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Apparently the additional bureaucracy that goes with writing and receiving grants is a huge problem. In addition, some of the testing requirements are evidently unrealistic. I've been told that school districts are bound by so many other mandates/regulations, the expectation that they can improve test scores absent a loosening of other restrictions is not realistic. Hard to argue with that...if a business was forced to use the same employees they always have, at the same pay, and with the same incentive/disciplinary leeway, what could you really expect to change? What I've heard is that the entire system needs an overhaul, and mandating outputs while disallowing change to inputs is not getting the job done.

To be honest I don't know enough to provide an educated opinion on it (hence the abundance of qualifiers in my statement), but the people I've spoke with are not your stereotypical lazy public educators.

I can see where you are coming from. In many ways, the incentive to educate oneself comes from one's upbringing as a child. It seems that many children who are driven to excell in school do so because of their parents' encouragement or pressure to do so. For me, it is hard to see a group of children strive to learn when education just is not an important value in their family life. Perhaps that is me just being a cynic, but it would be in many ways, unfair to punish teachers for the failures of their students, especially if their classroom does not have the will or incentive to learn.