Anarchism

Personally, I am mildly amused at how little I care about this problem.

I have two school-age children. They do not attend public school. I would alter my life drastically to make certain they never attended public school even if the laws were to change to demand that. Occasionally I am asked what I think of private schools, and my answer is simple enough... they are merely more expensive versions of the public school experience. They use the same books, they hire from the same pool of college-of-education-trained teachers, and the same sort of people administer those organizations so how could they be much different?

When a public school teacher complains that they should be paid more, I have to wonder why I am supposed to do this when I've already made it quite clear that they have nothing I could ever want.

Public schools exist solely as government-subsidized daycare for children 6-18. That is their purpose, which is easily discerned just by observing how they operate. They could not be redesigned to do anything else... mass education for a country the size of the US requires millions of teachers. Most of those will be bad at teaching. Some significant fraction will be plainly abusive. Paying this same pool of workers more will not magically increase the quality of teaching. Giving them more money for crayons will not magically increase the quality of teaching.

If some of them are humiliated in this fashion, that seems just to me. Truly, if they want to educate children... if it is the most important thing in the universe to them, if it is a calling and a vocation, then they should have their own children and educate those kids instead. Smaller class size, budget goes farther, and everyone keeps their noses out of everyone else's business.