"But in other professions, there is accountability. In teaching there is very little accountability because performance is never measured and standards are always discounted."
Well said! I have a siste-in-law who is a grade school teacher in California. She consistently brags about the days she takes off to go shopping and how she hasn't changed her lesson plans since she graduated from college (1972).
A few years ago she moved to California. She actually told me that at the interview for the teaching job that she now has she asked the interviewer "Whats the very least I can do in the job so as to not get fired"! And even with that stupid statement they hired her!
She is a bad teacher.
Don't attack the entire profession because of bad apples like her.