Please read my post #15.
It could be that government schools teach very little. It could be that 99% of what a child can and will learn is due to the **afterschooling** done by the parents. Sadly, this "afterschooling" has never been measured. It could be that we are spending up to a quarter of million dollars for a child to go to 13 or more years of government schooling and the **real** learning is due to the work done by the parents and child **in the home***!!!
But don’t “bash” the teachers: they’re heroes for spending all day with the children the parents would rather die than be around.
In medicine would it be appropriate to bash well-meaning and hard working quacks? Yes, I think it would.
Teachers are supposed to be "professionals" yet no even one of them can prove that what they do in the classroom is effective. The reason for this is that **afterschooling** and its major contribution to a child's learning has **never** been measured! Yes, these teacher may be working very hard and may be very well-meaning and sincere, but their "treatment" might be completely ineffective and utterly bogus.
Unless afterschoooling and the hard work done by parents and the child **in the home** is measured and taken into account it is impossible to know if any government school is effective at teaching anything at all.
Teachers are "professionals" only in the sense that they are paid to do a job, rather than amateurs, doing it for free. Without a free market in education services, it would be difficult to determine which of them are skilled and effective instructors and which are space-fillers or worse.
... it is impossible to know if any government school is effective at teaching anything at all.
Without a well-designed study, there is only anecdotal evidence. I got a Merit Scholar education from public schools, not from my father, who was at sea most of my childhood, nor my mother, who is quite knowledgeable in business-related subjects, but certainly didn't teach me Spanish.
If we had fully private education - private tuition or private charity - so many "problems" would completely vanish!