" which is nominally a supervisory level position.) As a part of her position, she takes "leadership" training courses which focus on how to squeeze more out of teachers, circumvent union contracts, etc. Her favored quote was a recommendation against giving teachers "professional time" (i.e. paid time outside the instruction time) because teachers would use this time to grade papers, which they normally do in their non-working i.e. unpaid time.
It is really hard to imagine why someone with marketable skill would want to be a teacher. The job is extremely stressful, not respected by anyone including students and their parents, the pay is not that great, given qualifications required, the work schedule is extremely inflexible, and the pressure to work unpaid extra hours is tremendous.
And on the top of it, teachers are scapegoats for everything that is wrong with the upbringing of children in this country.
Wojtek